Cherokee Arts & Humanities Council

Bushyhead went to California during the gold rush remained there and became a well-known and honored citizen whose history is recalled at intervals in newspaper stories published about him in his adopted state. Edward W. Bushyhead and John Rollin Ridge joined the gold-seekers in 1850, going to California.

Edward Wilkerson Bushyhead, born in Cleveland, Tennessee, March 2, 1832,¹ was the son of the Rev. Jesse Bushyhead and Eliza Wilkerson Bushyhead. He was only seven years old when the Cherokees were ruthlessly forced from their comfortable homes in Georgia by white people who were determined to possess themselves of the land of the Indians. Jesse Bushyhead, one of the best-loved and most highly respected men of his nation, led a party of one thousand of his people into the wilderness; this journey was one of terrible hardships, not the least being a delay of one month on the east bank of the Mississippi River, where the ice running madly, prevented the outcasts from proceeding on their way. When the western side of the river was reached a sister was born to young "Ned" Bushyhead and from the place of her birth she was named Missouri, preceded by Eliza in honor of her mother.²