Stand Watie, also known as Standhope Oowatie, Degataga, and Isaac S. Watie, was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States Army during the Civil War.
Watie was born in Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation (Calhoun, Georgia) on December 12, 1806, to David Uwatie, a Cherokee, and Susanna Reese, who was of Cherokee and European heritage and first called Isaac Uwatie. Later, when he grew up, he preferred the English translation of his Cherokee name, Degataga, meaning “Stand Firm,” and the “U” was dropped from “Uwatie.”
Watie was educated at the Moravian Mission School in Spring Place, Cherokee Nation (now Georgia) and by the time he grew up, his father had become a wealthy slave-owning planter. He would later write for the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, which led him into the dispute over the Georgia Anti-Indian laws.
