Sand Town

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

Near Cartoogechaye, Sand Town was formed after Native Americans escaped the Trail of Tears, and it persisted throughout the 19th century. As the town developed, more Cherokee families and several prominent white families moved to Sand Town. The first chief of the town and his wife, Chuttatoee and Cunstagih, who were also known as Jim and Sally Woodpecker, have been buried by the St. John Episcopal Church, and it can be visited today. Although no Cherokee records exist of the founding of Sand Town, historians such as Margaret Siler and the Macon County Historical Society have researched and written about the town and its place in Cherokee history. Artifacts from the area Sand Town used to inhabit have been found and collected, such as arrowheads and pottery. People who lived there lived in log cabins. Common occupations were preachers, farmers, and laborers.

Images

Artifacts found by Willard Dills who used to live near Sand Town

Grave of Chief Chuta-sottee and his wife Cunstagih (Jim and Sally Woodpecker) located at St. John Epsicopal Church

Plant, Plant community, Headstone, Cemetery

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Sand Town was founded when the settler William Siler deeded land to some of the Cherokee population in Macon County. This was to prevent their removal in the Trail of Tears. Located between the Cartoogechaye and Muskrat Creeks, Sandtown would become a safe haven for Cherokee escaping from the removal. The first chief of Sand Town was Cha-Cha-Chuta-Sottee, or Jim Woodpecker, as he was known to the white population.

Soon after its growth, Sand Town became a mixed village of Europeans and Natives. The Siler family remained close to the settlement and the son of William Siler, Albert, was raised among the Cherokee. The White and Cherokee cultures mixed together. Most spoke both English and Cherokee languages; they hunted, and worshiped together. The Cherokee would sing church songs in their own language alongside the whites singing in their own.

Chuta-Sottee refused to leave the town even when pressured by the United States Army. He said to a major attempting to push the natives off the land: “In the sight of these mountains I was born. In the sight of them I will die. My talk has ended”. Chuta-Sottee and other generations of Cherokee would be born and would die in sight of those same mountains. Years later in 1932 a monument was built to mark Chuta-Sottee and his wife's grave. It still stands in the graveyard of St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is built where the town once stood.

George Bushyhead, also known as Jesse Bushyhead, was one of the most influential citizens of Sand Town. He was born around 1804 in a mixed-blood Cherokee household in the South. Bushyhead and his family were kept in the lower class because of their heritage, as Native Americans were disliked by the White settlers. However, when Bushyhead later married a wealthy Cherokee woman, he became a prominent man in his community. This wealth raised him to the higher ranks of the middle class, giving him limited slave ownership, among other benefits.

Later, Bushyhead served the Baptist church as a pastor and missionary to the surrounding areas. His Christian work also propelled him to a religious popularity in the Cherokee community. Because Bushyhead was fluent in English as well as Cherokee, he was vital to the spread of Christianity, since he was a preacher as well as an interpreter. Bushyhead worked alongside famous evangelist Reverend Evan Jones. They attempted to convert the Cherokees of East Tennessee to Baptist Christianity. Bushyhead eventually founded an all-Cherokee congregation.

Throughout his lifetime, Bushyhead went from an interpreter in religion to a man of politics. The important piece of his life was when he took charge during the Trail of Tears. After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, in which President Andrew Jackson granted Indian tribes land West of the Mississippi if they left their ancestral homelands. Bushyhead and his wife took many Cherokee families and escaped the Trail of Tears. They fled to Western North Carolina, where they moved too a small settlement called Sand Town. Bushyhead helped the town get up off its feet after the Civil War, when many White families began to settle in the area. Thanks to George Bushyhead, Sand Town became the historical village that was home to many people, but has since been forgotten.

Sources

Macon County News. Sand Town: Cherokee/White community lost but not forgotten, January 16th 2021. Accessed May 7th 2021.https://themaconcountynews.com/sand-town-cherokee-white-community-lost-but-not-forgotten/

Cowsert, Zachary. “Cherokee in Controversy: The Life of Jesse Bushyhead.” 9 no.3 (2018) 1-4 https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3346&context=cwbr 1-141

Martin, Jennifer. “Historic and Architectural Resources of Macon County, North Carolina.” National Register for Historical Places (1992) https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500368_text

Macon County Historical Incorporated The Heritage of Macon County North Carolina. Winston Salem, NC: Hunter Publishing Company, 1987

Siler, Margaret R.. Cherokee Indian Lore and Smoky Mountain Stories. Teresita , 1938.

McRae, Barbara S.. The Indians of Sand Town . State. 18 - 19.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

https://themaconcountynews.com/sand-town-cherokee-white-community-lost-but-not-forgotten/

https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/558/