Lewis Downing, Baptist Minister and Cherokee Chief

Baptists and the American Civil War: September 8, 1865

Today in Fort Smith, Oklahoma, a preliminary post-war, intertribal peace conference between the Cherokee nation and United States commissioners begins. While most Cherokees allied with the United States during the second half of the war, some remained with the Confederacy, thus creating competing leadership factions within the nation. Representing the Cherokee nation today is Chief…