The Poems of John Rollin Ridge -- A reproduction of the 1868 publication plus fugitive poems and notes [a machine-readable transcription]

PREFACE.

Most of the poems in this little volume are the productions of boyhood; very few of them were written after the author had reached the age of twenty. Like other men of his temperament, Mr. Ridge lost in the excitement of political life his youthful ambition for literary fame : consequently, many of his latest and best poems have been lost. Some that are embodied here, however, have elicited high praise from the Pacific and Eastern press. The severe critic may think that it had been better taste, perhaps, to have omitted some which have here been preserved--and he may be correct; but, they who have treasured the worn-out shoe and useless, threadbare garment of one who has gone to return no more, will not be harsh in their judgment of our taste.

The propriety of prefacing this book with a biographical sketch of the author has been suggested to us. Such a sketch must necessarily be short. To go into the details of a life fraught with many stirring incidents, would require time; and, as we have not the requisite time at our command, we propose to give Mr. Ridge's own brief account of his parentage, and that dark misfortune of his childhood which cast a shadow over his whole life, as we find it in a letter written by him to a friend in 1849-- only a few months before he came to California. As, his career on this coast, in connection with political and literary journalism, is familiar to all readers, we will add nothing to this letter.

"I was born in the Cherokee Nation, East of the Mississippi River, on the 19th of March, 1827. My earliest recollections are of such things as are pleasing to childhood, the fondness of a kind father, and smiles of an affectionate mother. My father, the late John Ridge, as you know, was one of the Chiefs of his tribe, and son of the warrior and orator distinguished in Cherokee Councils and battles, who was known amongst the whites as Major Ridge, and amongst his own people as Ka-nun-ta-cla-ge. My father grew up till he was some twelve or fifteen years of age, as any untutored Indian, and he used well to remember the time when his greatest delight was to strip himself of his Indian costume, and with aboriginal cane-gig in hand, while away the long summer days in wading up and down creeks in search of crawfish

"At the age which I have mentioned above, a missionary station sprang into existence, and Major Ridge sent his son John, who could not speak word of English, to school at this station, placing him under the instruction of a venerable Missionary named Gambol. Here he learned rapidly, and in the course of a year acquired a sufficient knowledge of the white man's language to speak it quite fluently.

"Major Ridge had now become fully impressed with the importance of civilization He had built him a log-cabin, in imitation of the border-whites and opened him a farm. The Missionary, Gambol, told him of an institution built up in a distant land expressly for the education of Indian youths (Cornwall, Connecticut), and here he concluded to send his son. After hearing some stern advice from his father, with respect to the manner to which lie should conduct himself amongst the 'pale-faces,' he departed for the Cornwall School in charge of a friendly Missionary. He remained there until his education was completed. During his attendance at this institution, he fell in love with a young white girl of the place, daughter of Mr. Northrup. His love was reciprocated. He returned home to his father, gained his consent, though with much difficulty (for the old Major wished him to marry a chief's daughter amongst his own people), went lack again to Cornwall, and shortly brought his "pale-faced" bride to the wild country of the Cherokees. In due course of time, I, John Rollin, came into the world. I was called by my grandfather 'Chees-quat-a-law-ny,' which, interpreted, means 'Yellow Bird.' Thus you have a knowledge of my parentage and how it happened that I am an Indian.

"Things had now changed with the Cherokees, They had a written Constitution and laws. They had legislative halls, houses and farms, courts, and juries. The general mass, it is true, were ignorant, but happy under the administration of a few simple, just, and wholesome laws. Major Ridge had become wealthy by trading with the whites and by prudent management. He had built an elegant house on the banks of the 'Oos-te-nar-ly River,' on which now stands the thriving town of Rome, Georgia. Many a time in my buoyant boyhood have I strayed along its summer-shaded shores and glided in the light canoe over its swiftly-rolling bosom, and beneath its over-hanging willows. Alas for the beautiful scene! The Indian's form haunts it no more!

