Tahlonteeskee

The capital was named for a chief who had been dead ten years. Tahlonteeskee, written Ata'lunti'ski in Cherokee and translated as The Disturber or The Upsetter, went west from Tennessee in 1809 among the first of the Old Settlers and led the Cherokee Nation-West from 1817 until his death in the spring of 1819. His brother John Jolly, who did not speak English, succeeded him, moved west again after the 1828 treaty and named the new capital for him. During Jolly's term the western Nation adopted a three-branch constitution. Jolly died near Webbers Falls in December 1838.

What the plaque says

Tahlonteeskee Western Cherokee capitol, 1829-39, and court ground for Cherokee Nation. Named for the chief who secured the establishment of Dwight mission in Arkansas Ter. His brother, John Jolly, served at this capitol as chief, and Sam Houston often visited here. It was Chief Jolly who had given Houston the famous name "The Raven"--Colonah-- an old, Cherokee war title. Oklahoma Historical Society 81-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Gibson Historic Site — 22 mi
  The army's first post in what became Oklahoma, built at Three Forks in 1824, where removed nations arrived; deeded to the Cherokee in 1857, it later housed the Dawes Commission.
• Honey Springs Battlefield — 23 mi
  The July 17, 1863 battlefield on the Texas Road, the largest fight in Indian Territory, where Cherokee and Muscogee regiments fought on both sides and the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry held.
• Sequoyah's Cabin Museum — 24 mi
  The log cabin near Akins where Sequoyah, who gave the Cherokee language its syllabary, settled in 1829, kept since 2016 by the Cherokee Nation inside a stone shelter of 1936.

More markers nearby

• Webbers Falls — 2.9 mi
• Dwight Mission — 12 mi
• Cephas Washburn, Founding Missionary, Dwight Mission — 14 mi
• Tamaha Jail and Ferry Landing — 17 mi