By Marie Hughes, director of the Chambers County Museum at Wallisville
Raven-haired and slight of frame, Sarah Soilee “Sallie” Ridge was born of Cherokee blood to Cherokee Chief Major Ridge and Susannah “Susie” Wickett. She entered the world on her family’s plantation in the Cherokee Nation, located along the Oostanaula River near present-day Rome, Georgia. Her early life was one of affluence and privilege, as her father ranked as the third richest man in the Rome, Georgia.
All too soon, however, her family’s stability was threatened. The Indian Removal Act was formulated, setting in motion the government’s plans to remove her people from their homeland. This turmoil would eventually bring Sarah to Smith Point, Texas. The government justified their actions under the philosophy of Manifest Destiny.
The relationship between the white settlers and the Native Americans had deteriorated drastically since the first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621. At that time, colonists embraced the Indigenous people as neighbors had the purest motives to share their Christian heritage and teach them the value of a democratic society.
However, as time passed, the white settlers realized the value of the land owned by the Indians, and the depravity of man began to rise to the surface, allowing greed to become the driving force behind their intentions. Such was the case in Sarah’s homeland where gold was discovered buried in the hills of the Cherokee Nation. This discovery led to the systematic dismantling of their way of life by the government, and the tragic expulsion of the Indians from their homeland known today as “The Trail of Tears.”
Sarah’s father, Major Ridge, whose given name was Kah-nung-da-tla-geh, was born in 1771 in Great Hiwassee, Tenn., within the Cherokee Nation. His father was Tatsi Ogonatota, though his mother’s name remains unknown. His given name translates to “he who walks on mountain tops” or “a man of vision,” which English speakers shortened to “The Ridge.”
Ridge distinguished himself as a warrior at just 14 and, by 21, was chosen to serve on the Cherokee council. In his second year, he introduced several valuable laws, proving himself an effective and respected counselor. At this time, he became one of the chief men of the nation.
During the War of 1812, the Cherokee sent troops to aid American forces against the British and the Creek Red Sticks. In 1814, Ridge’s forces played a decisive role in the Creek defeat at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. For his valor in recruiting and leading the Cherokee, General Andrew Jackson awarded him the rank of Major. From then on, he became known as Major Ridge.
Sarah’s father built a homestead on Oothealooga Creek near present-day Adairsville, Ga., around 1800. In 1819, he married Susie Wickett and moved into a two-story log cabin on his property. Susie’s parents were Kate Parris and Ah-ta-kon-stis-kee, the last hereditary chief of the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.
Growing up in the Indian Nation, Sarah’s life differed from common portrayals of Indigenous life with tipis and nomadic living. She enjoyed a lifestyle of pomp and circumstance, surrounded by fine furniture, china, and silverware. An elegant carriage served as the family’s transportation. Sarah’s wardrobe was the finest money could provide, and household and field slaves attended to the daily needs of the family. The Ridge family, like many other Native families in Georgia, adopted aspects of white society to demonstrate cooperation with settlers.
Sarah’s parents valued education and enrolled their children in prominent schools. Sarah attended Salem Female Academy in Salem, N.C., a Moravian missionary school. Her brother, John, was educated at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Conn. Both converted to Christianity while attending school.
During her childhood, Sarah was a favorite of Sam Houston, then a Congressman from Tennessee. When she accompanied her father to Washington for tribal affairs, Houston would take her sightseeing in the city.
Friction & Factions
Following the War of 1812, the U.S. government increased its push into Native lands, acquiring territories through treaties. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act, forcing Native Americans in the east to trade their lands for territory west of the Mississippi River. The discovery of gold deposits in the Georgia Cherokee land in the northern region, coupled with the desire to build a railroad throughout the area, opened the door for the state to extend its legal grasp of the tribe in 1828-1830. The Cherokee Nation fought back in court, and in 1831, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee were a sovereign nation. However, Andrew Jackson refused to honor the Supreme Court ruling, encouraging Georgia to take the land. The State of Georgia, emboldened by Jackson, adopted the lottery system, whereby Indian land was awarded to white settlers.
Sarah’s brother, John “Skah-tle-loh-skee,” served as Clerk of the Cherokee National Council and participated in tribal delegations to Washington, D.C. Educated in mission schools, he wrote Cherokee law and acted as an interpreter for government talks, as their father never learned English. He accompanied the Cherokee delegation led by his father, Major Ridge, to Washington in 1824, becoming exposed to politics and the looming threat of removal He became one of the first lawyers of the Cherokee Nation and an avid opponent to the Removal Act by 1829 and became the President of the National Committee in 1830.
The Treaty of New Echota was presented, and the Indian Nation was under pressure to sign it, but John and his father, Major Ridge, were in lock-step regarding the sale of Indian land, both refusing to sign the treaty. However, in a meeting with Andrew Jackson in 1832, Jackson informed John that whether they signed the treaty or not made no difference, they would still be expelled from their land. Hearing this, John realizing there was no way to prevail, reversed his decision and with a heavy heart convinced his father to do the same. Ironically, Major Ridge was one of the principal persons writing the Cherokee law making it an act of treason to sell Indian land.
As he signed the treaty in December 1835, he said, “I’m signing my death warrant.” His nephews Isaac “Degadaga” Watie and Elias “Kilakeena” Boudinot also signed the treaty. In return for the land, Georgia was to provide $5 million in compensation, relocation supplies, and a year of subsistence.
About 2,000 of the Cherokee’s left with Major Ridge and his family, the remaining 12,500, under the leadership of Chief John Ross, refused to leave.
John Ross and Major Ridge were once close friends, with Ross considering Ridge his mentor. They lived side by side along the Oostanaula River and even had a path between their homes called the “Ross to Ridge Trail.” However, when Major Ridge decided to sign the Treaty of New Echota, their friendship fractured over opposing views on tribal land. Ridge believed the only chance for their nation’s survival was to sell their prime land to the government and relocate west of the Mississippi River. Ross, on the other hand, felt they should hold onto their lands and stood in opposition to his old friend.
The Trail of Tears
By May 1838, the forced removal of the remaining Cherokee began. Rounded up and sent to emigration depots, they were driven west during winter, resulting in the deaths of approximately 4,000 from exhaustion, starvation, disease, and freezing temperatures. The tragic journey, known as the “Trail of Tears,” fueled anger among the survivors. They blamed Ridge family members who had signed the Treaty of New Echota.
At dawn, a group of 30 armed men surrounded John Ridge’s home in Southwest City, Miss. They stormed his home, forcing him to walk outside. While two held him tightly, the others stabbed him 30 times. He died within minutes. A band of armed Cherokees followed Major Ridge who was traveling by horseback. As he stopped to water his horse by a stream near Dutch Mills, Ark., the band fired on him from the tree line, killing him with shots in the back. At Park Hill, Arkansas, Elias Boudinot (born Buck Watie), nephew of Major Ridge, was supervising the construction of a house in Park Hill, Oklahoma when three men seized him, stabbed him cutting him to pieces with knives and tomahawks. All three were murdered within a 70-mile radius.
A witness to the murder of Elias raced on horseback to Stand Watie’s store and warned him. Watie mounted his horse and sped away to safety. He assassinated one of the men who murdered his brother Elias and his Uncle Ridge. In 1845, his brother Thomas was killed in retaliation. Major Ridge and his son John are both buried at Polson Cemetery in present day Delaware County, Okla.
Stand Watie was the only Ridge family member who signed the treaty and survived. During and after the Civil War, he served as the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1862-1866) and organized a cavalry regiment, eventually becoming the only Native American brigadier general in the Confederacy. He is noted for his role in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on March 6-8, 1862.
In 1843, Stand Watie stood trial for the murder of James Foreman. His defense team, led by his nephew-in-law George Paschal, secured a not-guilty verdict, marking the first time an Indigenous person won a case in a U.S. court of law.
Sarah met George Washington Paschal, a Georgian from Skull Shoals, while he was serving as an aide-de-camp to General George Wool, who was tasked with driving the Cherokee from their land. Thurman Wilkins wrote in his book Cherokee Tragedy, “Sally, who had become a charming Cherokee belle, though her coloring, like that of Major Ridge himself, was dark, much darker than John’s. ‘A full dark Cherokee,’ observed Miss Sawyer, the schoolteacher, ‘…a young lady of superior talent… very interesting in her person and appearance.’” Sarah was graceful and well-dressed, often wearing blue calico, considered a fine fabric at the time. Admired by many white men, she gained a reputation for her poise and charm.
According to legend, Sarah was a highly skilled rider. One story tells how her suitor, the man she would later marry, bought her a pony from a Tennessee drover. He presented it to her, saddled and bridled, and asked if he could ride with her. She mounted the pony, but while adjusting the bridle, the horse broke loose and ran. For 13 miles, Sarah held on, eventually riding it down. The story goes that afterward, the pony was a “dispirited animal.”
