(Theme music) JENNIFER LOREN>> Coming up, Cherokee novelist and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Margaret Verble, takes on inaccurate Native history and representation through literature.

MARGARET VERBLE>> I absolutely feel like I have a duty to correct this history that people have been taught.

Oh yeah, I feel an absolute moral passion about that.

JENNIFER>> Plus.... REBECCA JIM>> And I'll never forget what he said, I see an eternal flow of evil.

And it is evil, but it also is something that can be fixed.

JENNIFER>> Tar Creek is one of the most heavily polluted waterways in the U.S.

But water protector, Rebecca Jim, is determined to rescue it.

And, the red wolf is the most endangered wolf species in the world.

Learn about it's cultural significance to the Cherokee people and why saving the red wolf from extinction is important to our tribe.

DR.

CANDESSA TEHEE>> So, I've always grown up thinking about wolves having a spiritual significance, that wolves are protectors.

(Theme music begins) MAN 1>> The Cherokees.

WOMAN 1>> A thriving American Indian tribe.

MAN 2>> Our history... WOMAN 2>> our culture... WOMAN 3>> our people... MAN 1>> our future.

MAN 3>> The principles of a historic nation MAN 1>> sewn into the fabric of the modern world.

WOMAN 2>> Hundreds of thousands strong... WOMAN 3>> learning... WOMAN 1>> growing... MAN 1>> succeeding... MAN 3>> and steadfast.

WOMAN 1>> In the past, we have persevered through struggle, WOMAN 2>> but the future is ours to write.

MAN 1>> Osiyo!

WOMAN 2>> Osiyo.

WOMAN 1>> Osiyo!

MAN 1>> These are the voices of the Cherokee people.

(Theme music fades out) CHUCK HOSKIN JR.>> Osiyo.

Welcome to the Cherokee Nation.

I'm Principal Chief, Chuck Hoskin, Jr.

For generations others have told the Cherokee story.

But now, through this groundbreaking series, we're taking ownership of our own story and telling it as authentically and beautifully as possible.

I hope you enjoy these profiles of Cherokee people, language, history, and culture.

Wado.

JENNIFER>> Osiyo.

It's how we say, 'Hello' in Cherokee.

I'm your host, Jennifer Loren at the Saline Courthouse Museum near Rose, Oklahoma.

Here you can learn about the history of criminal justice in the Cherokee Nation.

Later, in our Cherokee almanac, we'll learn about some pivotal crimes in Cherokee history that still hold mystery today.

KRYSTEN MOSER>> This is already such a tumultuous time period for Cherokee Nation and for these murders to occur in such a short timeframe, really compounds the effect that they have on the community.

JENNIFER>> We'll have more on that a little bit later in our Cherokee Almanac.

But first, Margaret Verble is an author of historical fiction and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Inspired to correct the falsehoods perpetuated by some written histories, Margaret says she never had to choose what to write about.

(Upbeat music plays) MARGARET VERBLE>> The taller boy, still facing the house, studied the paint on the door.

He hadn't, in recent memory, been through a painted door.

I'm Margaret Verble.

I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and I'm a novelist.

I've been lookin' at this house for a long time.

And, but had never, this is the first time I have ever been in it.

And I'm, I'm thrilled to be in it.

I can be at home in many different places, but I'm never more at home than I am in the Arkansas River bottoms.

This house is used in two of my books.

In both of those novels they would have been able to hear the roar of the Arkansas River.

And I imagine this room as Check's study or, or office, where there are all sorts of scenes in the book.

I was raised in a time where the U.S.

Indian policy was that they were gonna get rid of non-reservation Indians.

So, we were somewhat politically aware of, and even as a child, I was politically aware of the plan.

The plan was they were just gonna phase out the Cherokees.

So, I grew up thinking that the older people in my family were gonna be completely eradicated and lost.

I remember vividly as a child deciding I was gonna do somethin' about that.

I learned a lot of Cherokee history.

And these people came alive in my mind.

I got into writing fiction because I just got to where I could feel my fingers feeling itchy, and I just had a compulsion to do it.

I have three novels that are published.

They're historical fiction.

