Gregory Smithers: Cherokee Nation gave up symbol of Confederacy

One of the first recorded flags in Cherokee history dates to the American Civil War. On October 7, 1861, the Confederate Indian Commissioner, Albert Pike, presented John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, with a flag that symbolized the Cherokee Nation’s recently agreed upon alliance with the Confederacy.

That flag, known as the “Cherokee Brigade Flag,” was based on the design of the first – and now largely forgotten – Confederate flag. Three horizontal stripes of red, white, and blue dominated the flag. The words “Cherokee Braves” ran through the white horizontal stripe at the center of the flag. In the upper right hand corner of the flag a blue rectangle contained eleven white stars. To symbolize the Cherokee Nation’s alliance with the confederate states, the Cherokees added a large red star at the center of that blue canton and surrounded it with four smaller red stars.

The red stars that the Cherokees inserted onto the flag were designed to highlight the alliance that the Cherokees and their pro-slavery, pro-Confederate allies among the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Indians had formed with the South.

Indian Country, however, was deeply divided during the Civil War. While many prominent Native American leaders in Indian Territory – such as the Cherokee general Stand Watie – fought for, and shared the racial views of Southerners on issues such as slavery, many of the people they claimed to represent did not.