"My father's residence was a few miles east of the 'Qos-te- nar-ly.' I remember it well. A large two-storied house, on a high hill crowned with a fine grove of oak and hickory, a large, clear spring at the foot of the hill, and an extensive farm stretching away down into the valley, with a fine orchard on the left. On another hill some two hundred yards distant, stood the schoolhouse, built at my father's expense, for the use of a Missionary, Miss Sophia Sawyer, who made her home with our family and taught my father's children and all who chose to come for her instruction. I went to this school until I was ten years of age-- which was in 1837. Then another change had come over the Cherokee Nation. A demon-spell had fallen upon it. The white man had become covetous of the soil. The unhappy Indian was driven from his house--not one, but thousand--and the white man's ploughshare turned up the acres which he had called his own. Wherever the Indian built his cabin, and planted his corn, there was the spot which the white man craved. Convicted on suspicion, they were sentenced to death by laws whose authority they could not acknowledge, and hanged on the white man's gallows. Oppression became intolerable, and forced by extreme necessity, they at last gave up their homes, yielded their beloved country to the rapacity of the Georgians, and wended their way in silence and in sorrow to the forests of the far west. In 1837, my father moved his family to his new home, he built his houses and opened his farm; gave encouragement to the rising neighborhood, and fed many a hungry and naked Indian whom oppression had prostrated, to the dust. A second time he built a schoolhouse, and Miss Sawyer again instructed his own children and the children of his neighbors. Two years culled away in quietude but the Spring of 1839 brought in a terrible train of events. Parties had arisen in the Nation. The removal West had fomented discontents of the darkest and deadliest nature. The ignorant Indians, unable to vent their rage on the whites, turned their wrath towards their own chiefs, and chose to hold them responsible for what had happened. John Ross made use of these prejudices to establish his own power. He held a secret council and plotted the death of my father and grandfather, and Boudinot, and others, who were friendly to the interests of these men. John Ridge was at this time the most powerful man in the Nation, and it was necessary for Ross, in order to realize his ambitious scheme for ruling the whole Nation, not only to put the Ridges out of the way, but those who most prominently supported them, lest they might cause trouble afterwards. These bloody deeds were perpetrated under circumstances of peculiar aggravation. On the morning of the 22nd of June, 1839, about day-break, our family was aroused from sleep by a violent noise. The doors were broken down, and the house was full of armed men. I saw my father in the hands of assassins. He endeavored so speak to them, but they shouted and drowned his voice for they were instructed not to listen so him for a moment for fear they would be persuaded not to kill him. They dragged him into the yard, and prepared to murder him. Two men held him by the arms, and others by the body, while another stabbed him deliberately with a dirk twenty-nine times. My mother rushed out to the door, but they pushed her back with their guns into the house, and prevented her egress until their act was finished, when they left the place quietly. My father fell to earth but did not immediately expire. My mother ran out to him. He raised himself on his elbow and tried to speak, but the blood flowed into his mouth and prevented him. In a few moments more he died, without speaking that last word which he wished to say. Then succeeded a scene of agony the sight of which might make one regret that the human race had ever been created. It has darkened my mind with an eternal shadow. In a room prepared for the purpose, lay pale in death the man whose voice had been listened to with awe and admiration in the councils of his Nation, and whose fame had passed to the remotest of the United States, the blood oozing through his winding sheet, and falling drop by drop on the floor. By his side sat my mother, with hands clasped, and its speechless agony-- she who had given him her heart in the days of her youth and beauty, left the home of her parents, and followed the husband of her choice to a wild and distant land. And bending over him was his own afflicted mother, with her long, white hair flung loose over her shoulders. and bosom, crying to the Great Spirit to sustain her in that dreadful hour. And in addition to all these, the wife, the mother and the little children, who scarcely knew their loss, were the dark faces of those who had been the murdered man's friends, and, possibly, some who had been privy to the assassination, who had come to smile over the scene.

"There was yet another blow to be dealt. Major Ridge had started on a journey the day before to Van Buren, a town on the Arkansas River, in the State of Arkansas. He was traveling down what was called the Line Road, its the direction of Evansville. A runner was sent with all possible speed to inform him of what had happened. The runner returned with the news that Major Ridge himself was killed. It is useless to lengthen description. It would fall short far short of the theme.

"These events happened when I was twelve years old. Great excitement existed in the Nation, and my mother thinking her children unsafe in the country of their father's murders, and unwilling to remain longer where all that she saw reminded her of her dreadful bereavement, removed to the State of Arkansas, and settled in the town of Fayettville. In that place I went to school till I was fourteen years of age, when my mother sent me to New England to finish my education. There is was that I became acquainted with you, and you know all about my history during my attendance at the Great Barrington School as well as I do myself. Owing to the rigor of the climate my health failed me about the time I was ready to enter college, and I returned to my mother in Arkansas. Here I read Latin and Greek, and pursued my studies with the Rev. Cephas Washbourne (who had formerly been a Missionary in the Cherokee Nation) till the summer of 1845 when the difficulties which had existed in the Nation ever since my father's death, more or less, had drawn to a crisis."

[here follows a history of Cherokee affairs, embracing the years 1845 and '46, and Mr. Ridge's connection therewith. which we think proper to omit.]

"Thus have I briefly and hurriedly complied with your request, and given you a sketch of my life. I shall not return to the Nation now until circumstances are materially changed. I shall cast my fortunes for some years with the whites. I am twenty-three years old, married, and have an infant daughter. I will still devote my life to my people, though not amongst them, and before I die, I hope to see the Cherokee Nation, in conjunction, with the Choctaws, admitted into the Confederacy of the United States."

POEMS