orig. De Gata Ga
born Dec. 12, 1806, Rome, Ga., U.S.
died Sept. 9, 1871
American Indian leader.
He learned English at a mission school and helped publish the Cherokee Phoenix , a tribal newspaper. In 1835 he joined three other Cherokee chiefs to sign the Treaty of New Echota, which surrendered Cherokee lands in Georgia and forced the tribe to move to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. In the American Civil War he raised a mounted Cherokee rifle regiment and joined the Confederate army. He directed cavalry raids on the fields and other property of Indians who backed the Union. Promoted to brigadier general (1864), he remained loyal to the Confederacy even after the tribe ended its alliance. After the war, he went to Washington, D.C., as a representative of the southern Cherokee.