Chieftains Museum | |
 Chieftain House | |
   | |
| Location | 501 Riverside Pkwy NE, Rome, Georgia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°16′38″N 85°10′13″W / 34.27710°N 85.17019°W |
| Built | 1819 |
| Architect | Major Ridge |
| NRHP reference No. | 71000273 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | April 7, 1971[1] |
| Designated NHL | November 7, 1973[2] |
Chieftains Museum, also known as the Major Ridge Home, is a two-story white frame house built around a log house of 1819 in Cherokee country (today it is within present-day Rome, Georgia, United States of America). It was the home of the Cherokee leader Major Ridge. He was notable for his role in negotiating and signing the Treaty of New Echota of 1835, which ceded the remainder of Cherokee lands in the Southeast to the United States. He was part of a minority group known as the Treaty Party, who believed that relocation was inevitable and wanted to negotiate the best deal with the United States for their people.
The chiefs had agreed they could not go to war against the United States on the removal issue, but most other Cherokee opposed Ridge and the Treaty Party. He and some other members of the Treaty Party were assassinated after most of the tribe was removed to what became the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, for having ceded the tribe's communal lands, as this was considered a capital crime.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
- ^ "Chieftains". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on January 31, 2009. Retrieved April 27, 2008.