Watie, Stand (1806-1871)

US Cherokee leader and Confederate soldier. He published a Cherokee newspaper with his brother, Elias Boudinot, and when they and two others signed the treaty in which southeastern Cherokees agreed to resettle west of the Mississippi, Watie alone escaped killing by angry tribesmen. Siding with the Confederacy, he was appointed colonel of the Cherokee Mounted Rifles and fought in many engagements including Wilson's Creek (1861) and Pea Ridge (1862); later he served as a raider and light cavalry commander. When most of his people decided to support the Union in 1863, he led those Cherokee who stayed with the Confederacy and was among the last Confederate officers to surrender. He spent his final years as a planter and tobacco processor. Stand Watie was born near the site of Rome, Georgia.