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John Ross (Cherokee chief)

John Ross (ᎫᏫᏍᎫᏫ; October 3, 1790 – August 1, 1866) was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866; he served longer in that position than any other person. Ross led the nation through such tumultuous events as forced removal to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.

Ross was the son of a Cherokee mother and a Scottish father. His mother and maternal grandmother were each of mixed Scots-Cherokee ancestry but brought up in Cherokee culture, and his maternal grandfather was a Scottish immigrant. The Cherokee culture was and still is clan-based and is matrilineal, meaning that a Cherokee inherits their clan affiliation from the mother, and all men in a child’s clan are termed Uncle. Cherokee don’t marry within the same clan. The father fulfills responsibilities to provide for and to be part of the family unit with his wife and Children.

The Cherokee absorbed bicultural descendants into their culture and, by the time of Ross and Ridge, had what could be described as a mixed culture based on traditional Cherokee values but which deeply integrated other cultures, too. As a result, as young John was raised as Cherokee within a high social order, learning about colonial British society was an inherently Cherokee value. As an educated and socially prominent Cherokee, he was bilingual and bicultural. His parents sent him for formal schooling to institutions that served other bicultural Cherokee people. And while non-Native historians have fixated on his blood quantum of one-eighth Cherokee was less than most prominent Cherokees of his time, he was an accepted and effective leader among his people.

At the age of twenty, Ross was appointed as a US Indian agent in 1811. During the War of 1812, he served as adjutant of a Cherokee regiment under the command of Andrew Jackson. After the end of the Red Stick War (which was effectively a civil war among the Creek), Ross started a tobacco plantation in Tennessee. In 1816, he built a warehouse and trading post on the Tennessee River north of the mouth of Chattanooga Creek, and started a ferry service that carried passengers from the south side of the river (Cherokee Nation) to the north side (USA). His businesses served as the start of a community known as Ross's Landing on the Tennessee River (now Chattanooga, Tennessee). Concurrently, Ross developed a keen interest in Cherokee politics and attracted the attention of the Cherokee elders, especially Principal Chiefs Pathkiller and Charles R. Hicks. Together with Major Ridge, they became his political mentors.

Ross first went to Washington, DC, in 1816 as part of a Cherokee delegation to negotiate issues of national boundaries, land ownership, and white encroachment. As the only delegate fluent in English, Ross became the principal negotiator despite his relative youth. When he returned to the Cherokee Nation in 1817, he was elected to the National Council. He became council president in the following year. The majority of the council were men like Ross: wealthy, educated, English-speaking, and of mixed blood. Even the traditionalist full-blood Cherokee perceived that he had the skills necessary to contest the whites' demands that the Cherokee cede their land and move beyond the Mississippi River. In that position, Ross's first action was to reject an offer of $200,000 from the US Indian agent made for the Cherokee to relocate voluntarily. Thereafter Ross made more trips to Washington, even as white demands intensified. In 1824, Ross boldly petitioned Congress for redress of Cherokee grievances, which made the Cherokee the first tribe ever to do so. Along the way, Ross built political support in the US capital for the Cherokee cause.

Both Pathkiller and Charles R. Hicks died in January 1827. Hicks's brother, William, was appointed interim chief. Ross and Major Ridge shared responsibilities for the affairs of the tribe. Because William did not impress the Cherokee as a leader, they elected Ross as permanent principal chief in October 1828, a position that he held until his death.

The problem of removal split the Cherokee Nation politically. Ross, backed by the vast majority, tried repeatedly to stop white political powers from forcing the nation to move. He led a faction that became known as the National Party. Twenty others, who came to believe that further resistance would be futile, wanted to seek the best settlement they could get and formed the "Treaty Party," or "Ridge Party," led by Major Ridge. Treaty Party negotiated with the United States and signed the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835, which required the Cherokee to leave by 1838. Neither Chief Ross nor the national council ever approved this treaty, but the US government regarded it as valid. The majority, about two-thirds of Cherokee people, followed the National Party and objected to and voted against complying with the Treaty of New Echota.

Forced removal spared no one, including Principal Chief Ross, who lost his first wife Quatie (Brown) Ross during the Trail of Tears.

Removal and the subsequent coordinated executions of Treaty Party signers Major Ridge, John Ridge, and former editor of the Cherokee Phoenix Elias Boudinot on June 22, 1839 thrust the Cherokee Nation into a civil war. Despite the Act of Union signed by Old Settlers, (Cherokees who removed west earlier under the Treaties of 1817 and 1819) and the Eastern Emigrants (those forced to remove under Ross's leadership) on July 12, 1839 and the new Cherokee Constitution that followed August 23, 1839, violent reprisals continued through 1846.

Cherokee people continued to elect Ross as Principal Chief through the Civil War Era. Ross hoped to maintain neutrality during the Civil War, but a variety of conditions prevented him from doing so. First, Stand Watie, a political opponent, Treaty Party member, kin to the Ridges, and Boudinot's brother raised a regiment on behalf of the Confederate army. Second, surrounding states seceded. Third, surrounding Native nations signed treaties with the confederacy. And finally, federal troops abandoned the Indian Territory, leaving the Nation to defend itself in violation of treaty commitments. Rather than see the Cherokee Nation divided against itself again, Ross, with the consent of council, signed a treaty with the Confederacy.

For the Cherokee Nation, the Civil War represented the extended divisions created by Removal and the Trail of Tears. Ross supporters largely served under John Drew's regiment. Treaty Party supporters largely served under Stand Watie. During the war, federal troops arrested Ross and removed him from Indian Territory. Many Cherokee people less committed to the Confederacy and more committed to the Cherokee Nation refused to engage in battles against other Native peoples, including those Muscogee Creek people under Opothleyahola seeking refuge in Kansas.

Once outside the Indian Territory, Ross negotiated agreements with the Union for Cherokee support through Indian Home Guard Regiments. Many of those formerly fighting for the Confederacy but loyal to Ross, switched sides to support the Union through the Indian Home Guard.

Ross's absence from Indian Territory provided a political opening for Watie. While Ross was away, those loyal to Watie elected him Principal Chief. When Ross returned, an election was held re-electing him to the office. At those close of the war, those calling themselves the Southern Cherokees under Watie's leadership stepped forward as the rightful negotiators of any treaty, as did Ross as the elected chief.

The US required the Five Civilized Tribes to negotiate new peace treaties after the war. Ross made another trip to Washington, DC, for this purpose. Although Ross had negotiated with Lincoln during the war, his assassination enabled US commissioners to treat the Cherokee Nation as a defeated enemy. As Ross had feared, commissioners used the political divisions to extract greater penalties from the Cherokee Nation. Despite these setbacks, Ross worked to re-establish a unified Cherokee Nation and re-establish a nation-to-nation treaty with the US. He died in Washington, DC on August 1, 1866.

Early life and education

Ross (also known by his Cherokee name, Guwisguwi) was born in Turkeytown (in modern day Alabama), on the Coosa River, to Mollie (née McDonald) and her husband Daniel Ross, an immigrant Scots trader. His siblings who survived to adulthood included Jane Ross Coodey (1787–1844), Elizabeth Grace Ross Ross (1789–1876), Lewis Ross (1796–1870), Andrew 'Tlo-s-ta-ma' Ross (1798–1840), Margaret Ross Hicks (1803–1862), and Maria Ross Mulkey (1806–1838).

Genealogy
Under the matrilineal kinship system of the Cherokee, Ross and his siblings were considered born to his mother's family and Bird Clan. They gained their social status from her people. In such a system, typically the mother's eldest brother had a major role in the children's lives, especially for boys. His mother and grandmother were of mixed race, but also considered part of their mother's Cherokee family and clan, and were brought up primarily in Cherokee culture.

Ross's great-grandmother Ghigooie, a full-blood Cherokee, had married William Shorey, a Scottish interpreter. Their daughter, Anna, married John McDonald, a Scots trader.

Childhood and education
Ross spent his childhood with his parents near Lookout Mountain. Educated in English by white men in a frontier American environment, Ross spoke the Cherokee language poorly. His bi-cultural background and fluency in English enabled him to represent the Cherokee to the United States government. Many full-blood Cherokee frequented his father's trading company, so he encountered tribal members on many levels. As a child, Ross participated in tribal events, such as the Green Corn Festival.

The elder Ross insisted that John also receive a rigorous classical education. After being educated at home, Ross pursued higher studies with the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, who established two schools in southeast Tennessee for Cherokee children. Classes were in English and students were mostly of mixed race, like Ross. The young Ross finished his education at an academy in South West Point, near Kingston, Tennessee.

Bicultural Background of John Ross
Ross's life of other bicultural people in the northern United States and Canada. Many Cherokee people intermarried with Scottish traders during the eighteenth century. Scots and English fur traders in North America were typically men of social status and financial standing who married high-ranking Native American women. Both sides believed these were strategic alliances, helping both the Native Americans and the traders. They educated their children in bi-cultural and multilingual environments. The bicultural children often married and rose to positions of stature in society, both in political and economic terms.

Family life
John Ross survived two wives and had several children. He married the widow Elizabeth "Quatie" (Brown) Henley (1791–1839) in 1812 or 1813. She was a Cherokee, born in 1791 and had one child from her marriage. Her late husband, Robert Henley, may have died during the War of 1812. Quatie Ross died in 1839 in Arkansas on the Trail of Tears as discussed below. She was survived by their children James McDonald Ross (1814–1864), William Allen Ross (1817–1891), Jane Ross Meigs-Nave (1821–1894), Silas Dean Ross (1829–1872) and George Washington Ross (1830–1870).

John Ross remarried in 1844, to Mary Stapler (1826–1865), whom he survived by less than a year. Their surviving children were Annie Brian Ross Dobson (1845–1876) and John Ross Jr. (1847–1905).

Indian agent
At the age of twenty, having completed his education and with bilingual skills, Ross received an appointment as US Indian agent to the western Cherokee and was sent to their territory (in present-day Arkansas). During the War of 1812, he served as an adjutant in a Cherokee regiment. He fought under General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the British-allied Upper Creek warriors, known as the Red Sticks. They were traditionalists, who resisted the assimilationist tendencies of the Lower Creek. The latter had lived more closely with European Americans and adopted some of their practices.

Businessman and founder of Chattanooga
Ross began a series of business ventures which made him among the wealthiest of all Cherokee. He derived the majority of his wealth from cultivating 170 acre tobacco in Tennessee; it was the major commodity crop. He held about 20 enslaved African Americans to cultivate and process this labor-intensive crop.

In 1816 he founded Ross's Landing, served by a ferry crossing. After the Cherokee were removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s, European-American settlers changed the name of Ross's Landing to Chattanooga. In addition, Ross had established a trading firm and warehouse. In total, he earned upwards of $1,000 a year ($ in today's terms).

Under pressure from white settlers in Tennessee, many Cherokee migrated into northeast Georgia. In 1827 Ross moved to Rome, Georgia, to be closer to New Echota, the Cherokee capital. In Rome, Ross established a ferry along the headwaters of the Coosa River close to the home of Major Ridge, an older wealthy and influential Cherokee leader. By December 1836, Ross's properties were appraised at $23,665 ($ today). He was ranked as one of the five wealthiest men in the Cherokee Nation.

Political apprenticeship
Between 1811 and 1827, Ross learned how to conduct negotiations with the United States and acquire leadership skills to run a national government. After 1814, Ross's political career as a Cherokee legislator and diplomat progressed with the support of such individuals as the Principal Chief Pathkiller, Assistant Principal Chief Charles R. Hicks, and Casey Holmes, an elder statesman of the Cherokee Nation, as well as the women elders of his clan.

By 1813, as relations with the United States became more complex, older chiefs such as Pathkiller could not effectively defend Cherokee interests. Ross's ascent showed that Cherokee leaders recognized the importance of having formally educated, English-speaking leaders to represent them. Both Pathkiller and Hicks trained Ross, who served as their clerk and worked on all financial and political matters of the nation. They also steeped him in Cherokee tradition. In a series of letters to Ross, Hicks outlined known Cherokee traditions.

In 1816, the chief's council named Ross to his first delegation to American leaders in Washington, D.C. The delegation of 1816 was directed to resolve sensitive issues, including national boundaries, land ownership, and white encroachment on Cherokee land, particularly in Georgia. Only Ross was fluent in English, making him a central figure, although Cherokee society traditionally favored older leaders.

In November 1817, the Cherokee formed the National Council. Ross was elected to the thirteen-member body, where each man served two-year terms. The National Council was created to consolidate Cherokee political authority after General Andrew Jackson made two treaties with small cliques of Cherokee representing minority factions. Membership in the National Council placed Ross among the Cherokee ruling elite. The majority of the men were wealthy, of mixed-race, and English-speaking. Most Cherokee still spoke only Cherokee.

President of the National Committee
In November 1818, just before the General Council meeting with U.S. Indian agent Joseph McMinn, who was assigned to deal with the Cherokee, Ross became president of the National Committee, a position he would hold through 1827. The Council selected Ross for that leadership position because they believed he had the diplomatic skills necessary to rebuff American requests to cede Cherokee lands. He soon refused McMinn's offer of $200,000 US, conditioned upon the Cherokee voluntarily removing to the west beyond the Mississippi.

In 1819, the Council sent Ross with a delegation to Washington, D.C. He assumed a larger leadership role. The delegation proposed to clarify the provisions of the Treaty of 1817—both to limit the ceded lands and clarify Cherokee right to the remaining lands. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun pressed Ross to cede large tracts of land in Tennessee and Georgia. Although he refused, the US government pressure continued and intensified. In October 1822, Calhoun requested that the Cherokee relinquish their land claimed by Georgia, in fulfillment of the United States' obligation under the Compact of 1802. Before responding to Calhoun's proposition, Ross first ascertained the sentiment of the Cherokee people. They were unanimously opposed to further cession of land.

In January 1824, Ross traveled to Washington to defend the Cherokee possession of their land. Calhoun offered two solutions to the Cherokee delegation: either relinquish title to their lands and remove west, or accept denationalization and become citizens of the United States. Rather than accept Calhoun's ultimatum, Ross directly petitioned Congress for the Cherokee cause on April 15, 1824. This fundamentally altered the traditional relationship between an Indian nation and the US government.

Never before had an Indian nation petitioned Congress with grievances. In Ross's correspondence, what had previously been the tone of petitions by submissive Indians was replaced by assertive defenders. Ross was able to argue subtle points about legal responsibilities as well as whites.

Some politicians in Washington recognized the change represented by Ross's leadership. Future president John Quincy Adams wrote, "[T]here was less Indian oratory, and more of the common style of white discourse, than in the same chief's speech on their first introduction." Adams specifically noted Ross as "the writer of the delegation" and remarked that "they [had] sustained a written controversy against the Georgia delegation with greate[sic] advantage." Georgia's delegation indirectly acknowledged Ross's skill: an editorial published in The Georgia Journal charged that "the Cherokee delegation's letters were fraudulent" because "too refined to have been written or dictated by an Indian".

Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation
In January 1827, Pathkiller, the Cherokee's principal chief and last hereditary chief, and, two weeks later, Charles R. Hicks, Ross's mentor, both died. Ross, as president of the National Committee, and Major Ridge, as speaker of the National Council, were responsible for the affairs of the tribe. In a letter dated February 23, 1827, to Colonel Hugh Montgomery, the Cherokee agent, Ross wrote that with the death of Hicks, he had assumed responsibility for all public business of The Nation. Charles Hicks's brother William served briefly as interim chief until a permanent chief could be elected. Although believing he was the natural heir to his brother's position, William Hicks had not impressed the tribe with his abilities. A majority of the people knew that during the year Ross, not Hicks, had taken care of all of the regular business of the tribe. On October 17, 1828, the Cherokee elected John Ross as principal chief.

Through the 1820s, the Cherokee Council passed a series of laws creating a bicameral national government, adopting structure from the US government. In 1822 they created the Cherokee Supreme Court, capping the creation of a three-branch government. In May 1827, Ross was elected to the twenty-four member constitutional committee. It drafted a constitution calling for a principal chief, a council of the principal chiefs, and a National Committee, which together would form the General Council of the Cherokee Nation, a constitutional republic. Although the constitution was ratified in October 1827, it did not take effect until October 1828, at which point Ross was elected principal chief. He was repeatedly reelected and held this position until his death in 1866. He was very popular, among both full-bloods, who comprised three-fourths of the population, and mixed-bloods.

The Cherokee had created a constitutional republic with delegated authority capable of formulating a clear, long-range policy to protect national rights.

Supreme Court litigation

Ross found support in Congress from individuals in the National Republican Party, such as senators Henry Clay (Kentucky), Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Daniel Webster (Massachusetts), and representatives Ambrose Spencer and David (Davy) Crockett. Despite this support, in April 1829, John H. Eaton, Secretary of War (1829–1831), informed Ross that President Jackson would support the right of Georgia to extend her laws over the Cherokee people.

On December 8, 1829, President Andrew Jackson made a speech announcing his intention to pass a bill through Congress by the following spring requiring Indian tribes living in the Southeastern states to move west of the Mississippi and cede their land claims in the East.

On December 19, 1829, the Georgia legislature, enacted a series of laws that greatly restricted the Cherokee Nation: they confiscated a large section of Cherokee occupied land, nullified Cherokee law within the confiscated area, banned further meetings of the Cherokee government in Georgia, declared contracts between Indians and whites null and void unless witnessed by two whites, disallowed Indians from testifying against a white person in court, and forbade Cherokee to dig for gold on their own lands. The laws were made effective June 1, 1830. These were calculated to force the Cherokee to move.

In May 1830, Congress endorsed Jackson's policy of removal by passing the Indian Removal Act. Jackson signed the Act on May 23. It authorized the president to set aside lands west of the Mississippi to exchange for the lands of the Indian nations in the Southeast. In the summer of 1830, Jackson urged the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek to sign individual treaties accepting removal from their homelands. The Cherokee refused to attend a meeting in Nashville that Jackson proposed. The other tribes signed off on Jackson's terms.

When Ross and the Cherokee delegation failed in their efforts to protect Cherokee lands through dealings with the executive branch and Congress, Ross took the radical step of defending Cherokee rights through the U.S. courts. In June 1830, at the urging of Senators Webster and Frelinghuysen, the Cherokee delegation selected William Wirt, US Attorney General in the Monroe and Adams administrations, to defend Cherokee rights before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wirt argued two cases on behalf of the Cherokee: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall acknowledged that the Cherokee were a sovereign nation, stating, "'[T]he Cherokees as a state, as a distinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs and governing itself, has, in the opinion of a majority of the judges, been completely successful.'"But he did not compel President Jackson to take action that would defend the Cherokee from Georgia's laws, because he did not find that the U.S. Supreme Court had original jurisdiction over a case in which a tribe was a party.

In 1832, the Supreme Court further defined the relation of the federal government and the Cherokee Nation. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court found that Georgia could not extend its laws to the Cherokee Nation because that was a power of the federal government. Marshall stated that "'the acts of Georgia are repugnant to the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States. They interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and the Cherokee nation, the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our Constitution, are committed exclusively to the government of the Union.'"The Cherokee were considered sovereign enough to legally resist the government of Georgia, and they were encouraged to do so.

The court maintained that the Cherokee Nation was dependent on the federal government, much like a protectorate state, but still a sovereign entity. But the dispute was made moot when federal legislation in the form of the Indian Removal Act exercised the federal government's legal power to handle the whole affair. The series of decisions embarrassed Jackson politically, as Whigs attempted to use the issue in the 1832 election. They largely supported his earlier opinion that the "Indian Question" was one that was best handled by the federal government, and not local authorities.

Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation had encountered financial hard times. The U. S. government had stopped paying the agreed-upon $6,000 (~$ in ) annuity for previous land cessions, Georgia had effectively cut off any income from the gold fields in Cherokee lands, and the Cherokee Nation's application for a federal government loan was rejected in February 1831. With great difficulty (and private donations), Ross was able to pay the Cherokee Nation's legal bills.

Ridge Party opposition
In a meeting in May 1832, Supreme Court Justice John McLean spoke with the Cherokee delegation to offer his views on their situation. McLean's advice was to "remove and become a Territory with a patent in fee simple to the nation for all its lands and a delegate in Congress, but reserving to itself the entire right of legislation and selection of all officers." He agreed to send Ross a letter explaining his views. Ross was furious, believing that this was a form of treachery.

McLean's advice precipitated a split within the Cherokee leadership as John Ridge and Elias Boudinot began to doubt Ross's leadership. John Ridge introduced a resolution at the national council meeting in October 1832 to send a delegation to Washington to discuss a removal treaty with President Jackson. The council rejected Ridge's proposal and instead selected Joseph Vann, John Baldridge, Richard Taylor, and John Ross to represent the Cherokee. In February 1833, Ridge wrote to Ross advocating that the delegation dispatched to Washington that month should begin removal negotiations with Jackson. Ridge and Ross did not have irreconcilable worldviews; neither believed that the Cherokee could fend off Georgian usurpation of Cherokee land. However, Ridge was furious that Ross had refused to consider Jackson's offer to pay the Cherokee $3,000,000 for all their lands in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

In this environment, Ross led a delegation to Washington in March 1834 to try to negotiate alternatives to removal. Ross made several proposals; however, the Cherokee Nation may not have approved any of Ross's plans, nor was there reasonable expectation that Jackson would settle for any agreement short of removal. These offers, coupled with the lengthy cross-continental trip, indicated that Ross's strategy was to prolong negotiations on removal indefinitely. There was the possibility that the next President might be more favorably inclined.

Ross's strategy was flawed because it was susceptible to the United States' making a treaty with a minority faction. On May 29, 1834, Ross received word from John H. Eaton, that a new delegation, including Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and Ross's younger brother Andrew, collectively called the "Ridge Party" or "Treaty Party", had arrived in Washington with the goal of signing a treaty of removal. The two sides attempted reconciliation, but by October 1834 still had not come to an agreement. In January 1835 the factions were again in Washington. Pressured by the presence of the Ridge Party, Ross agreed on February 25, 1835, to exchange all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi for land west of the Mississippi, asking for $20 million (~$ in ) dollars. He made it contingent on the General Council's accepting the terms.

Treaty of New Echota and Trail of Tears

Secretary of War Lewis Cass believed this was yet another ploy to delay action on removal for an additional year, and threatened to sign the treaty with John Ridge. On November 7, 1835, Ross and his guest, John Howard Payne, were arrested by the Georgia guard at Ross' home in Flint Springs in Bradley County, Tennessee, and taken to Spring Place, Georgia, where they were imprisoned. On December 29, 1835, the Treaty Party signed the Treaty of New Echota with the U.S. Most Cherokee thought the signatories unauthorized. However, Ross could not stop its enforcement. Under orders from President Martin Van Buren, General Winfield Scott and 7,000 Federal troops forced removal of Cherokee who did not emigrate to the Indian Territory by 1838. This forced removal came to be known as the Trail of Tears. Accepting defeat, Ross convinced General Scott to allow him to supervise much of the removal process.

Returning to his home at Head of Coosa late at night, Ross saw a man he did not recognize at his house. He told the man to feed his horse and put him away for the night. Instead, the stranger followed him to the door, identified himself as Stephen Carter and told Ross that he now owned the property and had papers to prove it. Ross then learned agents of Georgia had given Carter possession of the house earlier in the week, after evicting his family. Dispossessed by Georgia (and Carter), Ross was now homeless. The next day, Ross found that family members had given his wife Quatie refuge. Quatie died of pneumonia on February 1, 1839, on the Arkansas River near Little Rock, while aboard a steamboat owned by her husband. According to a popular legend, derived from a letter written by a former soldier named John Burnett, fifty-two years after the fact, Quatie became ill after giving her coat to a child who was crying because of the cold. There is, however, almost no evidence to support the claim. Quatie was originally buried in the Little Rock town cemetery; her remains were later moved to Mt. Holly Cemetery.

Because selling common lands was a capital crime under Cherokee law, treaty opponents assassinated Boudinot, Major Ridge and John Ridge after the migration to Indian Territory. Stand Watie, Boudinot's brother, was also attacked but he survived. The assassins were never publicly identified nor tried in court. General Matthew Arbuckle, commander of Fort Gibson, claimed he knew their identities but never tried to arrest them. Some Cherokee, particularly those tied to the pro-treaty party, claimed that Chief John Ross knew about the assassinations beforehand. Many years later, Chief Ross's son Allen, wrote that this was not so. Allen's letter, is said to be in the possession of the Oklahoma State Historical Society. Afterward, there were years of violence between the two factions.

Given the controversy over the struggle over territory and Ross's personal wealth, a vocal minority of Cherokee and a generation of political leaders in Washington considered Ross to be dictatorial, greedy, and an "aristocratic leader [who] sought to defraud" the Cherokee Nation. Ross also had influential supporters in Washington, including Thomas L. McKenney, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1824–1830). He described Ross as the father of the Cherokee Nation, a Moses who "led...his people in their exodus from the land of their nativity to a new country, and from the savage state to that of civilization."

Remarriage
John Ross was introduced to the Stapler family of Brandywine Springs, Delaware, by Thomas McKenney in 1841. Ross had many common interests with John Stapler, a merchant and widower. His eldest daughter, Sarah, cared for her younger siblings and befriended Ross. However, her younger sister, Mary Brian Stapler, developed a real love for Ross and initiated a romantic attachment in May 1844. As the time came for Ross to return to the Indian Territory, their mutual love ripened. They married in Philadelphia on September 2, 1844.

American Civil War
The Civil War divided the Cherokee people. At first the majority supported the Confederacy, which protected their slaveholdings. Fearing that joining the Confederacy would void the earlier Cherokee treaties with the United States, Ross tried to persuade his people to remain neutral in the conflict, but eventually most chose sides. Full-bloods tended to favor maintaining relations with the United States. This group included over two thousand members of a traditionalist and abolitionist society, the Keetoowah Society. Members of this group were called "Pins" by non-members because they wore an emblem of crossed pins on their shirts.

Ross advocated that the Cherokee Nation remain neutral. It was a losing argument. At a general assembly on August 21, 1861, Ross ended his speech by announcing that in the interests of tribal and inter-Indian unity it was time to agree on an alliance with the Confederate States of America. Many of the well-armed mixed bloods, especially the wealthy led by Stand Watie, supported the Confederacy. Traditionalists and Cherokee who opposed the institution of slavery remained loyal to the Union. However, the majority of Cherokee may not have understood the nature of the new treaty.

After Ross departed to meet with President Lincoln in Washington, traditionalist Cherokee helped maneuver the selection of Ross supporter Thomas Pegg as Acting Principal Chief. Three or four of Ross's own sons fought for the Union. However, Ross's nephew by marriage, John Drew, had organized and served as Colonel of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles in the Confederate Army. Most of Drew's regiment would later twice desert rather than follow Confederate orders to kill other Indians. Many leaders of the northern faction, still led by Ross, went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for the duration of the war.

By 1863, the flight of many Cherokee voters to refuge in Kansas and Texas provided the pro-Confederate Treaty Party an opportunity to elect Stand Watie as principal chief without them. Pro-Union National Council members declared the election invalid. Watie that fall raided Ross's home, Rose Cottage. The home was looted and burned. Ross lost all his belongings. Ross's daughter Jane and her husband, Andrew Nave, were living at Rose Cottage at the time. Nave was shot and killed. Only the prior intervention of Watie's wife seems to have prevented the killing of additional Ross relatives. Ross's oldest son, James, who had gone to Park Hill searching for supplies, was captured and sent to prison in the Confederacy, where he died. Ross remained in exile. However, within a week of the burning, the National Council convened and restored Ross as principal chief.

Ross took his wife Mary and the children to Philadelphia so she could see her family. Ross returned to Washington, where he had an inconclusive meeting with President Lincoln and other supporters. When he returned for Mary in 1865, he found her gravely ill with what was diagnosed as "lung congestion" (likely tuberculosis). She could not travel, so he remained with her for more than a month. Mary died of her illness on July 20, 1865. She was buried in her native Delaware. Ross returned to Indian Territory after her funeral.

After the war, the two factions of the Cherokee tried to negotiate separately with the US government Southern Treaty Commission. The commissioner of Indian Affairs, Dennis N. Cooley, was persuaded to believe allegations by Stand Watie and Elias Cornelius Boudinot that Ross was a dictator who did not truly represent the Cherokee people. Even though his health was worsening, Ross left Park Hill, where he was staying with his niece, on November 9, 1865, to meet with President Andrew Johnson. Johnson instructed Cooley to reopen negotiations with the Cherokee and to meet only with the pro-Union faction, headed by John Ross. Ross died on August 1, 1866, in Washington, D.C., while still negotiating a final treaty with the federal government. However, Ross had by then persuaded Johnson to reject a particularly harsh treaty version favored by Cooley.

Death and legacy
Initially, Ross was buried beside his second wife Mary in Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware. A few months later, the Cherokee Nation returned his remains to the Ross Cemetery at Park Hill, Indian Territory (now Cherokee County, Oklahoma) for interment.

John Ross's great-great granddaughter, Mary G. Ross (August 9, 1908 – April 29, 2008) was the first Native American female engineer. She helped propel the world into an era of space travel while becoming of one of the nation's most prominent women scientists of the space age.

John Ross's descendant, atmospheric scientist Robbie Hood, led the Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration until retiring in 2017.

Namesake and monuments
The City of Chattanooga named the Market Street Bridge in Ross's honor, and a bust of Ross stands on the north side of the Hamilton County Courthouse lawn.

The city of Rossville, Georgia, located just south of the Tennessee state line, is named for Ross. It contains his former home, the John Ross House, where he lived from 1830 to 1838 until the state seized his lands near the Coosa River. One of the oldest surviving homes in the Chattanooga area, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

The city of Park Hill, Oklahoma, hosts a John Ross museum in a former schoolhouse located west of Ross Cemetery.

National Public Radio correspondent Steve Inskeep suggested that the US $20 bill be modified to carry images of both John Ross and Andrew Jackson, "illustrating our democratic experience."

Stage and screen

 * John Ross was portrayed by Johnny Cash in an episode of NET Playhouse titled "Trail of Tears" in 1971.
 * John Ross's life and the Trail of Tears are dramatized in Episode 3 of the Ric Burns "American Experience" documentary, We Shall Remain (2009), shown and available online on PBS.
 * John Ross is a character in Unto These Hills, an outdoor drama that has been performed in Cherokee, NC since 1950.

title: John Ross (Cherokee chief)


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Bert is Evil

Bert is Evil is the name of a parody website, founded by Dino Ignacio on March 30, 1997, which featured Bert, a character on the American children's television program Sesame Street. In 1998, Dino Ignacio, Wout J Reinders and Jasper Hulshoff Pol accepted the Webby Award and the People's Voice Award for Best Weird Website at the Palace of Fine Arts auditorium in San Francisco.

The website featured manipulated images of the character consorting with notoriously nefarious figures, such as Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il, Robert Mugabe, and Osama bin Laden, as well as being present at events, such as the JFK assassination, and Oklahoma City bombing, humorously offered as "proof" that Bert was no mere innocent children's television character. The "Evil Bert" phenomenon was picked up by other humorists, who created their own images, linking Bert to current and historical atrocities.

In the summer of 1998, due to the website's immense cult popularity, it became too expensive for Ignacio to continue running. Instead of shutting the site down, he offered to allow anyone who was willing to mirror his original website the opportunity to host it. As a result, dozens of mirrors appeared, increasing the website's popularity and visibility.

Osama Bin Laden image
The first mirror, maintained by Dennis Pozniak, continued in the same vein by adding new "evidence" of Bert's evilness (such as Bert's connection to the Ramsey Family and serial killer Jack the Ripper). At the end of 1998, Pozniak posted a contribution, submitted by humorist J Roen, digitally manipulated to depict the then relatively unknown international terrorist, Osama bin Laden, posing with Bert.

In October 2001, an undoctored Reuters news photograph was published showing a pro Osama bin Laden protest rally in Bangladesh. One protester is seen holding a large collage style poster of bin Laden with a small image of Bert over his right shoulder – the same image posted to the Bert mirror in 1998 – which prompted much confusion and joking among Western audiences. Being unaware of Sesame Street, Dhaka printer Mostafa Kamal had copied the collage from the World Wide Web, leaving the image of Bert in his collage.

After this photo was released on the news wires, the owners of Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop, raised the possibility of pursuing legal action against Ignacio. In response, he took down the "Bert is Evil" section of his website due to Sesame Workshop's DMCA takedown notice, also stating that he did not want to undermine the character in the eyes of children who watched Sesame Street. "I am doing this because I feel this has gotten too close to reality", he said.

Since the original Bert/Osama picture had been posted to Dennis Pozniak's mirror, he too was bombarded by the international media seeking interviews. As a result of all the attention, Pozniak also closed his mirror.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bert is Evil


text:
Mila Kunis

Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis (born August 14, 1983) is an American actress. Born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and raised in Los Angeles, she began playing Jackie Burkhart on the Fox television series That '70s Show (1998–2006) at age 15. She has voiced Meg Griffin on the Fox animated series Family Guy since 1999.

Kunis's breakout film role was in the 2008 romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. She gained further critical acclaim and accolades for her performance in the psychological thriller Black Swan (2010), receiving nominations for the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other major films include the action films Max Payne (2008) and The Book of Eli (2010), the romantic comedy Friends with Benefits (2011), the fantasy film Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)—as the Wicked Witch of the West—and the comedies Ted (2012), Bad Moms (2016) and its sequel, A Bad Moms Christmas (2017).

Early life and education
Milena Markovna Kunis was born into a Ukrainian Jewish family on August 14, 1983, in Chernov'tsi, a city in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine). Although Kunis's parents have since retired, previously her mother, Elvira, was a physics teacher who ran a pharmacy, and her father, Mark Kunis, was a mechanical engineer who worked as a cab driver after the family emigrated. Kunis has an elder brother, Michael. Her grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Her mother tongue and the common language within her family is Russian. While participating in Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend Kunis confirmed she does not speak Ukrainian, stating Russian was the main language at the time she was there. Children were not taught Ukrainian in school until they were in second grade which was the time she left to come to the United States. She stated in 2011 that her parents had "amazing jobs", and that she "was very lucky" and the family was "not poor"; they had decided to leave the Soviet Union because they saw "no future" there for Mila and her brother. In 1991, when she was 7 years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, with US$250. "That was all we were allowed to take with us. My parents had given up good jobs and degrees, which were not transferable. We arrived in New York on a Wednesday and by Friday morning my brother and I were at school in L.A."

Kunis has cited antisemitism in the Soviet Union as one of several reasons for her family's move to the United States. She has stated that her parents "raised [her] Jewish as much as they could", although religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union. On her second day in Los Angeles, Kunis was enrolled at Rosewood Elementary School, not knowing a word of English. She later recalled: "I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand the people. I didn't understand the language. My first sentence of my essay to get into college was like, 'Imagine being blind and deaf at age seven.' And that's kind of what it felt like moving to the States."

In Los Angeles, she attended Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle School. She used an on-set tutor for most of her high school years while filming That '70s Show. She briefly attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES), but when that school proved to be insufficiently flexible about her acting commitments, she transferred to Fairfax High School, graduating in 2001. She briefly attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Kunis has said that a genealogical DNA test described her ethnicity as 96% to 98% Ashkenazi Jewish.

1994–2000: Career beginnings and television work
At age nine, Kunis was enrolled by her father in acting classes after school at the Beverly Hills Studios, where she met Susan Curtis, who would become her manager. On her first audition she landed the role for a Barbie commercial. Shortly after, she did a commercial for the Lisa Frank product line. Her first television roles took place in 1994, first appearing on Days of Our Lives, and a few months later doing her first of two appearances on Baywatch. She had a minor role on the television shows 7th Heaven, and Walker, Texas Ranger as well as supporting roles in the films Santa with Muscles, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, and the Angelina Jolie film Gia, as the young Gia Carangi.

At the age of 10, Kunis unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of a Russian Jewish girl who moves to North America in the film Make a Wish, Molly. Instead, she was cast in the secondary role of a Mexican girl. In 1998, Kunis was cast as Jackie Burkhart in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show. All who auditioned were required to be at least 18 years old; Kunis, who was 14 at the time, told the casting directors she would be 18 but did not say when. Though they eventually figured it out, the producers still thought Kunis was the best fit for the role. That '70s Show ran for eight seasons. She won two consecutive Young Star Awards as Best Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series in 1999 and 2000 for her performances.

In 1999, Kunis replaced Lacey Chabert in the role of Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy, created by Seth MacFarlane for Fox. Kunis won the role after auditions and a slight rewrite of the character, in part due to her performance on That '70s Show. When Kunis auditioned for the role, she was called back by MacFarlane, who instructed her to speak slower. He then told her to come back another time and enunciate more. Once she claimed that she had it under control, MacFarlane hired her. MacFarlane added: "What Mila Kunis brought to it was in a lot of ways, I thought, almost more right for the character. I say that Lacey did a phenomenal job, but there was something about Mila – something very natural about Mila. She was 15 when she started, so you were listening to a 15-year-old. Oftentimes with animation they'll have adult actors doing the voices of teenagers and they always sound like Saturday morning voices. They sound oftentimes very forced. She had a very natural quality to Meg that really made what we did with that character kind of really work." Kunis was nominated for an Annie Award in the category of Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production in 2007. She also voiced Meg in Family Guy Video Game!, released in 2006. Kunis described her character as "the scapegoat."

2001–2008: Transition to film
In 2001, she appeared in Get Over It opposite Kirsten Dunst. She followed that up in 2002, by starring in the straight-to-DVD horror film American Psycho 2 alongside William Shatner, a sequel to the 2000 film American Psycho. American Psycho 2 was poorly reviewed by critics, and later, Kunis herself expressed embarrassment over the film. In 2004, Kunis starred in the film adaptation Tony n' Tina's Wedding. Although the film was shot in 2004, it did not have a theatrical release until 2007. Most critics did not like the film, which mustered a 25% approval from Rotten Tomatoes. DVD talk concluded that "fans would be much better off pretending the movie never happened in the first place". In 2005, Kunis co-starred with Jon Heder in Moving McAllister, which was not released theatrically until 2007. The film received generally poor reviews and had a limited two-week run in theaters. She followed up with After Sex starring alongside Zoe Saldana, who had also appeared in Get Over It. In October 2006, she began filming Boot Camp (originally titled Straight Edge). The film was not released in theaters in the United States, but was released on DVD on August 25, 2009.

Kunis starred as Rachel Jansen in the 2008 comedy film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, co-produced by Judd Apatow. The role, which she won after unsuccessfully auditioning for Knocked Up, entailed improvisation on her part. The film garnered positive reviews, and was a commercial success, grossing $105 million worldwide. Kunis's performance was well-received; Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal praised her "fresh beauty and focused energy", while James Berardinelli wrote that she is "adept with her performance and understands the concept of comic timing". She was nominated for a Teen Choice Award. In an interview, Kunis credited Apatow with helping her to expand her career from That '70s Show.

Also in 2008, Kunis portrayed Mona Sax, an assassin, alongside Mark Wahlberg in the action film Max Payne, based on the video game of the same name. Kunis underwent training in guns, boxing, and martial arts for her role. Max Payne was relatively successful at the box office, grossing $85 million worldwide but was poorly reviewed by critics, with several reviewers calling Kunis miscast. Travis Estvold of Boise Weekly wrote that she was "horribly miscast as some sort of undersized, warble-voiced crime boss". Director John Moore defended his choice of Kunis saying, "Mila just bowled us over..... She wasn't an obvious choice, but she just wears Mona so well. We needed someone who would not be just a fop or foil to Max; we needed somebody who had to be that character and convey her own agenda. I think Mila just knocked it out of the park." She was nominated for another Teen Choice Award for her role in the film.

