Yonaguska

Yonaguska was a leading chief of the Cherokee communities living along the Oconaluftee River in the mountains of western North Carolina during the early nineteenth century. He became an important political and spiritual leader and strongly opposed the pressures that produced Cherokee removal from the Southeast.

Yonaguska adopted the white trader and lawyer William Holland Thomas, who later represented the community’s interests in dealings with state and federal authorities. The Oconaluftee Cherokees avoided the mass removal of the Trail of Tears and became an important foundation of the modern Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

In Charles Frazier’s Thirteen Moons, the novel’s central figures are fictional, but Will and Bear are loosely shaped by William Holland Thomas and the Cherokee leader Yonaguska. Additional non-fiction treatment of Yonaguska comes from Hourly History’s The Cherokee.