Yonaguska

Who was Yonaguska?

Yonaguska, who was known as Drowning Bear, was a leader among the Cherokee of the Lower Towns of North Carolina. As a result of a vision, in 1819 he banished liquor from his people's territory.

During the Indian Removal of the late 1830s, he was the only chief who remained in the hills to rebuild the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, joined by others who had escaped or eluded the United States soldiers. Before that time, he had adopted William Holland Thomas as his son; the fatherless European-American youth was working at the trading post and had learned Cherokee. Yonaguska taught him Cherokee ways and, after Thomas became an attorney, he represented the tribe in negotiations with the federal government. Yonaguska selected Thomas as his successor; he was the only white man ever to become a chief of a Cherokee band. Thomas bought land and established a Cherokee reserve for the tribe's use at what is now the Qualla Boundary, the territory of the federally recognized tribe in North Carolina.

During his life, Yonaguska was a reformer and a prophet; he was a leader who recognized the destructive power of the white man’s liquor and the settlers' insatiable greed for Cherokee lands.