2009–2012: Film breakthrough and acclaim
In 2009, she appeared in the comedy film Extract with Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman. The film received mostly positive reviews, and grossed $10.8 million at the box office. Roger Ebert, while critical of the film itself, wrote that Kunis "brings her role to within shouting distance of credibility." Director Mike Judge commented that part of what was surprising to learn about Kunis was her ability to make references to the cult animation film Rejected. Judge said: "As beautiful as Mila is, you could believe that maybe she would cross paths with you in the real world." After seeing Kunis perform in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Judge wanted to cast her in the role of Cindy in Extract: "I just thought, 'Wow, this girl's perfect.' And she really wanted to do it, which was fantastic." Kunis herself stated that "I'm a huge fan of Mike Judge's from Office Space, so I was, like, 'Okay, this is a very easy decision.' I told them I would do anything needed to be in this production– like craft service, or, say, acting."

In 2010, she starred alongside Denzel Washington in the action film The Book of Eli. Although the film received mixed reviews, it performed well at the box office, grossing over $157 million worldwide. Film critic Richard Roeper praised Kunis's performance, calling it a "particularly strong piece of work". Several other reviews were equally positive, including that of Pete Hammond of Boxoffice magazine, who wrote that she's "ideally cast in the key female role". Even reviewers who did not necessarily like the film complimented her performance, such as James Berardinelli, who wrote that "the demands of the role prove to be within her range, which is perhaps surprising considering she has been thus far pigeonholed into more lightweight parts", and Colin Covert of the Star Tribune, who wrote that she "generated a spark and brought a degree of determination to her character, developing an independent female character who's not always in need of rescuing." Other critics, such as Claudia Puig of USA Today felt she was miscast, noting that "she looked as if she dropped in from a Ray-Ban commercial". Kunis received another Teen Choice Award nomination for her performance. Kunis was also cast in a minor role in the 2010 comedy film Date Night, starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell. She garnered several positive reviews for her performance. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune concluded her performance with James Franco helped save the film and gave it "a shot in the arm." Kunis was nominated for multiple awards, including her first Golden Globe, for the 2010 film Black Swan. She played a rival ballet dancer to the main character, played by Natalie Portman. Director Darren Aronofsky cast Kunis in the film based on her performance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and on the recommendation of co-star and close friend Natalie Portman. She underwent a training regimen that included cardiovascular exercise, a 1,200-calorie a day diet (she lost 20 pounds that she regained after filming ended), and ballet classes for four hours a day, seven days a week. During the demanding production, she suffered injuries including a torn ligament and a dislocated shoulder.

Black Swan received widespread acclaim from critics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film grossed over $106.9 million in the United States and Canada while grossing over $329 million worldwide. Reviews of Kunis's performance were positive,  with Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter stating, "Kunis makes a perfect alternate to Portman, equally as lithe and dark but a smirk of self-assurance in place of Portman's wide-eyed fearfulness." Guy Lodge of In Contention also praised Kunis, saying, "it's the cool, throaty-voiced Kunis who is the surprise package here, intelligently watching and reflecting her co-star in such a manner that we're as uncertain as Nina of her ingenuousness." Kunis's performance won her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, and earned her Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. At the 37th annual Saturn Awards, she was also honored with the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance.

Kunis was cast alongside Justin Timberlake in the 2011 romantic comedy Friends with Benefits. Director Will Gluck stated that he wrote the story with Kunis and Timberlake in mind. Friends with Benefits achieved success at the box office, grossing over $149 million worldwide, and received mostly positive reviews with critics praising the chemistry between Kunis and Timberlake. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that "Ms. Kunis is fast proving that she's a gift that keeps giving to mainstream romantic comedy" and "her energy is so invigorating and expansive and her presence so vibrant that she fills the screen".

In 2012, Kunis co-starred with Mark Wahlberg in Ted, her most commercially successful film to date. The film was directed and co-written by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Kunis played the girlfriend of Wahlberg's character. When MacFarlane first conceived the project, he considered Kunis too young for the role. However, the film remained in development for several years and when it was finally ready to begin production, he ended up casting her. Ted has received generally positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success, grossing $549 million worldwide. Drew McWeeny of HitFix wrote that Kunis "brings some lovely subtle grace notes to a role that easily could have just been 'the pushy girlfriend.

2013–present: Comedic roles
In 2013, Kunis played Theodora, the youngest of three witches, opposite James Franco, in the Walt Disney Pictures' prequel, Oz the Great and Powerful. She dedicated her performance in the film to Margaret Hamilton, the original Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film. The film, and Kunis's performance, received mixed reviews from critics. Kim Newman of Empire Magazine wrote that Kunis "walks away with the honours as the wavering witch Theodora, whose heartbreak brings another, less-expected depth to this 3D spectacle". In contrast, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter found Kunis's performance to be uncertain as her character seemed to be in a state of limbo. Oz the Great and Powerful was a commercial success, grossing over $493 million worldwide.

Also in 2013, Kunis co-starred in the crime thriller Blood Ties with Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, and Marion Cotillard. The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and had a limited release in the United States in 2014. Blood Ties received mixed reviews. Kunis was also cast in the comedy The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, alongside Robin Williams and Peter Dinklage. The film had a limited theatrical and VOD release and received poor reviews. The Paul Haggis-directed film Third Person co-starring with Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde and James Franco premiered at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival and had a limited release in 2014, but also received mostly negative reviews. Kunis's performance was praised by some critics; Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her role gives her "enormous room to express her talent" and she "gives her story a shot of raw intensity". In October 2014, it was announced Kunis, along with her partners, had launched a new production company called Orchard Farm Productions. The company has a first-look deal with ABC Studios, where the company is based. Under the agreement, the team will develop and produce TV projects for broadcast and cable. In 2015, Kunis co-starred with Channing Tatum in the science fiction film Jupiter Ascending, directed by the Wachowskis. While the film grossed over $183.9 million on a $176 million budget, it received mostly negative reviews, with a consensus that the production was "narratively befuddled" and a "visually thrilling misfire". Kunis co-starred with Kristen Bell and Christina Applegate in the comedy Bad Moms, which was released July 29, 2016. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the cast and humor, though did not feel it could "take full advantage of its assets". Chris Nashawaty from Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Kunis manages to be both sympathetic and funny, and she has crack comedic timing". The film went on to earn more than $183.9 million with a budget of $20 million. Following the financial success of Bad Moms, STX Entertainment reunited Kunis with her co-stars Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn for a sequel, A Bad Moms Christmas, which was released on November 1, 2017. It went on to receive mixed reviews and gross over $130 million worldwide with a budget of $28 million.

In 2018, Kunis co-starred with Kate McKinnon in the comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me. The film received mixed reviews and went on to gross over $75 million worldwide with a budget of $40 million. Kunis co-starred with Glenn Close in the film Four Good Days. Principal photography began in September 2019 in Los Angeles, and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2020. The film received mixed reviews but Kunis was praised for her performance, with Pete Hammond from Deadline Hollywood stating Kunis was "a revelation" in the role, while Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times concluded her performance "represents the finest work she has done". In 2021, she co-starred with Allison Janney and Regina Hall in Breaking News in Yuba County, which was filmed in Mississippi. The film was released February 12, 2021, and received negative reviews from critics. On April 30, 2022, it was announced that Kunis would have a guest appearance in the follow-up sitcom, That '90s Show.

In 2022 Kunis produced and starred in a Netflix film adaptation of Luckiest Girl Alive based on the Jessica Knoll novel of the same name. Luckiest Girl Alive was released in select cinemas on September 30, 2022, before its streaming release on October 7, 2022, by Netflix. The film received mixed reviews from critics. However, Kunis received acclaim for her performance with Erick Massoto from Collider stating she delivered a "career best performance" that is "hypnotic and keeps you on the edge of your seat at every turn." Additionally Kunis received a nomination for The Drama Movie Star of 2022 at the 48th People's Choice Awards.

