Love-Sarah Bird Northup (1804-1856) and John Ridge (1802-1839)

The most dramatic love story in my family tree is not actually the story of a direct ancestor, but the story of my great aunt Sarah Bird Northrup. Sarah was the oldest daughter of John Prout Northup and Lydia Camp. Her family was not wealthy, but she was descended from some of the first Connecticut settlers. Her father was the steward of the Cornwall missionary school, one of the few schools that accepted Cherokee Students.

Sarah Bird Northup

John Ridge was the son of a wealthy Cherokee chief. His father, Major Ridge, realized that the Cherokee needed educated leaders from the next generation and he sent his son to Connecticut to gain that education. While there John developed a serious illness and was moved into the Northrup home. Sarah was often asked to help care for him and the two young people fell in love. At the time prejudice against in racial marriage strong in American society and when Sarah’s parents found out their daughter and the young Cherokee were intending to marry they objected vigorously. John’s parents were similarly dismayed hoping that their son could be convinced to marry a wealthy Cherokee woman, who would enhance their political connections.

John and Sarah were firm, however, and their parents agreed that if after being separated for one year they still wanted to marry they would give their consent. The couple agreed and John returned to Cherokee nation while Sarah stayed in Connecticut.

One year later, John returned to claim his bride with a carriage and horses and four African slaves in full livery. When Sarah’s mother asked her if she loved John Ridge she answered simply “I do.” They were married on January 27th, 1824 in Cornwall, Connecticut, and they faced the full force of society’s wrath. Newspapers printed scathing blasts against the couple, and rumors ran wild about the Northrup family, some saying that John Northrup was insane. The mission school where they met was forced to close, and Sarah’s family was forced out of Connecticut for good. John and Sarah left immediately for Georgia. There they spent more than ten happy years and had six children. However, the political tensions of the time were not long in over-taking them.

John Ridge

John Ridge and his father, who had for years fought to keep the Cherokee’s land, became convinced that the only way forward for the Cherokee was to give up all land in the east and move west. They believed that the eastern land would be taken whether they sold it or not and the Nation’s only hope was to move west voluntarily. Opposing them was the Principal Chief John Ross and his faction. They were vehemently against any ceding of land and even spoke of re-instating blood-law, allowing for the killing of anyone who sold Indian land to the white men. Never-the-less in 1835, John Ridge, his father, and several other Cherokee chieftains signed the treaty of New Echota, ceding Cherokee land in the East. John and his family moved west to Honey Creek in Indian Territory, just west of the Arkansas border. In 1838 the United States government used the Treaty the Ridges had signed as a justification for what came to be known as the Trail of Tears. Fifteen thousand Cherokee were removed from their homes in Georgia and forced to march west. As many as four thousand died and all this suffering was blamed on the Ridges and their allies.

John Ridge was assassinated on June 22nd 1839 by a pro-Ross faction of Cherokee. John and Sarah’s son describe his death as follows “I saw my father in the hands of assassins. He endeavored to speak to them, but they shouted and drowned his voice, for they were instructed not to listen to him for a moment, for fear they would be persuaded not to kill him. They dragged him into the yard, and prepared to murder him. Two men held him by the arms and others by the body, while another stabbed him deliberately with a dirk twenty-nine times. My mother rushed out to the door, but they pushed her back with their guns into the house, and prevented her egress until their act was finished, when they left the place quietly. My father fell to the earth, but did not immediately expire. My mother ran out to him. “He raised himself on his elbow and tried to speak, but the blood flowed into his mouth and prevented him. In a few moments more he died, without speaking that last word which he wished to say.”

Sarah out lived her husband by seventeen years. She fought for her children’s inheritance when John’s sister attempted to disinherit them. She started the premier school for women in Arkansas, which accepted both Cherokee and white students. Her house is the oldest still standing in Fayetteville Arkansas.