Tagwadihi

Who is Tagwadihi?

Tagwadihi, better known as The Glass, was a leading chief of the Cherokee in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, eventually becoming the last principal chief of the Lower Cherokee. Son of an adopted Wyandot, he first rose to prominence during the Chickamauga wars, after leaving the Overhill Towns along with Dragging Canoe's band in 1777.

Living at Nickajack after 1782, he remained one of the chief leaders of the Chickamauga throughout the wars, leading raids and war parties, often with Dick Justice of Lookout Mountain Town, at least as late as 1792.

In the journal of his travels in the South, particularly among the Chickamauga, John Norton reported several encounters with The Glass. Norton wrote that a few years after the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the old warrior traveled up to the North country among the Iroquois and became friends with Joseph Brandt, the Mohawk, who was the head chief of the Six Nations and had the same year as the treaty initiated the formation of the Western Confederacy to resist American incursions into the Old Northwest. Norton was Brandt's adopted son. The resulting Northwest Indian War included the great victory of the Western Confederacy at the Battle of the Wabash in 1791 and the American victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795, which ended the distant war.