Chapter 3 - My Father's Name
1838
I discovered who my true father was when I was five. It wasn’t who I thought it was. A man named Sam McGrady lived with us. He was not my father, although I guessed he was, since he was the only man in the house. Because he shared my name, I believed him to be my father, although I called him Sam—not Father.
Etsi—mother in Cherokee—and Sam argued often. Their voices would rise behind closed doors, or out in the yard when my attention was elsewhere. The fights frightened me, though I failed to understand them. It seemed to be about what he drank. The words didn’t matter as much as the yelling.
One evening, I found a glass he’d left on the table. Curious, I took a sip. The taste proved bitter and burned my throat. I gagged and dropped the glass, which shattered at my feet. They came rushing in. Sam cursed me and raised his hand. Never having been hit before, I didn't know how to cower. I just stood there, saying “sorry”.
“If you touch him, it will be the last thing you do.” Etsi said.
They fought all night before he finally went to sleep in the barn. When he appeared at the door the next morning, expecting breakfast, Etsi blocked the door with Abraham, our Negro hand, just behind her, and said, “It’s over,” she said. “Take your things and go.”
Etsi piled his things in the dirt outside the gate—his clothes, tools, his spare saddle. Only later did I learn that this was the Cherokee way of divorce: the wife would put the husband's possessions outside for him to take.
As he loaded his wagon, I cried, calling him Father—for the first time. I stepped forward, ready to run to him, but Etsi caught my arm and held me back.
“Why is Father leaving?” I asked.
She looked down at me, her voice calm but distant. “Sam McGrady is not your father,” she said. “Sam Houston is the name of your father. He died in a battle in Texas.”
*****
So, I never knew my father. His name was Sam Houston, and I’m named after him.
Etsi’s name was Tiana Rogers.
I was five. I understood little, but knew something important had ended. One Sam left, and another, one I would never meet, took his place.
Etsi named me Samuel Houston Rogers, but my Cherokee name is Uh-Yo-Ha— “he is looking for it”—given to me by my grandmother Jenny. She said I was always hungry. But no one outside my family used it; a Cherokee’s true name is private. Most called me Colonneh Usdi, Little Raven. Colonneh had been my father’s Cherokee name. The Yoneg, the white people, called me Sam. Etsi called me Sam, or Usdi, or both together.
Etsi was tall and graceful, with dark hair from her Cherokee mother and sharp blue eyes from her Scottish father. Though she hadn’t traveled far, she read widely. She served as a counselor and healer; adawosgi we called it. She knew every plant, leaf, bark, and bloom. On a trail, she could point to a tree, moss, or mushroom and name both its spirit and its purpose. People came from far and near seeking her help with illness, childbirth, or wounds. No one was ever turned away from Neosho Wigwam.
As I grew older, I asked about Father. Etsi told me the story in pieces, waiting until I could understand.
"I was just a child when I met him," she said, “When he came to live with your uncles John and James in Hiawassee Town. He was fifteen; I was nine. He ignored me, so I pestered him, especially when he was with girls his own age, which only made him angry.”
“Why did you bother him, Etsi?” I asked.
“I suppose I had a crush on him.” She saw I didn’t know what she meant by ‘crush’. “I liked him the way a girl likes a boy. Like Mary Starr likes you.” Mary was always hanging around me when I had other things to do. It didn’t seem to bother Robert as much as it did me.
“He left for Andrew Jackson’s war against the Creeks. When he came back he went to live with your Grandmother Houston so she could tend his wounds. Our clan moved to Indian Territory. I never saw him again in Tennessee.”
“The Creeks are Indians. Why would Father fight other Indians?”
“I never was sure. Your edustis went, too. Ask them what it was about.” She tasted the stew she was cooking before she continued. “Ten years later, he appeared on the dock at Fort Gibson, asking for refuge with the Cherokee. He had risen to great heights in the White world, only to drive himself into self-exile over a terrible marriage. Chief Ooleteka welcomed him back with open arms. A broken man, he was a drunkard. My old feelings returned despite his flaws. I made him my loving project.”
“Was Sam McGraw a drunk?”
“Yes, but not as bad as your Father.”
“Before long, we were living together in my cabin along the Neosho River. We married in the Cherokee tradition. I treated the still-open thigh wound he had received in the war until it healed. He built a store next to the cabin with Jesse Chisholm's help. They named it Neosho Wigwam. We hired Abraham and Rose, a married couple and former slaves, and later Franklin came on. They helped him plant corn and other crops in the fertile soil along the river. ”
“Your Father was a hard worker—when he wasn’t drinking. I could not keep him from drinking, and many nights he didn’t come home. He’d be gone for days before I’d find him sleeping it off in the jail, where the camp commandant, Colonel Arbuckle, would put him for safekeeping. The colonel would help me lift him onto his horse, and I’d take him home. Nothing I did could keep him from the bottle.”
Etsi hated liquor. Many men, and some women, White and Indian, just didn’t know when to leave the bottle. I’d seen men staggering around the streets of Fort Gibson, or lying in alleys, oblivious to the flies attracted to their own filth.
“Why do men drink like that, Etsi?”
“They’re bored, or sad, or lonely, or trying to fit in with other men. I hope you never do it, Sam.”
“I won’t, Etsi. I promise.”
“When he left for Texas, I watched him ride away, not telling him I was pregnant.”
“Why didn't you tell him?”
“I was afraid he’d stay. He was a hard man to live with. It was such a relief when he was gone.” A soft look came over her. “You were born in August 1833. A year later, I wrote to him and told him I’d named you Sam; told him the Cherokee called you Colonneh Usdi. I didn’t tell him your Cherokee name to protect it from whatever evil may have surrounded him. He wrote back, begging me to bring you to Texas.”
“How come we didn’t go?”
"Most whites will not accept a marriage between two races. I've told you before how white people view us. It would have been a constant struggle for me to live in the white world. I loved your Father with all my heart, but I just could not live surrounded by hate. If we had been there when he died, we would not have had his protection, and we would have had to leave."
She bowed her head, and I saw a single tear roll down her face. “In May 1836, I heard he had died at San Jacinto. I wish he had met you, but it was such a struggle to live with him.”
My struggle was only beginning.