FULL CIRCLE
by
Helen R. Rogal

Delivered to
The Chicago Literary Club
March 27, 2000

The way in which we have been taught history would lead one to believe that large events, such as wars and economic crises, tell the whole story of human society. But there is much more to history. There are events that in the general scheme of things may seem small but they are no less important to our understanding of the history and culture of our society. Tonight's story is, except to those who lived it, one of those relatively small events in the history of the world.

Our story begins in Carter County, Tennessee in 1818. Carter County was a farming community in northwestern Tennessee. Among the residents was a young man named John Oliver. For many years he yearned to be a farmer, but it was impossible as there was no fertile land left in Carter County. So he worked as a collier in the Tennessee coal mines. But he did not give up his dream of being a farmer. He remained determined.

In the fall of 1818 John Oliver and his bride, Lucretia, traveled to a remote and wild place in southeastern Tennessee. It was called Cades Cove and was named for Chief Kade of the Cherokee Nation. It was flat, fertile, forested and full of game. It was encircled by rugged mountains now known as the Great Smokies. The mountains are steep and forested. In the summer due to the heavy rainfall the undergrowth makes the mountains almost impenetrable. In winter the snowfall is heavy and ice cascades from the high ridges down to and across the trails and then continues down the sides of the mountain, making any travel treacherous.

The cove was inhabited by Cherokee Indians. It is believed that these Indians were part of the much larger Cherokee Nation living in North Carolina and that they must have crossed the mountains to live in the cove. It is not known when they arrived. Lucretia was, from the start, terrified of the Indians. John believed that the Cherokees were friendly Indians.

The Olivers were settling in the cove illegally at the time. Settlement was actually prohibited by treaty with the Cherokees. Land speculation and illegal settlements probably served the national interest. It made for a buffer between older, settled areas and the Indians. Settlers attracted other settlers. Land values doubled and tripled. The illegal settlers became the legal residents. The Indians had been deceived.

John and Lucretia brought with them their one year old daughter, Polly, and oddly just a few supplies. John had no experience hunting. The winter of 1818-1819 was one of heavy snows and John had difficulty finding and tracking game. Of course, they arrived in the fall, too late for planting. John, who had only worked as a coal miner, was inexperienced with farming, too. By mid-winter the Olivers were facing starvation. The feared Indians brought them dried pumpkin throughout the winter, spring and early summer. The Olivers survived until they managed to harvest a crop in the summer of 1819. In later years neither John nor Lucretia could remember the names of any individual Indians. They simply referred to them as the Indians.

Despite their inexperience, the Olivers did become successful at raising crops. The fertile soil and abundant rainfall made it difficult to fail. The Olivers' enthusiasm and hard work enabled them to clear the trees from the forested land so that it could be farmed.

More white settlers arrived. The new settlers cleared more trees and even drained swamps to make the land usable for farming. They cherished the land wrested from nature by their ingenuity and hard work and farmed conservatively, preserving the land. They grew wheat, corn, rye, oats, vegetables, and pumpkins in abundance. The settlers' success in farming bought with their sweat and perseverance made them determined to remain on the land.

As has been the tradition in settlements, the people banded together in a community of common interest. Education of the young began immediately. Schools and churches were cooperatively built. These institutions were, of course, for the use of the white settlers only.

As the number of settlers increased in the 1820's and 1830's, the Indians, who had saved the Olivers from a sure death by starvation, began to feel surrounded and displaced by the settlers. In the clash of cultures so often repeated throughout the young nation, the Indians began to feel that their possession and use of the land was seriously impaired. They became increasingly hostile to the settlers and their way of life. The settlers began to see the Cherokees as a "threat." This "threat" was ended in 1838 as the original settlers of the cove, i.e., the Cherokees, were forcibly removed from the cove by the federal government and became part of the "trail of tears" march to Oklahoma. They left their fields of corn and oats and carried with them only a few items of clothing. John Oliver was among the local militia involved with the final roundup of the Cherokees and stood by as the Indians began their forced march. They were joined by 800 Cherokees from North Carolina and marched to a massive camp in Calhoun, Tennessee. The camp was hot and smelly and full of angry and sullen Indians. There was a shortage of water and food. Children and the elderly became ill.

