Lone watie biography of williams

How did a high-standing Indian who signed away his ancestral lands in the Deep South become a general for the Confederacy during the Civil War? And why did he fight so fiercely against other Native people during the conflict?

Stand Watie lived during a tumultuous time for his people—and the young American nation.

Throughout the 19th century, Indians were being increasingly displaced from their homelands, and in some cases, massacred. Tribal nations faced internal discord over thorny issues like slavery—some Indians were themselves slaveowners—and whether to sign treaties that often pressured them to choose between their ways of life and their very survival.

After the South seceded from the Union, Indians were forced to choose sides in the white man's war. 

Stand Watie, a Cherokee, chose the South.

His Family Owned Slaves

Born in 1806 to a Cherokee father and mixed-race (half-Cherokee, half-European) mother in Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation (near