Post War
Lewis Downing as president of the pro-Union tribal council, went to Washington in 1863 to alert the government to the divided situation of the Cherokee.
After the war, a preliminary intertribal peace conference with the United States commissioners was held at Fort Smith on September 8, 1865. It was at this meeting that Downing protested against the refusal of the commissioners to accord recognition to John Ross as the Principal Chief of the Cherokee. At that time, Stand Watie was chief of the pro-Confederate Cherokee, and he proposed federal recognition of two Cherokee nations. The US dealt only with Ross and the pro-Union faction.
Ross returned to Tahlequah for a brief period in the fall of 1865. He returned to Washington the next year to protest against the approval of section nine of the treaty of June 19, 1866. The US government was requiring the Cherokee to free their slaves, and to grant them full citizenship in the Cherokee nation and equal rights to annuities and land grants as full-blood Cherokee. The Reverend John B. Jones approved this disputed section; he had accompanied Ross as a delegate and signed the treaty as such.
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