John Rollin Ridge

John Rollin Ridge
Born	Chee-squa-ta-law-ny (Yellow Bird) – more accurately, "tsisgwa daloni" (1827-03-19)March 19, 1827 New Echota, Cherokee Nation (now Georgia)
Died	October 5, 1867(1867-10-05) (aged 40) Grass Valley, California
Cause of death	encephalitis lethargia ("Brain fever")
Resting place	Grass Valley, California
Nationality	American, British
Other names	Chee-squa-ta-law-ny (Yellow Bird)
Citizenship	London
Occupation(s)	Novelist, newspaperman
Spouse	Elizabeth Wilson
Parent(s)	John Ridge Sarah Bird Northrup
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John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee name: Cheesquatalawny, or Yellow Bird,^[1] March 19, 1827 – October 5, 1867), a member of the Cherokee Nation, is considered the first Native American novelist. After moving to California in 1850, he began to write. He is known for his novel The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit (1854), based on a notorious outlaw of the period.

His father John Ridge had been assassinated in 1839 in Indian Territory, after removal, by Cherokee who condemned his having signed a treaty to cede communal land to the United States. Ridge was taken by his mother to Fayetteville, Arkansas, for safety. He later attended school in Massachusetts. After returning to Arkansas, he read the law, set up a practice and married.

In 1850 he went West in the California Gold Rush, where his wife and daughter later joined him. There he started writing – both poetry and essays. In his novel and other works, he criticized American racism toward Mexicans, several years after the war by which the United States acquired California and much of the Southwest. After the American Civil War, he was among the Cherokee delegation that negotiated a new treaty for peace with the United States.