CHRISTIAN PRIBER’S CHEROKEE EMPIRE

CHRISTIAN PRIBER’S CHEROKEE EMPIRE

 

 

 

Some one hundred years before the Cherokees were forced to leave Georgia, Christian Gottlieb Priber tried to organize them into an empire.  The brilliant Priber, representing himself as a Jesuit priest, entered the territory in 1736.

 

At the time England, France and Spain were struggling for control of the Southeast.  Priber was working for France and possibly for Spain.  He attempted to unify the Cherokees under an emperor with himself as the chief backstage string-puller.  He nearly succeeded.

 

Before he completed his work, he was captured near Fort Toulouse, Alabama, by English traders in 1739.  Self-proclaimed as “his Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State,” he was taken to Frederica and imprisoned.  Priber was no ordinary backwoods fanatic.  He knew Latin, Greek, German, English, French, Spanish and had compiled a Cherokee dictionary.  He died at Frederica sometime after 1744 and with him died his dreams of a communal utopia in the Cherokee territory.  Nearly eighty years later the Cherokees did unite and form a sovereign nation, some of which was in Georgia.

 

 

(Used by permission, History of Dade County Georgia, Retired Senior Volunteer Program, 1981.)

1 Comment

  1. verenicehawkins

    March 6, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    Rising Fawn is Indian. The Cherokees lived here. There is one house still standing that the first 2 rooms were built of logs by the Cherokees. Read the articles about the Benges.


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