In 2023 it was announced Kunis is slated to co-star with Michael Keaton in the comedy film Goodrich. Written and Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, Kunis will also serve as executive producer. In 2024 Kunis closed a deal with Skydance to produce and star in The 47 Night Stand, a new film scripted by Greg Malins. Additionally Kunis has been added to the cast of the latest installment of the Knives Out franchise joining Daniel Craig in Netflix's film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

In the media
In 2007, Kunis participated in a video for the website Funny or Die appearing alongside James Franco. The video was a parody of the MTV show The Hills and was a huge success for the website, with 2.4 million views over the next ten years. Shawn Levy, director of Date Night, stated that part of what made him decide to cast Kunis with James Franco in the film was the chemistry he felt they had in the Funny or Die video. In December 2008, Kunis was featured in Gap's "Shine Your Own Star" Christmas campaign. In 2010, she was featured in the "Women We Love" segment in Esquire with an accompanied video. Kunis was among several female stars photographed by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams in conjunction with the Calvin Klein Collections for a feature titled American Women 2010, with the proceeds from the photographs donated to the NYC AIDS foundation. During the summer of 2010 Kunis served with Randy Jackson as the Master of Ceremonies for the 9th Annual Chrysalis Foundation Benefit. The Chrysalis Foundation is a Los Angeles–based non-profit organization formed to help economically disadvantaged and homeless individuals to become self-sufficient through employment opportunities.

GQ magazine named Kunis the Knockout of the Year for 2011, with Men's Health naming her one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time". FHM magazine ranked her number 9 on its 2012 Hot 100 list, but she reached number 1 on their 2013 "100 Sexiest Women in the World" list, which brought to an end a four-year run by British women. Prior to this in 2008 Kunis stated, "You've got to base your career on something other than being FHM's top 100 number one girl. Your looks are going to die out, and then what's going to be left?" Maxim has consistently ranked Kunis on its Hot 100 list, reaching a ranking of number 5 in both 2009 and 2011 and number 3 in 2012. Esquire magazine named her 2012's Sexiest Woman Alive. She ranked No. 2 on AskMen's list of Top 99 Women for 2013, behind only Jennifer Lawrence. In 2013, she responded to those lists: "All I can say is, I feel honored to be considered sexy."

Christian Dior signed Kunis in 2012 to be the face of its Spring fashion campaign. In February 2013, she was named Gemfields global brand ambassador and the face of their advertising campaign. Gemfields is a luxury company that produces emeralds, rubies, and amethysts. She visited Gemfields' mine in Zambia. Kunis appeared wearing Gemfields's Rubies for the world premiere of Jupiter Ascending. In 2013, she appeared in Forbes list of 100 powerful celebrities, ranking #89 on the basis of five criteria (Money, TV/Radio, Press, Social, and Marketability), with her highest ranking as #14 in marketability. She earned $11 million for the year ending in June 2013. In 2014, Kunis appeared in a range of global advertising for Beam, Inc. (makers of Jim Beam bourbon). Her announcement on Conan that she would donate to Planned Parenthood in Vice President Mike Pence's name received praise from supporters of abortion rights; conversely, several anti-abortion advocates criticized her and Beam, Inc. on Twitter, creating the hashtag #BoycottJimBeam.

Kunis was included on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. Also in 2022 Kunis was included with Matthew McConaughey, Quinta Brunson and Jennifer Hudson on People magazine's annual list of the People of the year.

Personal life
Kunis began dating actor Macaulay Culkin in 2002. During their relationship, there were rumors of the couple getting married, but Kunis denied them. On January 3, 2011, Kunis's publicist confirmed reports that Kunis and Culkin had ended their relationship, saying, "The split was amicable, and they remain close friends."

In January 2011, she revealed her struggle with chronic iritis that had caused temporary blindness in one eye. Some months earlier she went through with the surgery that corrected the problem. Kunis also has heterochromia iridum, a condition in which the irises are different colors. Her left eye is brown, while her right eye is green.

On September 14, 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it was investigating the alleged hacking of Kunis's cellphone and email accounts, along with those of other celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson and Vanessa Hudgens. Christopher Chaney from Jacksonville, Florida, later pleaded guilty in federal court to nine counts of computer hacking.

In November 2011, Kunis was escorted by Sgt. Scott Moore to a U.S. Marine Corps Ball in Greenville, North Carolina. She had accepted Moore's invitation in July after he posted it as a YouTube video while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The event celebrated the Marine Corps' 236th anniversary.

Kunis began dating her former That '70s Show co-star Ashton Kutcher in 2012. They became engaged in February 2014, and were married in July 2015 in Oak Glen, California. The couple have two children: a daughter born in October 2014 and a son born in November 2016. The family resides in a sustainable farmhouse, designed by the couple and architect Howard Backen, in Beverly Hills.

In 2016, Kunis, while pregnant with her second child, undertook the surprise renovation of her parents' condominium, over a six-week period, which was documented for My HouzzTV. She had grown up in the condominium from the age of nine, along with her older brother and her parents. In April 2020, Kunis and Kutcher developed their own wine, named Quarantine Wine, with 100% of the proceeds going to give aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year they launched Outside Wine, a blend of red wine, whose profits would benefit The Skate Park Project and Thorn.org.

In 2022, Kunis and Kutcher started a GoFundMe page to help two online companies (Airbnb and Flexport) to aid refugees fleeing the violence in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They exceeded their $30 million goal as of March 18, 2022. The couple promised to donate $3 million of their own money to the cause.

In 2023, after the conviction of That 70's Show cast mate, Danny Masterson, for rape, Kunis, along with Ashton Kutcher, wrote letters to the judge in support of Masterson. The letters stated that Masterson was a good person and that he treated people with "decency, equality, and generosity". After the letters were made public, Kunis and Kutcher received immediate backlash and criticism for their support of Masterson, especially due to Kunis and Kutcher's involvement in Thorn, a charity to expose the sexual exploitation of children. After the backlash, Kunis and Kutcher apologized in a video. In the video, the two claimed that the letters were only intended for the judge and not for the public. The apology was similarly criticized as "performative and insincere".

Political views
Kunis is a supporter of the Democratic Party. In a 2012 interview, she criticized the Republican Party, saying: "The way that Republicans attack women is so offensive to me. And the way they talk about religion is offensive. I may not be a practicing Jew, but why do we gotta talk about Jesus all the time?" In 2017, Kunis disclosed that she had been making monthly donations to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence's name.

Acting credits and awards
According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, Kunis's most critically successful films are Gia (1998), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Extract (2009), Date Night (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) and Bad Moms (2016). Her television projects include FOX sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2006) and animated series Family Guy (1999–present).

Kunis has received one Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress and two Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Outstanding Performance by a Cast for her performance in Black Swan (2010). Kunis was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Voice Acting for her work in Family Guy and has garnered two Critics' Choice Awards nominations for Best Supporting Actress in Black Swan (2010) and Best Actress in a Comedy in Ted (2012) respectively.

title: Mila Kunis


text:
Jubba River

The Jubba River or Juba River (Webiga Jubba) is a river in southern Somalia which flows through the autonomous region of Jubaland. It begins at the border with Ethiopia, where the Dawa and Ganale Dorya rivers meet, and flows directly south to the Somali Sea, where it empties at the Goobweyn juncture. The Jubba basin covers an area of 749000 km2. The Somali regional state of Jubaland, formerly called Trans-Juba, is named after the river.

Ajuran Empire
The Jubba River has a rich history of a once-booming sophisticated civilization and trade network conducted by the powerful Somalis that held sway over the Jubba River.

During the Middle Ages Jubba River was under the Ajuran Empire of the Horn of Africa which utilized the Jubba River for its plantations and was the only hydraulic empire in Africa. A hydraulic empire that rose in the 13th century AD, Ajuran monopolized the water resources of the Jubba River and Shebelle. Through hydraulic engineering, it also constructed many of the limestone wells and cisterns of the state that are still operative and in use today. Its rulers developed new systems for agriculture and taxation, which continued to be used in parts of the Horn of Africa as late as the 19th century.

