Established by the Cherokee Tribal Council, the Cherokee Telegraph becomes the first Indian newspaper in Indian Territory. Like its predecessor, the Cherokee Phoenix (see entry for FEBRUARY 21, 1828), the newspaper publishes articles in Cherokee and in English. Its first editor, William Potter Ross, envisions the Telegraph as a tool for encouraging tolerance among the tribe’s white neighbors by presenting the Cherokee as “civilized” Indians willing to adopt white customs. The newspaper will continue publication until 1911, when the United States sells the printing office following the dissolution of the Cherokee Nation.
Milly Francis receives the Congressional Medal of Honor.
In 1817, a Creek teenager named Milly Francis pled for the life of Georgia captain Duncan Mc-Krimmon, saving him from execution by a Creek war party. Twenty-four years later, she is found living in desperate poverty in Indian Territory by Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who is investigating charges of ill-treatment of the Creek and other southeastern tribes during their Removal to western lands (see entry for 1841). Due to Hitchcock’s lobbying, Congress awards Francis the Congressional Medal of Honor and an annual pension of $96. She will die four years later of tuberculosis without having received the medal or any pension money.
George Henry forms an Indian acting troupe.
George Henry, an Ojibway also known as Maung-wudaus, creates a show featuring “wild Indians.” His players spend the next two years touring the United States, England, France, and Belgium. The first acting troupe of Indians organized and managed by an Indian, Henry’s actors are criticized for promoting negative stereotypes by his half-brother Peter Jones, an important Ojibway leader and a Methodist minister.
World History
