Jesse Busheyhead

Born in East Tennessee in 1804, he was educated at the Candy's Creek Mission and became a teacher there.  Although he was later made prisoner at the Candy's Creek detention camp prior to the Removal, he continued to preach to both Indians and whites.  In 1838, he was selected by the Cherokee National Council to lead the Third Detachment of Cherokees to leave for the long journey west.  It was on this journey that a traveler from Maine encountered his group and gave the following account of what he saw:  "On Tuesday evening we fell in with a detachment of Poor Cherokees...about eleven hundred of them - sixty wagons, six hundred horses, and perhaps forty pair of oxen.  We found them in the forest camped under a severe fall of rain, accompanied by heavy winds.  Once fact which to my own mind seemed a lesson to the American nation is, that they will not travel on the Sabbath...when the Sabbath came, they must stop and not merely stop, they must worship the Great Spirit."  One of the great leaders of the Cherokee Nation and a member of the Ross party, he rode unarmed and unmolested during the troublesome period after the Removal.  In his hand a Bible replaced the rifle.  He died in 1844.

Other Web Links Referencing Jesse Busheyhead

Chief Bushyhead
1839 - March 19 - Jesse Bushyhead to The American Baptist Missionary Board
Princess Otahki
Cherokee Trail of Tears:  Other Paths
Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma