Velda Brotherton lives in the wilderness of the Ozark National Forest only
fifteen miles from where she was born. Raised in Wichita, she and her husband lived in New York for a while, then returned to the state of her
birth. She designed and helped build the house in which they live. They have two children and three grandchildren.

They both enjoy flower gardening, swimming, traveling and tent camping in wilderness
areas.

Velda's most recent  historical romance novels written under her pen name of  Samantha Lee. 


ANGEL'S GOLD
Set in
Kansas in 1871 the story involves some unusual twists regarding a lost confederate gold
shipment and a reluctant outlaw.

click book to order

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Visit Velda's Website

The Cherokee Trail of Tears & An Outlaw Who Wasnt

The Cherokee Trail of Tears
In searching for the route of the Butterfield Mail Coach that cut through northwest Arkansas from 1858 until the Civil War forced Butterfield to close the southern section of the mail route, we have run across many sections of the Trail of Tears, or as the Cherokee refer to it, The Trail Where They Cried. Cherokees lived in this area as early as 1815, and were allowed land under a treaty and the Lovely Purchase when the government took the land from the Osage. Those living here were known as the Western Cherokee.

During the removal, the Eastern Cherokee were sent to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. One of their trails followed the Butterfield Trail and it is said they stopped at Fitzgeralds Station near where Springdale is now during the removal. The actual removal continued for over a two year period, though the Eastern Cherokee were mostly moved in the winter of 1839. One branch of the Trail of Tears continued on through Fayetteville, out to Strickler and south on The Boston Mountain Road, also known as The Arkansas Road through Cove City to Van Buren, then to Ft. Smith and west into Indian Territory. Of course, there were several other routes through Arkansas taken by the Cherokee being displaced from their homes.

An Outlaw Who Wasnt
One of the most infamous so-called Cherokee outlaws birthed in the new Indian Nation the five civilized tribes would come to call home, was Ned Christie.

Ned Christies early life was anything but that of a budding outlaw. Actually, he probably never was an outlaw, though history has done its best to make him one. He lived with his family twelve miles east of Tahlequah in Indian Territory. While he was an honest and hard working man, he did have political beliefs and would today be considered a political activist.

Nede, as he was known to his people, was a Councilar and influential member of the bicameral Cherokee National Council at Talikwa, the national capital of the Cherokee Nation. He despised the new treaty forced on the Cherokees. It had replaced the Treaty of New Echota. The Dawes Act or General Allotment Act was the final straw to men like Ned Christie. He saw it as just another way for the white man to steal the land he held so dear.

The act compelled the Nation to give equal rights of citizenship to all former slaves, forced them to grant a railroad right of way, called for a census of all Cherokees and took away land from the Nation. Already there were more whites than Indians there, many illegal squatters. He wanted the tribe to use the law and tried to educate his people in how to do so. It may have been his speaking out that first drew the attention of lawmen, though what was soon to happen sent him down a road that he surely had no intention of following.

In May, 1887, Ned Christie was on his way to a council meeting where he would speak out, once again, this time against the proposed Oklahoma statehood. At that same time U.S. Marshal Dan Maples was on his way to Tahlequah to pick up Bill Pigeon, a man wanted for murder.

Christie had made the mistake of drinking too much and the day before the meeting he was to attend, lay drunk in the woods near the creek crossing where Marshal Maples would be ambushed and killed. Because of Christies vocal attempts to help his people and his outspoken opinions of white mans law, it soon became politically expedient to blame him for shooting down the marshal, since the real culprit couldnt be found. Before Christie could attend the meeting, the word got out that the young, handsome Cherokee had shot down a U.S. Marshal in cold blood. Someone claimed to have seen it.

When he heard he was wanted for murder, Christie rushed home and prepared for attack by deputies. While waiting he wrote a letter to Judge Isaac Parker at Fort Smith. He swore to his innocence and asked for time to prove it. He gave the letter to a friend to post, but never received a reply.

The Cherokee people including Jackson Gourd, a Cherokee lawman, considered Ned Christie a politician, a statesman and a Cherokee patriot. Naturally they would protect him in any way they could. That would not prove to be enough, though, when deputies began their attempts to capture this "notorious" outlaw. From their fortified cabin Christie, his wife Gatey and their son Arch fought off several attempts at capture.

It wasnt until 1889 that deputy marshals Heck Thomas and L.P. Isbel, along with three other officers, came close to killing Christie. They burned down his shop and house and shot Ned through the temple, blinding him in one eye and shot Arch through the chest. Gatey spirited her wounded family away in the dark of night to a hideout cave where she nursed them back to health. He told his wife that from that day forward he would never speak another word of the white mans language.

With the help of friends, Christie rebuilt a fortification that would stand against many attacks in the future. That fortification was loaded with enough ammunition, food and water to hold out for weeks. There he managed to resist all attempts to capture him until November 1, 1892 when 25 lawmen arrived shortly after dark. They had with them ammunition, several boxes of dynamite, black powder, rifles and a field cannon. At daybreak they opened up with the cannon, but it did little damage except knock a few holes in the roof. When they resorted to doubling the powder charge in the cannon to blast out a wall of his fort, the load split the barrel, putting the big gun out of commission. They had expended 38 rounds from the cannon, and fired some 2,000 rounds of rifle ammunition to no avail. Christie remained holed up.

The desperate deputies fashioned a rolling oak-plank shield to allow one man to approach the cabin. When he was close enough he ran forward with six sticks of dynamite. It was shortly after midnight when the blast from the dynamite blew out an entire wall of Ned Christies fort and ignited a fire that by dawn had engulfed the cabin. Christie leaped from the burning cabin and ran toward the deputies firing his two .44s. A rifle slug caught the warrior behind the ear and cut him down. It is said that young Sam Maples, son of slain U.S. Marshal Dan Maples, then emptied his revolver into Neds lifeless body.

Christies wife Gatey was away at the time of the vicious attack, but son Arch , Charlie Soldierhair, Arch Wolf and Bear Paw were with him. They all survived.

Some of this account of Ned Christies capture is on record at the Fort Smith National Historic Site, written by Juliet Galonska in March of 1996.

Ned Christies remains traveled to Fayetteville and Fort Smith by train. Large crowds gathered at every stop to view the body which had been strapped to a plank from the door of Neds fort. The corpse was propped up allowing Ned and his killers to pose for pictures all along the route.

Christie was far from a rampaging, murderous outlaw. Unlike Jesse James or Billy the Kid, he was only wanted for the killing of one man. Further, in 1922, a witness to the murder of Deputy Dan Maples came forward to clear Christie of that crime.

Judge Isaac Parker let the Christie legend live rather than admit to any wrong doing, even though he did tell marshals in private that things had gotten out of hand and Christie had never been proven guilty of anything. Today members of the Cherokee tribe refer to Christie as the last Cherokee Warrior.

In his book, Ned Christies War, Robert Conley, a noted Cherokee author, wrote in depth about Christies struggle to save his people, and the battle that took his life. Its worth reading to get the other side of the story.

Originally published in The White River Valley News, Elkins, Arkansas

Velda Brotherton is currently working on a history of Springdale, Arkansas, which will be published by Arcadia Publishers in their Making of America Series.

Copyright © 2002 Velda Brotherton