Oo-na-du-to John ‘Bushyhead’

Bushyhead was a Cherokee man

Curator note; due to lack of definitive evidence, this profile has been detached from Captain John Stuart and Susannah Emory as his parents. See the discussion tab.

While this Bushyhead was (probably) the progenitor of the Bushyhead surname in Cherokee people, he is not the same Bushyhead reported as a child of Captain John Stuart and Susannah Emory. They “may” have had a child who bore that name or nickname, but if so, he’s been lost to history. This Bushyhead - born between 1780 and 1785 - was the wrong age to have been that man, or that man’s son.

Y DNA studies could indicate if this first man of the Bushyhead line had a Native American paternal origin, or a European.

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bushyhead-11

John Bushyhead was the progenitor of the Bushyhead family. John Bushyhead married Nancy "Nannie" Foreman; they were the parents of seven children: Jesse, Isaac, George, Nancy/Nannie, Charles, Jacob, and Susan. He was a member of Gideon Morgan's Cherokee Regiment in the War of 1812, and appears in the records of the Cherokee Agency as "Chief Bushyhead."

A son of Susannah Emory and John Stuart would have been only 1/8 Cherokee and in 1829, William Holland, a missionary, described him in a letter as "45-50 years old, a full blood speaks little English. Was once very sinful and full of vice." He and Nancy were living apart in 1835. Nancy Bushyhead is listed as the head of a household of seven, living on Candy's Creek (now Tennessee) near several of her siblings on the 1835 Cherokee Census, "Bushyhead" is listed on Mouse Creek, next to son Jesse. His death date is uncertain; he is recorded as voting against the Treaty of 1835 and on the Aquohee Resolution in 1838. He probably was Removed in the Trail of Tears detachment led by son Jesse, but he appears on no records in Indian Territory so is assumed to have died en route or shortly after arrival.

Research Notes

Widely recorded as the son of Susannah Emory and John Stuart, this contradicts the statements made by the [Moravian church missionary] William Holland that he was about 45-50 years old in 1829 (thus born 1780-1785) and was "a full blood [who] speaks little English." Susannah Emory was the granddaughter and daughter of white men, John Stuart was white. Susannah's age at the time John Stuart was in the Cherokee Nation makes a child of theirs unlikely. More likely possibilities are that this man's father was confused/conflated with a different child of Susannah; that he was the son of Susannah and an unknown Cherokee man; that he was the son of John Stuart and an unknown Cherokee woman; or that he just happened to have a very full head of hair.

Extracted from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stuart-7934

According to Emmet Starr, a Cherokee woman, Susannah Emory, and British Indian Agent John Stuart were the parents of a son known as "Bushyhead”:

Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians. Oklahoma Yesterday Publications edition, Tulsa, OK. 1979. p. 577. Digitized edition at < Archive.Org >

[John Stuart] "married Susannah Emory a quarterblood Cherokee and was known on account of his mop of hair as Oo-no-dut or Bushyhead. He and Susannah had one son, who never had any other name than Oo-no-dut and from that time forward the Stuarts in the Cherokee Nation and invariably been known as Bushyhead."

Susannah Emory's birth year is unknown, but likely between 1748-1752. John Stuart was in the Cherokee Nation between 1755 and 1776. If they had a child he could have been born no earlier that 1765 and no later than 1776.

Starr appears to have erred in stating that this son was the father of a man known as John Bushyhead, a full-blood Cherokee born about 1780.

A persistent Internet myth states that "A Cherokee by the name of Chief Bushyhead, head of the Paint Clan, brought his beautiful 15 year old daughter, Ghe-go-he-li, to trade for salt with a white man named John Gunter. Gunter accepted the bargain and changed his bride's name to Katherine. Chief Bushyhead and Gunter signed a treaty stating "as long as the grass grows and the waters flow the Indians can have salt."