The river was too low for moving them by water but the Indians had to be moved quickly, so the government troops found six flatboats and lashed them together. One thousand Indians were brought from the camp in army wagons and forced onto the flat boats which might have comfortably held a few hundred people. They moved at about five miles an hour into the Tennessee River. They passed through dangerous rapids in this manner. They moved day and night until they reached the Arkansas River. Food supplies lessened every day. Now the journey was to be over land, through Arkansas and Oklahoma. By this time some Indians had escaped; many more were seriously ill, especially the children. It was hot and dry and water was now extremely scarce. The dead numbered in the scores. Many of those Cherokees who were moved later, as winter neared, died from cold and starvation. Within a year, the entire Cherokee Nation of about 20,000 persons was forcibly removed from the Southeast. On their way to what is now Oklahoma, between 20 and 40% of the Indians died.⁽¹⁾

What might the Cherokees have been thinking as they were marched out of their ancestral home and saw the man they had saved from starvation as part of the militia? We don't know. We will never know. If I were in that situation, I would be thinking no good deed goes unpunished. The white settlers of Cades Cove kept extensive records but never mentioned the culture that came before them. The cove Cherokees left no written record. The available literature regarding the "trail of tears" does not refer specifically to the Cades Cove Indians.

John Oliver and the other white settlers had been affected by Jacksonian egalitarianism. This is how they treated each other and this is how they tried to develop their community. Of course, the egalitarianism did not extend to the Indians.

The white settlers were 30 to 40 miles from the nearest city or town where their crops could be sold and they could purchase needed materials. Rugged mountains separated the cove from Knoxville and Maryville, making any trip long and arduous. Therefore, the settlers had to be hardy, clever and innovative and they were. One of the settlers, Peter Cable, managed to drain the swamps at the lower end of the cove. He did this by placing dikes and log booms across Abrams Creek and other smaller tributaries. This allowed fertile soil to be trapped and distributed evenly over the low areas. Cable also set the example for careful, consistent farming methodology. There was careful cultivation of a limited amount of land. The result was that the rich soil of the cove was still productive at the end of the 19^th century.

One of the stories I like best about the hardiness of the settlers concerns the birth of the Spence child. Each summer the Spences brought their cattle to a high ridge which today is part of the Appalachian Trail. When Mrs. Spence was about to give birth, she decided that it would be best to have the child born in the cove. So, three days before the birth she descended a steep, rugged mountainside alone to get to the cove.

The cove was not self-sufficient. It was market oriented. Therefore, whether times were good or bad depended on the larger economy. The settlers were entrepreneurial and prior to the Civil War, they enjoyed a long cycle of prosperous times.

Prior to the Civil War goods were taken to market by wagon. An extra team of horses would be used to get the wagon over the mountains. The wagons were held steady by eight men with ropes on both sides.

The settlers designed and built mills so that they were able to make flour. They found iron ore in the area. It was of poor quality but good enough for their purposes. They developed an iron industry and most farmers made their own tools. They carded wool, spun it into yarn and made their own clothing. Long, hard days were the order of the day and night. Children worked alongside parents and other kin.

Religion played an important role in the settler's life. The church of choice was the Primitive Baptist Church. The church was introduced by John and Lucretia Oliver. It acted as an invisible government, although on the surface at least, the congregation insisted on a complete separation of church and state. The congregation was classless, part of the egalitarian beliefs of the community. The structure kept the power of any one individual, including the pastor, in check. However, the Primitive Baptist Church held more power over the community than any civil authority. The Primitive Baptists conceived the church and its doctrines as being fully enumerated in the scriptures. Innovations in the beliefs or practices were thus regarded with great suspicion and hostility.

The cycle of prosperity ended in 1860 due to the Civil War. Cades Cove remained loyal to the Union. Many young men left to join the Union army. The Primitive Baptist Church took a strong pro-union position. No cove family had owned slaves. However, some families believed in the Confederate cause and some of their young men joined the rebels.

Throughout the Civil War guerrillas from North Carolina came through the mountains and raided the cove. The guerrillas operated beyond the control of the confederate army. It was believed by cove residents that many of the guerrillas were actually outlaws who stole and murdered. Murder had become commonplace. One of the more notorious guerrilla leaders was a man named DeWitt Ghormley and the residents of the cove composed the following ballad:

"I'd rather be a Union man and carry a gun than be a Ghormley man and steal a cow and run."⁽²⁾

At times father and son would be on opposite sides of a battle. Charles Gregory was part of a guerrilla raid and his father Russell had formed a blockade to stop the raiders. Charles' sister ran out to talk to him, knowing her father was part of a blockade ahead. This slowed Charles down and separated him from the others, perhaps saving his life and saving Russell from killing his son.

