For many years a battle has been brewing in the Cherokee Nation. This battle isn't one you will see on television or watch outside the local bar. This battle isn't between two diverse groups of people who don't like each other for ridiculous reasons, such as skin color, religion, creed or national origin. No, this battle is between members of the same household, the Cherokees.
 The Cherokees, from the beginning of our recorded history in the 1700's, have been a divided people. Natural lines or fractures exist in our society which with external pressure, open into wide fissures. These fissures create what appear to be irreparable wounds which prevent unity and sap the strength of our Nation.
 The Cherokee Nation, from the earliest records, was divided into several bands separate from each other by geographic features and language dialects. Each band functioned politically separate from all others and within each band, the towns functioned as separate political entities. In times of warfare, each band and town made a choice to join together for defense, remain neutral or even fight against each other. The situation was much like the city-state politics of early Greece and medieval Italy. The Cherokees did not unify under a single government until the English, weary from dealing with so many "heads of state", withheld vital trade goods until the Cherokees selected an "Emperor", through whom the British could deal
 Clearly, the novel concept of a single, all-powerful monarch was foreign to the democratic Cherokees and sub chiefs continued to play a vital role in the development of the tribe and its foreign policy.
 Warfare broke out frequently in the Cherokee country during the 1700's, mainly due to the machinations of the agents of France, Spain, or England. Most of the Cherokee towns were strongly in favor of British trade. This was not true of the five Chickamauga towns under the leadership of Dragging Canoe and later, The Bench, ancestor of the Benge family. Runningwater, Nickajack, Chickamauga, Tinsawatie, and Elijay were closely aligned with the Spanish in Florida and their English spy, John McDonald, who ran a trading post at Pensacola and was the grandfather of Chief John Ross. The Chickamauga Cherokees fought against the settlement of lands ceded by the pro-English Cherokee government to the British colonies. Dragging Canoe stated, "The settlement of this land shall be dark and bloody", and he made it so. The names of Dragging Canoe, The Bench and the Chickamauga Cherokees became the most feared in the territory. The fighting couldn't go on forever and upon the assassination of the Bench, the Chickamauga laid down their arms, and the Cherokees would wage no further wars with the European and American powers
 1790 saw great changes taking place in the Cherokee Nation and in its relationship to the new nation, the United States. Prideful from their victory over Britain and hungry for land, the Americans were eager to punish the Cherokees for siding with the British during the Revolutionary War. Land cessions became the order of the day. With a single head of state, the only formality in obtaining more was the correct amount of rum and trinkets.
 Many sub chiefs, dissatisfied with the Nation's politics and their own diminishing power, chose to separate from the Cherokee Nation and become a separate political entity. This was accomplished by leaving the eastern homeland and finding suitable territory west of the Mississippi.
 A small group of Cherokees settled in the Arkansas territory, established their own government and requested recognition from the United States. In the treaties of 1817, 1819, 1828 and 1833, the Western Cherokees were recognized as a separate Nation. Once again we can see that outside pressures of white emigration, cultural genocide and political change drove the Cherokees to fracture into two separate Nation's.
 At the same time, the Eastern Cherokees were struggling to hold on to their ancestral homeland which had been reduced to about one-fifth (1/5) its original size. Pressure was being placed on the Cherokees to emigrate west and join the Western Cherokees in Arkansas Territory, and after 1828, in Indian Territory.
 The Spanish and the French continued to put pressure on the Southern Cherokees and the now sovereign states of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina were harassing the Cherokee Nation. All of these pressures combined to create an explosive atmosphere for the Cherokee people to begin drawing lines and creating fissures