And, but they're literary.

They're a reflection of my personality, forged by a wide range of experience.

My mother died when I was in my early 30's.

And her first cousin, who she was extremely close to, sort of took over mothering me.

She's gonna be a hundred years old.

She is the matriarch of our family.

Unfortunately, most of my family has walked on.

They're all gone.

Except in my head, they're very, very much alive.

This is Cherokee America Rogers grave.

And this is who I based Cherokee America Singer on, and who is the title character of Cherokee America.

She lived a long time and she was, she was a very headstrong woman.

She ran a huge potato farm.

They just shipped potatoes out of Fort Gibson all over the United States until the Depression.

My first published book was Maud's Line.

I set Maud's Line in 1927.

And it's really a low point in Cherokee history.

It was extremely successful in terms of, you know, being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, which you can't, you know, you can't ask for anything more for a first novel.

And she said, This is gonna change your life, and she was right.

It did.

Bein' a finalist is just like striking gold.

I set that novel up so that it was a sequel to Cherokee America.

My second book centers on a woman that I've called Cherokee America Singer.

But she was really in real life named Cherokee America Rogers.

And she was a daughter of Gideon Morgan, who led the Cherokees against the Creeks at the Battle of the Horseshoe.

My third novel is When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky.

But what I really wanted to write about in depth was the history of Nashville.

Because when I was growing up, we learned that history entirely from a White perspective, and it was all these innocent White people had come here to live.

And for some reason these savage Indians were tryin' to kill 'em.

We first learned that in fourth grade.

Well, by the fourth grade, I, I knew that that just was not correct.

And my mother was a fourth-grade teacher, and she had to teach that.

That really, really has bothered me all my life.

(Upbeat music ends) (Slow music plays) I wanted to present an alternative to that history.

And I think I was able to do that in that book.

I absolutely feel like I have a duty to correct this history that people have been taught.

Oh yeah, I feel an absolute moral passion about that.

I feel like my ancestors want me to do this.

I feel that very, very strongly.

(Slow music ends) (Theme music) JENNIFER>> Rebecca Jim is a lifelong environmentalist and water protector who has devoted herself to a noble goal, cleaning up Tar Creek.

The eleven-mile-long creek in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, is one of the most heavily polluted bodies of water in the country.

Nevertheless, Rebecca's faith in her work never waivers.

REBECCA JIM>> Well, I think there's never been a time I didn't believe that (Slow music plays) we were part of the earth and that we should be all doing something for it.

My name's Rebecca Jim, and I'm the Executive Director for L.E.A.D.

Agency.

But I'm also the Tar Creek keeper with the Water Keeper Alliance.

And we're north of Vinita, Oklahoma.

I would say we're in what was the Cooweescoowee District of the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory.

I've always known I was Cherokee.

I've always known that.

Always grew up knowing it.

My mother was non-Indian, but my, my dad was Indian.

Being tied to this land has always been important to us and to the family.

(Slow music ends) (Upbeat music plays) I grew up in West Texas.

I was born there, and moved back to this land when I was 21.

I really became an activist, I would say, in the latter part of the 70s, and I never quit being one.

L.E.A.D.

Agency stands for Local Environmental Action Demanded Agency.

And we organized to be a voice for an environmental justice site that had no other organization speaking for them.

Yeah.

We organized in 1997.

We have this Vinita address, but we also have an office in Miami, Oklahoma.

Tar Creek is only 11 miles long.

It flows out of Kansas and it flows through a mining site that was one of the largest lead and zinc mining sites in the world.

It then travels on and connects to the Neosho River.

And from there the Neosho joins the Grand Lake O' the Cherokees.

Down that creek we have a million and a half gallons of heavy metals coming in solution, straight out of an aquafer that's been poisoned by the mining.

One of my former students, he was a tenth-grade student, and he looked over the bridge where that bad water mixes with the, with Tar Creek, and I asked him, I said, What do you see?

And I'll never forget what he said.

He said, I see an eternal flow of evil.

And it is evil.

But it also is something that can be fixed.

(Ominous music ends) (Slow music plays) In April, I believe it was on Earth Day, the American Rivers Association announced the ten most endangered rivers.

