Oconostota cleanup

Oconostota first appears in the historical record in 1736, welcoming the French to the Overhill towns. He had a son, but there are no other known descendants so no one today is descended from him.

Some accounts state incorrectly that he went to England with Cuming in 1730, and he is sometimes confused with another chief called "Ostenaco," a contemporary who went to England with Timberlake in 1762.

By 1740, Oconostota was the Great Warrior of Chota, or war chief of the Overhill towns. He was the leader at the Battle of Taliwa, in 1755, where Nan-ye-hi (Nancy Ward) earned her title of War Woman. After Old Hop’s death in 1760, Oconostota and Attakullakulla became the primary leaders of the Cherokee. Oconostota had a lengthy and important military career, and was a signer of several treaties, including Hard Labour in 1768, Lochaber in 1770, the Henderson Purchase (Sycamore Shoals) of 1775, and the peace treaty of 1777. A man named John Reid described the three chiefs who signed the Sycamore Shoals treaty as ‘all drunk’ and stated further that both Oconostota’s wife and interpreter James Vann were so upset by the treaty that they tried to keep the chiefs from signing it.[9] [10]

William Martin (son of Joseph) recorded that Oconostota and Nancy Ward spent the winter of 1782-83 with their friend, Indian Agent Joseph Martin. William said of Oconostota: “I am of the opinion that Oconostota was one of the noblest and best of human kind.” In the spring Oconostota asked Joseph Martin to take him home to Chota, where he died and was buried.An archaeological dig in 1969 (prior to the creation of the Tellico Reservoir) uncovered a grave and skeleton believed to be Oconostota. The remains were returned to the Cherokee and reinterred near Chota in 1987.

Kelly, James C. “Oconostota” in Journal of Cherokee Studies, Fall, 1978 pp. 221 ff
Brown, John P. Old Frontiers. Southern Publishers, Inc. Kingsport, TN. 1938, p. 165
Hoig, Stanley The Cherokees and Their Chiefs. University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville. 1998 p. 22
Conley, Robert J., A Cherokee Encyclopedia.” University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2007. p. 169