During the early years of the Civil War, East Tennessee, despite strong Union sympathy, was under Confederate control. In September of 1863 General Ambrose Burnside captured Knoxville and shortly thereafter the Union gained control of East Tennessee. The cove was too small and too isolated to be helped by Union control and the guerrilla raids from North Carolina continued.⁽³⁾

Lest we be left with the belief that only the rebels indulged in guerrilla warfare, it needs to be mentioned that the union also had guerrilla raiders. The union raiders came form Kentucky through the Cumberland Mountains and made similar kinds of raids in Northeastern Tennessee.

Some cove residents became so tired of the raiding and the bickering between union and confederate sympathizers that they packed up and decided to move and start what they referred to as a "new world". They moved to a small cove along the Thunderhead Prong of the Little River, in an even more remote and isolated area near the North Carolina border and surrounded by mountains more rugged than those surrounding Cades Cove. This new community was ultimately unsuccessful and after the end of the war most members of the new community moved out of the area.

During the war years the cove suffered an economic decline similar to that felt by the rest of the country and the decline continued for many years following the end of the war. The cycle of prosperity had ended.

During the Civil War a new generation had come of age. They were less literate. They were more provincial and introspective. The average cove resident had changed. The guerrilla warfare engendered bitterness and hatred that lasted for many years following the war. The society became closed. The kinship structure expanded. The original leaders, John Oliver, Russell Gregory and Peter Cable had died. There was now an intolerance of innovation and change. A suspicion and fear of strangers developed. Excessive reliance on the extended family became the norm.

A folk culture developed. This involved the shared experiences, values, knowledge and mythology that the cove people communicated among themselves in a regional dialect that deviated from standard English. There was a variant pronunciation of words. These oral expressions had a well defined common meaning to every member of the community. There was intense scrutiny of each individual. There were no new immigrants. They would not have been welcome and would have remained outsiders. Pro-Confederate families were expelled, their property forcibly taken from them. They were not compensated for their losses. The isolation of cove residents increased. There were still no roads into or out of the cove.

There is no information regarding inbreeding. But, surely this must have been a problem. By 1880 most cove families were directly or indirectly related. An extensive kinship structure had developed.

An advantage of the kinship structure was that people helped one another and the small farmer never fell to the level of subsistence farming, no matter how difficult the times. A disadvantage of the kinship structure was that it prevented new families from coming into the cove as it was difficult to compete with such an elaborate kinship structure.

Around the turn of the century John Oliver, the great grandson of the original John Oliver, became a leader of the community. He represented progressive 20^th century views. He taught farmers how to increase their yield and how to improve breeds of livestock. He attacked wasteful farming methods and taught conservation of land, water and timber. He sent his own children to preparatory schools in Maryville and encouraged others to do the same. Justice William O. Douglas in referring to John Oliver said, "Cades Cove's leading citizen served its people as no one else, bringing them enlightenment and guidance in raising their standards of living."⁽⁴⁾

At about the same time many families moved out of the cove. Some moved to Maryville, some moved to the West. They kept in touch with their relatives in the cove. Therefore, there was a flow of new ideas into the cove. The cove had rejoined the world. They were no longer isolated from mainstream Tennessee or the nation in general.

Still, they never fully replaced the old ways. For the first two decades of the 20^th century, they were quilting, weaving and preserving food in the same manner as one hundred years earlier.

During World War I, the cove's patriotism appeared again. Many young men volunteered for the army. For those living in the cove, the war years brought a new cycle of prosperity. Food was needed all over the country and the cove farmers produced record harvests.

However, alongside the progress, an industry in moonshine developed. This led to an outlaw subculture, involving brawling and thievery. Community norms still mitigated against exposing a native son to outside harassment. The result was that moonshiners in the cove were seldom caught by the authorities.

After the war farm prices dropped and the latest cycle of prosperity ended. Moonshining increased due to prohibition. Once again there were serious strains in the community. John Oliver's barn was burned to the ground. His father's barn was burned. There were some revenge shootings throughout the 20's, though not to the same extent as in other parts of Appalachia.

BUT THE WORST CRISIS WAS AHEAD.