John Ridge

Who was John Ridge?

John Ridge, born Skah-tle-loh-skee, was from a prominent family of the Cherokee Nation, then located in present-day Georgia. He went to Cornwall, Connecticut to study at the Foreign Mission School. He met Sarah Bird Northup, of a Yankee New England family, and they married in 1824. Soon after their return to New Echota in 1825, Ridge was chosen for the Cherokee National Council and became a leader in the tribe.

In the 1830s, he was part of the Treaty Party with his father Major Ridge and cousins Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie. Believing that Indian Removal was inevitable, they supported making a treaty with the United States government to protect Cherokee rights. The Ridges and Boudinot were both signatories to the Treaty of New Echota of 1835, by which they ceded Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands in Indian Territory. The land cession was opposed by the majority of the tribe and the Principal Chief John Ross, but the treaty was ratified by the US Senate. In 1839, after removal to Indian Territory, opponents assassinated the Ridges, Boudinot, and other Treaty Party members for their roles in the land cession and to eliminate them as political rivals.