They do that every year.

Last year, Tar Creek was one of those rivers.

But this year we were too.

And so, the rivers that we stand with that are endangered are as mighty as the Mississippi, and as long as the Colorado.

And we're Number 10 in that list.

We are endangered and we are fixable.

And we are put on that list because there's an opportunity for people to speak up to the agencies that have power.

We're hoping that people will respond and help speak for a creek that can't speak for herself.

There are hundreds of water keepers around the world.

It's an international organization now.

So, there are bay keepers, ocean keepers.

There are only two creek keepers in the organization.

Each of these people has found a water body that they can care about so deeply they can fight for it.

And so, I, I stand with them, and I'm proud to do that.

Tar Creek's gonna be fixed.

It's going to get all the attention it needs.

That's gonna happen.

Yeah, I have no doubt that it can be done.

But it shouldn't of taken this long.

It didn't have to be this way.

The fish in Grand Lake didn't have to have lead in them.

They do, and they didn't have to.

I would imagine that intrinsically, we have that inside us; to understand that we are a part of something much bigger.

And also a part of what's beneath our feet.

I can see the vast possibilities that we have we must protect.

I don't know when there was a beginning to that.

I just know it's my life's work.

(Slow music ends) (Theme music) JENNIFER>> In September of 1897, multiple people were murdered around the Cherokee Nation Courthouse in what used to be called the Saline District.

These murders were dubbed the Saline Courthouse Massacre, and there are still unanswered questions surrounding these deaths today.

(Upbeat music plays) Still standing near Rose, Oklahoma, is the Saline Courthouse.

This building was one of nine courthouses built by Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory before Oklahoma statehood.

However, for many in the surrounding community, it's a reminder of painful memories in Cherokee history.

KRYSTAN MOSER>> During this time period, as White settlers continued to pour into Indian Territory, the U.S.

government also imposed its legal authority over those settlers in Indian Territory.

And it was vitally important for Cherokee Nation to assert its Tribal sovereignty by preserving its own judicial system.

JENNIFER>> On November 20th of 1883, the Cherokee National Council appropriated $9,000 to construct courthouses to serve as judicial centers for each district.

TURNER PRICE>> When the Saline Courthouse was built in the location it is now, it sat near the home of James Teehee.

So, when they would hold court days here, I mean everybody came out 'cause got to gather, you get to see people.

JENNIFER>> The courthouse served as the judicial hub for the Saline District for 14 years.

Unfortunately, the stories that are often remembered about this place center around murder.

KRYSTAN>> When most people hear of the Saline Courthouse, they think of an incident that occurred on September 20 1897, that locals refer to as the Saline Courthouse Massacre.

JENNIFER>> Three Cherokee citizens, Tom Baggett, Dave Ridge, and Jesse Sunday were all murdered.

TURNER>> So, when they would gather around the Saline Courthouse for these court days, it tended to get rowdy.

So, Tom would usually close up early that day just to kinda stay out of it.

And Dave Ridge, who's the incoming sheriff of the Saline District, was actually sent to the store by his wife to pick up groceries.

And they're going back and forth for some time before a shot rings out back behind them and Tom Baggett falls back into his window, dead.

(Sound of gunshot) LISA MELCHIOR>> He must a made somebody mad because they shot him through the window.

And per his wife, he fell into the arms of his mother-in-law, and that's where he died.

According to some local legends, Sheriff-elect, Dave Ridge saw who murdered the storekeeper, Tom Baggett, and on that same day would meet that same grizzly fate.

KRYSTEN>> Dave Ridge seems to have assumed that the shot came from the woods, and he pursued the shooter on foot.

TURNER>> By this time it's dark.

And as Dave is comin' down the road, he meets a man named Sampson Rogers.

Dave says, Sampson, I saw you shoot Tom Baggett at the General Store.

And Sampson says, Is that what you're gonna tell people?

And he clubs Dave over the head with something that was blunt.

JENNIFER>> Two men were dead; Sheriff-elect Dave Ridge and General Store owner, Tom Baggett.

