William Penn Adair (1830–1880) was a leader of the

Cherokee Nation The Cherokee Nation ( Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ ''Tsalagihi Ayeli'' or ᏣᎳᎩᏰᎵ ''Tsalagiyehli''), also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. ...

. Born in the traditional Cherokee territory in Georgia, he traveled as a child with his family on the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, ...

Indian Removal Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a ...

from the Southeast to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

to what is now

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

. He became an attorney who served in public office both before and after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

and as a justice of their nation's court. He entered the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

, and he achieved the rank of colonel. Like many others, he joined on the promise that the Confederacy would support a Native American state if it won the War. He served as Cherokee Nation delegate at Washington, D.C. during the 1860s and 1870s.

Background

William Penn Adair was born on April 15, 1830, in the old Cherokee Nation in

New Echota New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the Southeast United States from 1825 until their forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, in northwest Georgia, 3.68 miles north of Calhoun. I ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. His parents were George Washington Adair (1806-1862) and Martha (née Martin) Adair. The family was forced to remove to Indian Territory in 1838, a process which their people called the

, because of the loss of their lands and the high number of deaths along the way. Adair attended Cherokee schools in

, and studied law. He became a

Freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

,Littlefield and Parins, 165 belonging to the Vinita Lodge No. 5, which was chartered in 1875. He was described as being "six foot and two inches in height, magnetic, logical and frankly agreeable, the ablest and most brilliant of all Cherokees."Starr, 264 Adair married Sarah Ann McNair. After her death, he married again, to Susannah "Sue" McIntosh Drew. He lived on land along the Grand River in what is now

Adair, Oklahoma Adair is a town in Mayes County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 790 at the 2010 census, compared to the figure of 704 recorded in 2000. Named for two prominent Cherokee brothers, the town was established in 1883. It opened a Cheroke ...

. It was named for him.

Military service

During the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

, Adair served in the

, first in the First Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Volunteers, under General

Stand Watie Brigadier-General Stand Watie ( chr, ᏕᎦᏔᎦ, translit=Degataga, lit=Stand firm; December 12, 1806September 9, 1871), also known as Standhope Uwatie, Tawkertawker, and Isaac S. Watie, was a Cherokee politician who served as the second pr ...

.Betty Lou Harper Thomas
"Adair." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''
Accessed 24 March 2010 The Confederacy had promised the nations in Indian territory that it would support an Indian-controlled state if it won the war. Adair rose to the rank of colonel and organized the Second Cherokee Mounted Volunteers.

Tribal leadership

Adair served the

in many capacities. He was a senator, a justice of the Cherokee Supreme Court, delegate to

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...

, and assistant principal chief. He served as the Senator from the Flint District from 1855-1860 and Senator from the Saline District from 1869-1874. In 1879, he was elected as Assistant Chief. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, Adair served as a delegate from the Cherokee Nation to Washington. He was a vocal advocate for the rights of the Texas Cherokees. He served as Chairman of the Texas Cherokees and Affiliated (later Associate) Bands from 1871 until his death in 1880. During this period in 1873, he and Clement Neely Vann co-authored the book, ''History of the Claim of the Texas Cherokees,'' which they wrote on behalf of "the Texas Cherokees and Affiliated Bands." The Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands was established by Adair and John Adair Bell in the early 1850s in the

Mount Tabor Indian Community The Mount Tabor Indian Community (also Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands of the Mount Tabor Indian Community) is a cultural heritage group located in Rusk County, Texas. There was a historical Mount Tabor Indian Community dating from the 19th c ...

Rusk County, Texas Rusk County is a county located in Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 52,214. Its county seat is Henderson. The county is named for Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a secretary of war of the Republic of Texas. Rusk County is part of th ...

for the purposes of seeking redress over the violations of the 1836 Treaty of Bowles Village which later led to the Cherokee-Texas war in 1839 as well as later actions by Texas Cherokee leader Chicken Trotter until the

Treaty of Birds Fort The Treaty of Bird's Fort, or Bird's Fort Treaty was a peace treaty between the Republic of Texas and some of the Indian tribes of Texas and Oklahoma, signed on September 29, 1843. The treaty was intended to end years of hostilities and warfare be ...

in 1843 that ended hostilities. The Texas Cherokee continued to seek compensation from the state of Texas for lands taken from them in 1839. Adair along with other Confederate Cherokees went to Washington in order to petition Congress to allow him to sue the state to return lands in Texas once belonging to Texas Cherokee people. Initially this was to allow Southern Cherokees to relocate back on treaty lands due to the hostilities of Cherokee factions after the war. Some of these issues went back to the Ross-Ridge party feuds stemming from the Trail of Tears that had been played out during the Civil War. The main point for the suit was that in 1839, while the

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas ( es, República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, that bordered Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 (another breakaway republic from Me ...

was independent, President Mirabeau Lamar had forcibly driven most of the Texas Cherokee into

and seized their lands in East Texas. The Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands sought the return of in East Texas. In the 1850s the state had offered lands in the

Texas Panhandle The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a square-shaped area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east. It is adjacent to ...

in exchange, but Adair refused to accept that offer."Cherokee Indians"
''Handbook of Texas Online.'' (retrieved 24 March 2010) No such offer was made to settle after that. However the Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands continued to pursue litigation as late as 1963 some eighty-three years after Adair's death.

Death and legacy

While in Washington, D.C., Adair died on October 23, 1880. He was initially buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., but his body was soon thereafter transferred to the Tahlequah City Cemetery in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. This move was paid for by the Cherokee Nation. Several Cherokee boys were named after him in the late 19th century, including the celebrated Cherokee humorist

William Penn Adair Rogers William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklaho ...

(better known as Will Rogers).

was named for William Penn Adair and his brother, Dr. Walter Thompson Adair. In 1955, he was inducted into the

Hall of Great Westerners The Hall of Great Westerners was established by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 1958. Located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., the Hall was created to celebrate the contributions of more than 200 men and women of the American ...

of the

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of Am ...

Notes

References

Sources

*Adair, William Penn and C. N. Vann
''History of the Claim of the Texas Cherokees.''
New York: Morgan, Comes, and Lawrence, 1873. *Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. and James W. Parins
''A Biobibliography of Native American Writers, 1772-1924: A Supplement.''
1985. . *Rogers, Will, Arthur Frank Wertheim, and Barbara Bair
''The Papers of Will Rogers: From Vaudeville to Broadway: September 1908–August 1915.''
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. . *Starr, Emmett
''History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folklore''
Oklahoma City: Warden Company, 1921. *

External links

*
Cherrie Adair Moore, "William Penn Adair"
''Chronicles of Oklahoma'', Spring 1951.
Handbook of Texas Online: Mount Tabor Indian Community
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adair, William Penn 1830 births 1880 deaths Cherokee Confederates People from Gordon County, Georgia People of Indian Territory in the American Civil War Native American writers American diplomats Cherokee Nation politicians (1794–1907) Confederate States Army officers 19th-century Native American politicians People of Indian Territory People from Adair, Oklahoma