Cherokee Leader & CSA Colonel John Drew CDV Portrait

Rare albumen CDV portrait. Contemporary ink inscription to mount verso reads “Do not copy this picture copy the Tin Type”.

In a handsome half-length studio portrait, John Drew looks directly at the camera wearing fine Western-style clothes including a patterned waistcoat and a silk cravat.

John Thompson Drew (1796-1865) was a mixed-race political and military leader of the Cherokee Nation. In the 1830s, he led a company of Cherokee emigrants from Georgia to Indian Territory and established a government there. He was a plantation owner who enslaved several people. As a captain in the Cherokee Milita, he participated in capturing 25 escaped slaves after a revolt in 1852.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Cherokee allied with the Confederacy, in part due to existing affinities with the seceded states and also in opposition to Seward’s promotion of white settlement in Indian Territory. In October 1861 after the Cherokee-Confederate treaty was signed, Principal Chief John Ross authorized the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles and designated John Drew as their commanding colonel. Many of those who enlisted were full-blooded Cherokees who were loyal to Chief Ross, but uncommitted to the goals of the Confederacy. In contrast, the Second Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Rifles, commanded by Stand Watie, was composed of mixed-blood (Métis) Cherokee, many of whom were slaveholders who favored the Confederate cause.

Remaining in Indian Territory, Drew’s regiment was assigned to prevent the Union-aligned Creek to flee to Kansas. Although they saw action at the Battles of Round Mountain, Chusto-Talasah, and Chustenahlah, many of the enlisted men disliked fighting other Native Americans rather than invading Yankees, as they had expected. By late 1861, a large portion of the troops had deserted forcing a reorganization and consolidation of both Cherokee regiments into the First Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Rifles with Watie in command.

[Native Americana, Cherokee, Early Photography, CDV, Carte de Visite, Albumen Photography] [Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Tintype, CDV, Albumen, carte-de-visite, Salt print, Cabinet Card]