Massacre at Ywahoo Falls

The Massacre at Ywahoo Falls (or the Great Cherokee Children Massacre) is alleged to have occurred on Friday, August 10, 1810, at Yahoo Falls, now in the Daniel Boone National Forest in southeast Kentucky, in which women and children of the Cherokee were supposedly massacred. The primary source of the story is "The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls", written by Dan Troxell.^[1] The story is also mentioned in the 1999 book, Hiking the Big South Fork, which gives Troxell as its source.^[2] Eventually the tale caught the attention of Dr. Kenneth Tankersley of the Native American Studies program at Northern Kentucky University who wrote an article called "Yahoo Falls Massacre, McCreary County, Kentucky" in the mid-2000s (apparently part of his upcoming book, Kentucky Cherokee: People of the Cave), though the only references he supplies directly related to the story of the massacre itself are oral interviews with members of the Troxell family.^[3]

The alleged massacre

According to the tale, in order that the women and children of the Cumberland River valley might acquire a white-man's education, the Reverend Gideon Blackburn proposed to open a school on Cherokee land 125 miles away near Chattanooga (the story claims the school was in Sequatchie Valley), and on the day in question it was arranged that anybody seeking protection at the school should meet at Yahoo Falls at full moon. According to the story, they were to be led by the supposed "Cornblossom", alleged daughter of the War Chief Doublehead, but were instead massacred by a contingent of soldiers sent by John Sevier, who was from the State of Tennessee not the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Parts of Tennessee were at times called Kentucky.

Tradition supports Cherokee Chief Arun or Aaron Brock Redbird as having been somehow connected to the events. Chief Redbird and some Cherokee Chiefs also appear to have fought in the Kings Mountain, NC area with the Colonials in the U.S. Revolutionary War in the Battle of Kings Mountain or other nearby battles. Later, many Cherokee linked to them turned against the Colonials like Shelby who supported removing and killing Indians, including Cherokee. Shelby was Kentucky's first Governor after the state gained independence from Virginia. Many of these peoples, Cherokee and white and others also had Carolina and other southern state connections.

The Massacre Story seems to support oral and other stories since Kentucky did support removing the Cherokee and other Indians from the state.

Controversy

Doubt has been expressed as to whether the massacre ever actually occurred.^[4][5] There are apparently no contemporary records that document (or even mention) the massacre, nor any that record the existence of a "Princess Cornblossom" (not to mention that no such title as "Princess" ever existed among the Cherokee). Though the story is recorded as Cherokee oral history,^[1] it is unlikely that such an event could have gone completely undocumented, and no evidence has been found.^[4] The first written record of Cornblossom seems to occur in 1958 in a publication called Legion of the Lost Mine by Thomas H. Troxel,^[6] but Troxel admits in the foreword to his book that some of the characters in it are fictitious (though he doesn't say which). There is no mention of the massacre in this book; the first mention of that seems to be in the 1975 book A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest 1770-1970, written by Robert F. Collins, with the Yahoo Falls section based upon information assembled by Troxel.^[7]

Monument

On August 12, 2006, persons unknown placed an unofficial monument to the alleged massacre in the Daniel Boone National Forest (DBNF), next to the grave of one Jacob Troxell, who died 10 October 1810. In late September 2007, DBNF officials removed the monument for two reasons: first, it is illegal to put up a monument on federal land without permission, and second, they questioned whether the incident had actually taken place. ^[8]

References