News of the murders reached Saline District Sheriff, Jesse Sunday.

KRYSTEN>> The next day, Sheriff Jess Sunday deputized his cousin, Leonard Bolin and they went out to gather information.

They actually stopped at Jim Teehee's house and spoke with two men who were there.

TURNER>> Martin Rowe was sitting on the porch, and Jess and Martin were friends.

So, Jess goes to talk to Martin and ask him if he's heard anything.

Well, as Martin's walkin' towards him in the darkness, he opened fires on Jess, and takes off runnin' for the brush.

JENNIFER>> When the dust settled from this tragic event, the Cherokee Nation Judicial System went to work trying to solve the murders of these three Cherokee men.

Although it is widely assumed that Sampson Rogers killed Tom Baggett, he was never arrested for the crime.

Sampson Rogers was arrested for the murder of Sheriff-elect Dave Ridge.

But he was acquitted.

Sheriff Jesse Sunday's murder was attributed to a Saline community member named Martin Rowe.

Rowe was initially sentenced to hang for Sunday's death, but local citizens petitioned the judge's ruling on his behalf.

And Martin Rowe's sentence was commuted instead to ten years in prison.

KRYSTEN> This is already such a tumultuous time period for Cherokee Nation and for these murders to occur in such a short timeframe really compounds the effect that they have on the community.

JENNIFER>> But before Cherokee courts could fully deal with the murders, the Curtis Act passed in 1898.

This U.S.

legislation undermined the Cherokee Judicial System.

And in 1902, the Saline Courthouse was sold at auction.

TURNER>> Under the Wilma Mankiller administration in 1988, Cherokee Nation actually re-acquired the Saline Courthouse.

JENNIFER>> Today, the Saline Courthouse is the last remaining original district courthouse of the Cherokee Nation.

Many details of the Saline Massacre remain unknown, and the tragedy is a mystery that may never be solved.

(Music ends) (Language segment music begins) GASILA>> (Speaking Cherokee language) SINASD>> (Speaking Cherokee language) GASILA>> (Speaking Cherokee language) SINASD>> (Speaking Cherokee language) GASILA>> (Speaking Cherokee language) SINASD>> (Speaking Cherokee language) GASILA>> (Speaking Cherokee language) SINASD>> (Speaking Cherokee language) GASILA>> (Speaking Cherokee language) (Language segment music ends) (Theme music) JENNIFER>> In the Cherokee language, wolf is, Waya.

But the red wolf holds a significant and sacred title to our people; Gigage Uniduda which means, red grandfather.

In the 19th century colonization and hunting practices pushed the red wolf to near extinction.

But a nationwide network of conservation experts are doing their best to help our red grandfather survive.

(Wolf howling) (Slow music plays) MAN #1>> A red wolf is a very interesting creature and there's a lot of misunderstanding about it.

MAN #2>> They are the apex predator.

They are the top of the food chain.

They are the animal that kinda runs and makes sure that the ecosystem is healthy.

WOMAN #1>> There is definitely something about a red wolf that it's, I mean it has its own elegance to it.

MAN #3>> Red wolves have been portrayed so poorly and wrongly in stories, and folklore, and media as this, you know, demon species that's goin' after everything it can get its, you know, paws on or teeth on.

But it's just not accurate.

(Wolf howling) CROSSLIN SMITH>> Way back, I don't know whether it was in this continent, or whether it was back in the Old World, there were seven medicine people.

They were called upon to form a circle, join hands, gettin' rid of all animosity and negative things.

They were turned to the left and faced away from the circle.

They were told to go in their direction until they saw some form of animal.

The one that went to the south saw a wolf.

He come back.

He reported.

That become the Wolf Clan.

BUD SQUIRREL>> I belong to the, to the Wolf Clan of the Cherokee Nation.

The wolves are part of, part of the Creator, you know.

He deemed them to be here as far as I'm concerned.

They were the lookout.

They would watch from the mountain tops, watch next to the rivers.

(Wolves howling) JENNIFER>> In Cherokee origin stories, it is said that the wolves who once lived among us were greatly respected.

They spoke to humans, held council, ceremonies, and were often our protectors and teachers.

