Through the years one of my interests -- I suppose you could label it as a hobby of sorts -- has been locating regional sites associated with Cherokee and white pioneer history and lore. My wife, Elizabeth, and I have had some of our best times together seeking out these sites. This despite the fact that we often wind up lost in rhododendron thickets or hanging out on cliffs.

But that’s part of the fun. The sites we have managed to locate have provided us with a better notion of where we are in the world as well as a finer sense of who we are. One who has little knowledge of the geography and history of the area in which they reside is spiritually challenged.

This month marks the 15th anniversary of one of our most interesting and significant quests -- the relocation of Tsali’s Rock, the site deep in the Smokies that old-time Swain County residents thought was Tsali’s final hideaway prior to his capture and execution in 1838.

In recent years, the story concerning the martyrdom of Tsali as “the Cherokee who willingly gave up his life so that those who became the Eastern Band of Cherokees could remain in the mountains” has been pretty well debunked by historians. Dr. John Finger at the University of Tennessee has led the charge in this regard.

As I outlined in a recent Back Then article, contemporary military records, as well as correspondence between Will Thomas and other principals in the affair, document the fact that Tsali and his family were hunted down by Euchella, Wachacha, and members of their band. They did so in exchange for being allowed to remain in WNC. And it’s a sad fact that Tsali did not give himself up willingly but was executed by other Cherokees. Indeed, the military rifle passed down from old-time Deep Creek families that was used in the execution is now on display at the Museum of the Cherokees.

Here’s a brief overview of the incidents that led up to Tsali’s capture and execution. A certain number, perhaps 500, of the Cherokees who remained in WNC rather than being forced to move to Oklahoma were those hiding out in the mountains who reappeared after the military departed. But another 500 or so were Cherokees who would have been allowed to remain anyway since they owned state-granted reserves of 640 acres provided for under the treaties signed in 1817 and 1819.

The Tsali episode erupted just as the Cherokee removal effort was winding down. On Oct. 30-31, 1838, a detachment of soldiers led by 2nd Lt. A.J. Smith and accompanied by Will Thomas captured 12 members of the Tsali family somewhere along the Tuckaseigee River below where Bryson City is now situated.

In the Fairfax area located near the present Lake Fontana dam, Tsali’s family revolted on the evening of Nov. 1, killing two soldiers and injuring another. Smith escaped on horseback and subsequently reunited with Thomas, who had separated from the group prior to the incident. For Thomas, the incident was a monkey wrench tossed at the last minute into his careful plans for allowing certain Cherokees to remain in WNC. For the U.S. military command, it was a bloody incident that couldn’t be ignored without retribution.

With the help of Thomas and the Euchella and Wachacha bands, Tsali family members Jake, George and Lowan were captured and then executed on Nov. 23. Tsali himself was captured on Nov. 25 and executed by the Cherokees “near Big Bears reserve” (present Bryson City).

One of the colorful staples of WNC lore has been Will Thomas’s account of going to a cave on the Left Fork of Deep Creek above present Bryson City in the high Smokies, where he talked to “old Charley” (as he was known to whites) and persuaded him to give himself up in order to save his people. In some accounts, Tsali’s noble speech has been reported as if it had been recorded verbatim by a court stenographer. It’s highly doubtful that Thomas was even present when Tsali was captured.

Even if the facts of the incident don’t correspond with the myth, Tsali still rightfully takes his place in Cherokee history and lore as a man who resisted removal. And his name rightfully endures as a symbol representing all those who lost their lives in the Trail of Tears. As such, the place where he last hid out in the Smokies is of considerable interest to the Cherokees and others sympathetic to their history.

A persistent oral legend in the Bryson City area maintains that a site known as Tsali’s Rock (or “The Charley Rock”), in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, marks the spot where he either surrendered or was forcibly captured over 162 years ago.

The rock is located about 10 miles north of the Deep Creek Ranger Station, several miles up the Left Fork of Deep Creek, and maybe three miles east of Clingman’s Dome, near the mouth of Keg Drive Branch. That’s some of the roughest country in the Smokies. Just getting in and out of the Left Fork watershed can be grueling in difficult weather. Making your way through the rhododendron tangles along the creek is exasperating. Locating the precise site is almost impossible without a guide who has been there before and knows exactly where to look.

In the late 1940s, Deep Creek resident Ben Lollis, now deceased, took Bill Rolen, also deceased but at that time a park ranger stationed in the Bryson City area, to the rock overhang. There’s no cave. He told Rolen, “All the old-time hunters, loggers, and farmers call it the Charley Rock, because they were told by their ancestors that that’s where Tsali last hid out.” (The photograph Rolen had made of Lollis posed at the rock overhang is published here.)

Gilliam Jackson, a full-blood Cherokee raised in the Snowbird Community in Graham County, along with this writer and Elizabeth Ellison, used directions and photographs provided by Rolen to relocate the site in 1984. We made four attempts before finally doing so. Curiously enough, Jackson had previously tried to locate the site using Cherokee oral tradition passed down in his own family and had come within several miles of the actual site. One will never be able to swear on a stack of bibles that this is the certified site where Tsali was captured, but the fact that the oral traditions in both the Cherokee and white cultures coincide adds credence to the notion.

The rock shelter is well situated, being a shelving rock high on a wooded slope high above the rhododendron along the main Left Fork. A small springhead several yards away provides a constant supply of fresh water. As the rock now stands (there are indications it may have slipped some in recent years, limiting the space under the overhang), three or four adults could find adequate shelter there. It’s the only outcrop of any size in that area and was probably used as a hunting camp by Indians long before Tsali and his family sought refuge there.

Insofar as anyone is aware, Jackson was the first Cherokee to visit the site since Tsali was captured. He later went back on his own and spent the night at the shelter. A terrific thunderstorm that lasted for hours, creating an ongoing firestorm of lightening bolts all around the rock shelter, persuaded Jackson that it is perhaps not a “good” site for Cherokees. He just shakes his head and smiles when reminded of that long night at Tsali’s Rock.

(George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 287713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com

 

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