Songwriter
Becky Hobbs and director Nick Sweet, right, read the script for a musical about
Cherokee Beloved Woman Nancy Ward as Cherokee National Theater Company
President Roy Hamilton, left, listens. PHOTO BY TESINA JACKSON


By TESINA JACKSON
Reporter

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – The stories of Cherokee Beloved Woman Nancy Ward have been told many times. Some tales glorify her as a hero when she took the place in battle of her husband, Kingfisher. Others mark her as a traitor for warning white settlers of approaching Cherokee attacks. For songwriter Becky Hobbs, she tells those stories through music. 

Hobbs first came up with the idea of telling Ward’s story via a musical production after writing some of the songs now in the production back in the 1990s. Today, the production contains 17 songs. 

Nancy Ward, a member of the Wolf Clan, was born in Echota, Ga., and was named Beloved Woman after taking the place of her husband in battle. She later married white trader Bryant Ward. In 1776, after the illegal sale of lands in Tennessee, Nancy Ward’s cousin, Dragging Canoe, organized a series of attacks against white settlers. She sent runners to warn the whites of the approaching attacks. Dragging Canoe was wounded and three of the attacks were unsuccessful. She died in 1822. 

“Nancy Ward was my fifth great-grandmother, and all of my life I knew I was a direct descendent of hers and I always knew that one day I would pay tribute to her somehow,” Hobbs said. “It has been the project of my life.”

It was after meeting Nick Sweet, who directed the Cherokee Heritage Center’s Trail of Tears Drama, and Cherokee National Theater Company President Roy Hamilton at a genealogy conference that the musical “Nanyehi, Beloved Woman of the Cherokee” was set into motion.

“I taught the Cherokee history course at the Cherokee Nation, so I knew quite a bit about Nancy Ward,” Hamilton said. “So my first thoughts were that Nancy Ward has two sides, so I wonder how this will come out. After she (Hobbs) shared the script with me, I listened to the music and I thought, ‘well, this is something I think people would like to see and maybe should see.’”

After a year of writing the script, the production team received a grant from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, which gave the team the ability to conduct extensive research and finalize the script.

“I’ve put together a cultural review team of about five people who went over the script and made critical reviews based on cultural aspects of the play,” Hamilton said. “For me and for the Cherokee National Theater Company, we don’t want to display anything that’s not true to our culture.”

The review team, which met for a three-week long workshop, consisted of several Northeastern State University theater production majors, theater assistant professor Chris Miller, Hobbs and Sweet.

“The purpose of this workshop is to improve the script,” Sweet said. “We thought we were going to be walking into a workshop with a bunch of actors, but most of the people in the workshop are interested in the technical side of theater. So they are interested in going over the script repeatedly until we get it right. NSU has been a tremendous help.”

Although the script is almost finalized, several things are still needed before the musical is performed, including finding a choreographer, casting, finding a venue and setting a premiere date.

“I feel like right now, where we are is a big step for us,” Hobbs said. “This is something we kept working for. My hope is for this to tour all over the country and all over the world and all the way to Broadway and then the big screen. That’s my dream and I’m sticking to it.”

tesina-jackson@cherokee.org • (918) 453-6139