Sarah and George were married on Feb. 27, 1837, in East Brainerd, Tenn. A year later, they followed her family to Honey Creek in the northeast corner of Cherokee lands, where their daughter, Emily Anderson Paschal, was born on May 18, 1838. They later moved and settled in Van Buren, Ark.
Paschal, who had been admitted to the bar in 1832, was a lawyer of commendable intellect. Once settled in Van Buren, he and his brother opened a law practice. In 1842, he was elected to an eight-year term as an associate judge on the Arkansas Supreme Court but resigned within a year to represent the Cherokee Nation in appeals to the United States Congress. Around 1847, the Paschals moved to Galveston, Texas, where he was admitted to practice before the Texas Supreme Court on December 28, 1847.
Sarah and George’s grandson, Forest McNeir, described their move in Forest McNeir of Texas: “In 1848 my grandfather and grandmother, with their children, moved to Galveston, Texas. He studied Spanish on the ride to Texas, and in six weeks could read, write, and speak the language. They brought a number of slaves with them from Van Buren and built the first two-story house on Galveston Island.”
The house, ordered from Bangor, Maine, was prefabricated, loaded on a schooner, and floated ashore near Galveston before being reassembled by slaves on their lot at 14th Street and Avenue H (now Ball Street). It was paid for from Sarah’s half of the gold brought from Georgia by her family in 1836.
In Galveston, Sarah reunited with her old friend, Sam Houston, now General Sam Houston. Her daughter Emily Agnes became lifelong friends with Houston’s daughter Nettie. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1850, Sarah used her knowledge of Cherokee and Western medicine to treat patients, making an orange leaf tea that alleviated symptoms. Remarkably, none of her family or slaves fell ill.
By 1850, Sarah’s husband George Paschal had moved to Austin to continue his law practice. His marriage to Sarah had deteriorated, due largely to her broken heart causing a strain on their relationship. The displacement from her Cherokee home, the assassinations of her father, brother, and cousin, and having to bury three of her six children had taken a toll on her heart. Sarah and George divorced on Dec. 30, 1850, with Sarah retaining the Galveston house, custody of their children, and the dozen slaves.
George and Ridge became lawyers, and George became his father’s law partner. Ridge was U.S. Collector of Customs at Corpus Christi, Texas and later went back to the Indian Territory where he was once mayor of Tahlequah.
On May 18, 1856, Sarah married Charles C. Sisson Pix in the home of General Mirabeau B. Lamar in Richmond, Texas. Charles, 20 years her junior, was an Englishman whose father had a department store in Galveston. Sarah’s new husband had visions of a big plantation to be worked by his wife, Sallie, and her slaves, so she traded her home in Galveston to Mrs. Elianor Frankland for 500 acres at Smith Point, Texas. The acreage had a large two-story house under some cottonwood trees. Mrs. Frankland’s sons, Richard and Charles, were Sarah’s only neighbors when she moved her family to Smith Point.
Sarah and Charles had a son, Charles Forest Pix, who was adored by his older sister Agnes. Sadly, he died at 17 after contracting malaria in Galveston. His body was returned to his mother in a wagon, but Charles Sisson Pix would not allow Sarah to bury their son. He remained covered in the wagon for a year. Eventually she was able to bury him under the oak tree he had himself planted as an acorn from the Carroll Wilborn place at Double Bayou.
Charles abandoned Sarah for the 13-year-old daughter of John Monroe Dick of Smith Point. When Sarah’s daughter, Emily Agnes, heard that Pix had abandoned her mother, she insisted she divorce him. In 1880, Sarah filed for divorce in Wallisville, then the county seat of Chambers County. When the court ordered all properties to be split equally, Emily filed a fiery appeal and won—a feat rarely heard of in that era. The judge ordered Pix to leave the marriage with only the $19 he had brought into it. Charles Pix was later lost at sea during the great Galveston Storm of 1900.
Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix died on January 8, 1891, at the age of 77, and is buried in the family cemetery at Smith Point, Chambers County, Texas, beside her youngest child, Charles Forest Pix. Her grandson Paschal later wrote, “Sarah was a wonderful woman and died as she lived, respected by all who knew her, as a proud representative of a grand race of the earliest Americans, yet genial and kind to rich and poor alike.”