DR.

CANDESSA TEHEE>> In, in thinking about the way that Cherokees relate to the natural world, we don't place ourselves higher than the things around us.

I've always been told that it's not just people that have the ability to make decisions, and that have... I can't think of another way to say it though, like a spirit.

You should honor the animal spirit.

So, I've always grown up thinking about wolves having a, a spiritual significance, that, that wolves are, you know, protectors.

JENNIFER>> Before European contact in the Old Cherokee Nation in what is now the Southeastern U.S., nature and animals were seen as equals to humans, deserving of respect.

We believed in maintaining the natural balance of the world around us, so we protected wolves as they protected us.

When Europeans arrived, everything changed.

(Upbeat music plays) EMILY WELLER>> The red wolf is listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

The technical definition of endangered is a species that is in danger of extinction.

Extinction is, is forever.

JOE MADISON>> She's moved some since we came by before.

I can barely see its head above the vegetation.

So, historically, red wolves were found throughout the entire Southeastern United States; healthy population that covered a large geographic area of the United States, and they were only found within what is now the, the boundary of the United States.

But through federal bounty programs and deliberate attempts to remove predators from the landscape, and through habitat fragmentation and destruction as European settlers developed the land, the red wolf population began to shrink steadily until they were only found in small parts of Texas and Louisiana.

JENNIFER>> The red wolf population hit an all-time low in the 1970s.

That's when the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service made a bold and unprecedented move, and captured the remaining red wolves to save them from extinction.

Today, the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service runs the Red Wolf Recovery Program.

Partnered with nearly 50 other organizations, there are now more than 275 red wolves bred in captivity, some of which become candidates for release into the wild.

CHRIS LASHER>> All the wolves under human care are in 49 different partners, and those include normal zoos, nature centers, and even some specialized wolf care centers.

REGINA MOSSOTTI>> So, this morning our goal is to catch Aster and Reed (fading out).

One of the biggest reasons that wolves were eradicated is because people fear them.

You think of what you've grown up with, Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, werewolf movies.

There's always this negative connotation about wolves as this big, bad wolf.

When in reality they're not like that at all.

They are shy.

They want nothing to do with people.

They wanna take care of their families and their kids.

That's one of the reasons I love them so much is their family mimics our family a lot.

CHRIS>> Everybody who takes care of red wolves under human care know we're doing it for these animals to be wild and free.

We want them to be in the wild.

JENNIFER>> With successful red wolf breeding operations in zoos and other facilities around the U.S., conservationists' goal is to re-introduce them in the wild, here in eastern North Carolina.

Today, this is the only place on earth where red wolves live in the wild, and there are fewer than 30 here.

JOE>> Well, the hope is to get back to havin' a healthy, viable population here in the wild, to increase tolerance, and for them breeding pairs to increase to the point where they're able to find naturally mates of their own, and they need less intervention by people.

Red wolves have intrinsic value.

They evolved in this, this ecosystem and the psychology of this area.

And the other species that were here, and the plants, and the birds, and the mammals it all, it's all interconnected.

And when you take out a piece, especially an apex predator such as the red wolves, it doesn't have as healthy of an ecosystem.

It just doesn't, you know, the species, an amazing species that deserves to be out on the landscape.

DR.

TEHEE>> I think the red wolves and wolves are kind of symbolic of this larger mismatch in, in, in Western world view and in Indigenous world view.

Whereas, you know, I, and I hate to paint with a really broad brushstroke, but by and large Indigenous communities have sustainability at the forefront, have harmony and balance; especially those are really inherently Cherokee values; harmony and balance.

And you can't be in harmony and balance with your surrounding if your urge is to dominate, if your urge is to have power over.

And so, when we started thinking about how can we rehabilitate the image of the wolf for the larger population, you're kind of almost asking for a change of heart.

(Music fades out) JENNIFER LOREN>> We hope you enjoyed our show.

And remember, you can always watch entire episodes and share your favorite stories online at Osiyo.tv.

There is no Cherokee word for goodbye because we know we'll see you again.

We say, Dodadagohv'i, Wado.

(Theme music) (Theme music)