This is complete fiction. There was no "Chief Bushyhead" in the 18th century and biological fathers were not even considered blood relatives by the Cherokee. The Cherokee were matrilineal and Cherokee women chose their own spouses. John Gunter's wife Catherine was the daughter of a Cherokee woman named Ghi-go-ne-li.

Notes

From Ancestry.com

Story of John Bushyhead Posted 01 Mar 2011 by mayco82 ID: I15646 Name: John Oo-Notota Bushyhead 1 Sex: M Birth: 1763 in Reser, Tennessee Death: DEC 1838 in Fort Wayne, Arkansas-Oklahoma state line _ELEC: 1809 Cherokee Tribal Council Event: Comment 1 Superintendent of Indian Affairs Note: All Bushyhead's originated with John Stuart when the Cherokee gave him that name. Stuart was called "Bushyhead" because of his bushy head of blonde curly hair.

Source from the Family sheet from Mildred Tuley, Old Cherokee Families, Notes of Dr. Emmet Starr, Vol. 3, Grant, by Hampton and Baker page 1, Cherokee Emigration Rolls 1817-1835 page 14, and Cherokee Notes by James M. Carselowey:

Bushyhead signed the Rolls from Mouse Creek with a family of 8 persons as # 627 on 17 December 1818 and took payment for commutation but is not shown as having actually gone to OKlahoma however Carselowey says he did. Mildred said that John (Oonodutu) was the only child of John Bushyhead Stuart and Susannah Emory. Name has also been shown as Oonodertu and Oonoditu. 1835 Cherokee census shows him at Mouse Creek, Tennessee. In the household are one fullblood & five halfbloods. A farm and two farmers, one mechanic, two weavers, three spinners. Three read English and five read Cherokee. Bushyhead was 1/8 Cherokee. Bell shows his birth date as ca. 1777. Unnumbered page in back of Starr's book gives indian name as Oo-notota, says Capt. Stuart was Oo-no-du-tu and John Stuart was Oo-no-dut. A letter from William Holland to ABCFM on 15 Apr 1828 describing new members of the United Brethern (Moravian) Church in Tn shows Bushyhead as 45 to 50 yearsold, a full blood, speaks little English. Was once very sinfull and full of vice. This puts his date of birth between 1783 and 1785. This letter is in issue # 8 & 9, Fall 1992 & Spring 1993 of Cherokee Family Researcher. Page 30. Nancy Foreman Bushyhead shown on Drennen Tahlequah 132.

"History of the United States" by Redpath, Vol. VI, p. 2505. < link >

… Oo-na-du-to or Bushyhead, married Nancy Foreman, the half-blood Cherokee Indian daughter of Anthony Foreman, a Scotchman, and lived, died and was buried in Georgia. Nancy removed with a contingent of the Cherokees led by her son Jesse Bushyhead to the West, in the spring of 1839. She is reputed to have lived to the advanced age of 104 years and died in 1868 in the Illinois river country near Tahlequah.

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References

1. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/61974816/john-bushyhead-stuart (no citations)
2. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bushyhead-11 cites
   1. Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians. Oklahoma Yesterday Publications edition, Tulsa, OK. 1979. pp 306 & 308. Digitized edition at Archive.Org
   2. Muster roll digitized at muster
   3. records digitized at Fold3, example at letter
   4. Clark, Jerry. "An Account of the Church at Candy's Creek by William Holland, Missionary." Article in Cherokee Family Researcher, Issues 8 & 9, Fall, 1992, Spring 1993. p. 30 digitized at FamilySearch. < FamilySearch >; (document attached)
   5. 1835 Cherokee Census, transcription published by the Oklahoma Chapter, Trail of Tears Association, Park Hill, OK. 2002. Original records: National Archives and Records Administration, Microfilm publication T496, Census Roll, 1835, of Cherokee Indians East of the Mississippi with Index. pp. 3 & 5
   6. Bio. http://www.carolana.com/SC/Royal_Colony/captain_john_stuart.html (no children described)
3. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Emory-136
4. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stuart-2573
5. “Tracking Bushyhead” < link >