Jacob West

From Find A Grave Memorial# 40408581

Husband of Sarah Harlan West. Father of Bluford, John W., Eliza, Rosanna, Ellis, George & Ezekial.

Jacob was a very politically motivated man. He was one of the Treaty Party who wanted the Cherokee people to voluntarily move West from the Cherokee Nation in what is now the Tennessee & Arkansas area. He and his family moved to Oklahoma prior to the Trail of Tears.

When the refugees arrived in Indian Territory, Chief John Ross expected to be re-elected as Chief of the Cherokee people. There was much animosity between the two of Cherokee - those who relocated early and those who were forced to walk the Trail of Tears. Murders and beatings took place as one group attacked the other. Jacob and his sons, George & John W., beat and killed Isaac Bushyhead. George supposedly dealt the final blow that killed him, but Jacob took the blame and was hanged. John W. received 100 lashes and banished from Indian Territory.

According to some family records, Jacob was born c.1785.

Comments from Alice P:

His family settled and developed the "saline" (salt well) that John Ross later confiscated, but the family apparently already expected to lose that property by the time Jacob was hung (very probably just outside Tahlequah to the south), which is leading to speculation that he may have been buried at another site with strong West connections.

- Alice P.

• History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore (Google eBook) Emmet Starr. Warden Company, 1922 - Cherokee Indians - 680 pages. Page 350

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GEDCOM Note

Emett Stars' Old Cherokee Families', page 350. Jacob married Sallie Harlan, a fifth child of the 3rd generation Ghi-Ga-U. Sallie bore him seven children.