John Ross (October 3, 1790 – August 1, 1866), also known as Guwisguwi (a mythological or rare migratory bird), is the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Native American Nation from 1828–1866.
Described by European Americans as the Moses of his people, Ross leads the Nation through tumultuous years of development, relocation to Oklahoma, and the American Civil War.
Between 1790 and 1865, the Cherokee attemp to become a nation state, lose their ancestral land, endure removal to the Indian Territory, and suffer the destructive Civil War, in which their early alliance with the Confederacy jeopardizes their nation.
Throughout these tumultuous years, the dominant political figure in the Cherokee Nation is John Ross, whose leadership spans the entire period.
As his mother is part Cherokee and belongs to the tribe, Ross belongs to her Bird Clan, as the people have a matrilineal system.
By ancestry, he is one-eighth Cherokee and seven-eighths Scots, and he grows up in both Cherokee and frontier American environments.
Educate in English by white men, he is a poor speaker of the Cherokee language, but his bicultural background allows him to represent the Cherokee to the United States government.
He becomes one of the wealthiest men of the Nation.
In terms of heritage, education, status, and economic pursuits, Ross closely resembles his political foes, President Andrew Jackson and Governor George R. Gilmer of Georgia.
He is among the elite of the Cherokee Nation.
By his own person, he calls into question many of the 19th-century European-American assumptions about race and Native Americans.
