William Penn Adair ( 1830 – 1880 ) was a leader of the Cherokee Nation , an attorney who served in political office both before and after the American Civil War , and as a justice of their court . He entered the Confederate States Army on the promise that the Confederacy would support an Indian state if it won the war , and achieved the rank of colonel . He served as delegate from the Nation to Washington , DC during the 1860s and 1870s . Born in the traditional Cherokee territory in Georgia , he traveled as a child with his family on the Trail of Tears of Indian Removal from the Southeast to Indian Territory ( now Oklahoma ) . William Penn Adair was born on April 15 , 1830 , in the old Cherokee Nation in New Echota , Georgia . His parents were George Washington Adair ( 1806-1862 ) and Martha ( née Martin ) Adair . The family was forced to remove to Indian Territory in 1838 , a process which their people called the Trail of Tears , because of the loss of their lands and the high number of deaths along the way . Adair attended Cherokee schools in Indian Territory , and studied law . He became a Freemason , belonging to the Vinita Lodge No. 5 , which was chartered in 1875 . He was described as being " six foot and two inches in height , magnetic , logical and frankly agreeable , the ablest and most brilliant of all Cherokees . " Adair married Sarah Ann McNair . After her death , he married again , to Susannah " Sue " McIntosh Drew . He lived on land along the Grand River in what is now Adair , Oklahoma . It was named for him
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
William Penn Adair