Elias Boudinot (1802-22 June 1839), born Gallegina Uwati, was a Cherokee leader who was the editor of the first Cherokee newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, and a prominent supporter of a treaty with the United States. He signed the 1835 treaty that led to the Trail of Tears, and he was murdered by John Ross' supporters in 1839.
Biography[]
Gallegina Uwati was born in Oothcalooga (now Calhoun, Georgia) in 1802, the son of a Cherokee father and a mother of mixed English and Cherokee descent; he was the brother of future Confederate general Stand Watie. His family was Protestant, and he was educated at a missionary school in Connecticut. Uwati took on the English name "Elias Boudinot", the name of the President of the American Bible Society and the former president of the Second Continental Congress. He became a leader of his tribe, and he believed that acculturation into the Yankee culture was the key to peace. In 1828, he became editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Cherokee newspaper, and he created unity among the Cherokee people as the United States government began pushing for their removal. Boudinot supported the relocation of the Cherokee to the Indian Territory to preserve the peace, and he signed a treaty with the US government at New Echota on 29 December 1835 that led to the "Trail of Tears". Most of the tribe, led by John Ross, opposed the forcible relocation of the Cherokee, and Boudinot and three other Cherokee leaders were murdered by Ross' supporters in what is now Park Hill, Oklahoma on 22 June 1839.