Stand Watie, born Degataga in 1806 in the Cherokee Nation in what is now Georgia, was the last Confederate general to surrender in the field, signing a ceasefire at Doaksville in Indian Territory on June 23, 1865. This episode traces his family’s wealth as slaveholding planters, his work helping his brother Elias Boudinot edit the bilingual Cherokee Phoenix, and the Georgia gold rush and Indian Removal Act that pushed the Treaty Party of Watie, Major Ridge and John Ridge to sign the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 without the consent of most Cherokee.

After the Trail of Tears, a coordinated attack on June 22, 1839 killed Elias Boudinot, Major Ridge and John Ridge, and Watie alone survived. He killed James Foreman in 1842, lost his brother Thomas in 1845, and was acquitted of murder in Arkansas. When John Ross turned to the Union in 1862, the pro-Confederate faction elected Watie principal chief, and he became the only Native American brigadier general in the Confederate army. After the war, Washington used the Cherokee split to force new treaty terms, and Watie died in 1871 after outliving all three of his sons.

• His Cherokee name, Degataga, translates to “standing firm.”
• His father converted to Christianity through Moravian missionaries and took the name David Uwatie.
• At Second Cabin Creek in 1864, Watie and Richard Gano captured a Union wagon train worth about $1 million.
• Union reports state his men killed Black haycutters during the Cabin Creek campaign, including the wounded.
• The 1866 treaty forced the Cherokee Nation to abolish slavery and grant citizenship to the Cherokee Freedmen.