Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Waite, Stand

WAITE, Stand, Indian soldier, b. in old Cherokee Nation, 15 Feb., 1810; d. there, 12 Aug., 1867. He attended a Moravian school at Brainard, where the Moravians had a mission in the Cherokee Nation. He claimed descent on his father's side from a Spanish officer of the followers of De Soto, who left the Spaniards when they passed through the Cherokee country and married a Cherokee woman. His mother was a sister of Charles Reese, who distinguished himself under Jackson at the battle of the Horse Shoe. He was fond of reading, and could write well in English, but never learned to speak it well. He was noted for his silence, but was always an attentive listener. Though small in stature, he was exceedingly strong and active, and was a famous ball-player. When the troubles of the Cherokees regarding their lands in Georgia occurred Stand Waite and his brother, Elias Boudinot, the Rogers, John Adair, and others attended and participated in what was known as the Schimmerhorn treaty in 1835, by which they ceded their lands in Georgia in exchange for lands in the west. A large number of the Cherokees repudiated the treaty and refused to move, but they were compelled to do so by the government. It was in 1839, after the immigration was over, that a council was held to determine what should be done about it. The council was an informal one, and was held at Double Springs. No one knew what was decided to be done until it was done. Elias Boudinot was then living at the Park Hill mission station. One morning not long after the council he was tomahawked to death. On the same day Major Ridge and his brother, John Ridge, were killed. Stand Waite was to have been killed also, but received warning in time to make his escape. From that time until 1846 blood flowed in the Cherokee Nation like water. Waite took no active hand in the feud except once, when he accidentally met just over the line in Arkansas the leader of the band who had killed his uncle, Major Ridge. Him he killed, for which be was duly tried in Fayetteville, and furnished an occasion for a famous lawyer of that period, named Arrington, to make one of the greatest speeches of his life. The treaty of 1839 buried the hatchet between the hostile parties, and Stand Waite applied himself to business and soon acquired a fortune. On the breaking out of the civil war he took sides with the Confederates, and was chosen colonel of Cherokee regiment of infantry in October, 1861. He was appointed brigadier-general, 10 May, 1864, his command consisting of the 1st and 2d Creek regiments of infantry, a Cherokee battalion of infantry, a Seminole battalion of infantry, and an Osage battalion. He was chief of the Cherokee Nation from October, 1862, to September, 1865.