Through their control of the region's wells, the Garen rulers effectively held a monopoly over their nomadic subjects as they were one of the few hydraulic empire in Africa. Large wells made out of limestone were constructed throughout the state, which attracted Somali nomads with their livestock. The centralized regulations of the wells made it easier for the nomads to settle disputes by taking their queries to government officials who would act as mediators. Long distance caravan trade, a long-time practice in the Horn of Africa, continued unchanged in Ajuran times. Today, numerous ruins and abandoned towns throughout the interior of Somalia and the Horn of Africa are evidence of a once-booming inland trade network dating from the medieval period.

With the centralized supervision of the Ajuran, farms in Afgooye, Bardhere and other areas in the Jubba and Shebelle valleys increased their productivity. A system of irrigation ditches known locally as Kelliyo fed directly from the Shebelle River and Jubba River into the plantations where sorghum, maize, beans, grain and cotton were grown during the gu (Spring in Somali) and xagaa (Summer in Somali) seasons of the Somali calendar. This irrigation system was supported by numerous dikes and dams. To determine the average size of a farm, a land measurement system was also invented with moos, taraab and guldeed being the terms used.

The urban centers of Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa, Kismayo and Hobyo and other respective ports became profitable trade outlets for commodities originating from the interior of the State. The Somali farming communities of the hinterland from Jubba and Shebelle valleys brought their crops to the Somali coastal cities, where they were sold to local merchants who maintained a lucrative foreign commerce with ships sailing to and coming from Arabia, Persia, India, Venice, Egypt, Portugal, and as far away as Java and China.

Modern Period
Over two centuries passed until German explorer Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken ascended on the lower reaches of the river on the small steamship Welf in 1863. He wrecked the steamship in the rapids above Bardhere, where the party was attacked by local Somalis, ending in the deaths of the Baron and three others in his party. The first European to explore widely and complete the course of the river was the Italian explorer Vittorio Bottego attended by Commander F. G. Dundas British Navy. Bottego and his expedition sailed 400 mi of the river in 1891. During his exploration Bottego changed the name of the main affluent of Jubba—the Ganale river—in Ganale Doria after the famous Italian naturalist Giacomo Doria.

Overview
The Jubba basin region is primarily savanna, and is, ecologically speaking, the richest part of the country due to its fertile farmland. Native wild life include giraffes, cheetahs, lions, leopards, hyenas, buffalos, hippopotamus, crocodiles, oryx, gazelles, camels, ostriches, jackals and wild donkeys.

The Jubba River gives its name to the Somali administrative regions of Upper Juba (Gedo, Bay, Bakool), Middle Juba and Lower Juba, as well as to the larger historical region of Jubaland. Major cities which the Jubba River passes by include Dolow, Luuq, Burdhubo, Beled'hawo, Bardhere, Buale, and Goobweyn near Kismaayo.

title: Jubba River


text:
Andy Griggs

Andrew Tyler Griggs (born August 13, 1973) is an American country music artist. He has released three albums for RCA Records Nashville (You Won't Ever Be Lonely, Freedom, and This I Gotta See) and a fourth (The Good Life) for Montage Music Group. These four albums have accounted for 13 singles and 6 Top Tens on the Billboard country chart, the highest being "You Won't Ever Be Lonely" and "She's More", both of which peaked at #2. He also charted "Grow Young With You", a cut from the soundtrack to the film Where the Heart Is.

Early life
Griggs was born in West Monroe, Louisiana. His father, Darrell, died when Griggs was 10, and brother Mason served as the family's father figure until he died of a heart attack at age 22.

He briefly attended Northeast Louisiana University before returning to his hometown in the early 1990s, where he became a youth minister and began a family with his wife. He continued to work on his musical skills, however, and by 1999, he signed to a contract with RCA Records Nashville.

Musical career
Griggs' debut album, You Won't Ever Be Lonely, was issued in 1999 via RCA Records Nashville. Certified gold by the RIAA, the album accounted for five singles on the Billboard country singles charts. The first three singles — the title track, "I'll Go Crazy" and "She's More" — were all Top Ten hits, peaking at number 2, number 10 and number 2 respectively. "You Won't Ever Be Lonely" also had the sixth-longest chart run on the country charts in the 1990s decade, spending thirty-six weeks on the charts. Following "She's More" was a non-album song, "Grow Young With Me", recorded as a duet with Coley McCabe, and after that, "Waitin' on Sundown" at number 50 and "You Made Me That Way" at number 19. Also included on the album was a duet with Griggs' idol Waylon Jennings in the track "Shine On Me", as well as a cover of Jennings' "Ain't Livin' Long Like This".

He released his second album, Freedom, in 2002. Although its lead-off single "How Cool Is That" peaked at number 22, the second single, "Tonight I Wanna Be Your Man", became his fourth Top Ten hit at number 7. Closing out this album was "Practice Life", a number 33 duet with Martina McBride.

For 2003 and half of 2004, Griggs was absent from the country charts, although he, Montgomery Gentry, and Blake Shelton performed uncredited guest vocals on Tracy Byrd's 2003 single "The Truth About Men". Mid-2004 saw the release of "She Thinks She Needs Me". Co-written by Shane Minor, this song was the first single release from Griggs' third album, This I Gotta See, also released in 2004. Although this song and follow-up "If Heaven" were both number 5 hits on the country charts, the album's third single, "This I Gotta See", stopped at number 58, and the fourth single ("I Never Had a Chance") failed to chart at all. By 2005, he had left RCA's roster, due to creative differences over his artistic control.

In 2007, Griggs signed to his second recording contract, this time with Montage Music Group. His first album for the label, The Good Life, produced two low-charting singles in "Tattoo Rose" (co-written by Cole Deggs, lead singer of Cole Deggs & the Lonesome) and "What If It's Me". Three years later, he issued "Can I Get an Amen".

Personal life
Griggs has been married twice, first to Stephanie Sullivan in February 1995, but they were eventually separated. In 2005 Griggs married Renee, but they also eventually separated. He now has a son named Mason.

Music videos

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title: Andy Griggs


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George Hamilton IV

George Hege Hamilton IV (July 19, 1937 – September 17, 2014) was an American country musician. He began performing in the late 1950s as a teen idol, switching to country music in the early 1960s.

Biography
Hamilton was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, on July 19, 1937, the son of Moravian parents George Hege Hamilton III and Mary Lilian (née Pendry). He was introduced to country music by his paternal grandfather, a railroad worker. His great-grandfather, the first George Hege Hamilton, was a farmer, of a family that came from Scotland to America in 1685.

George Hamilton IV attended Richard J. Reynolds High School, and is among several notable singers and songwriters to have attended that school, including Peter Holsapple and Greg Humphreys. While a 19-year-old student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Hamilton recorded "A Rose and a Baby Ruth" for a Chapel Hill record label, Colonial Records. The song, written by John D. Loudermilk, climbed to number six on the United States Billboard Hot 100 chart. By 1960, "A Rose and a Baby Ruth" had attained gold record status for ABC-Paramount (which had acquired the song from Colonial). The self-penned B-side of the record, "If You Don't Know, I Ain't Gonna Tell You", revealed Hamilton's ambitions to be a rockabilly-country singer.

After a string of pop hits, Hamilton joined the Rockabilly Tour playing with Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, and several others throughout the country. Hamilton was then invited to Washington, DC, to become a member of the cast of The Jimmy Dean Show, where he performed regularly with Patsy Cline and Jimmy Dean. He also appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, and The Perry Como Show. Hamilton went on to host his own national television musical/variety shows on ABC and CBS in the late 1950s. In late 1959, Hamilton moved his family to Nashville to further his work as a country musician. On February 8, 1960, Hamilton officially became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Later that same year, he began recording for RCA Records, having been signed by Chet Atkins.

Hamilton's breakthrough hit was the 1961 song "Before this Day Ends". His biggest hit came two years later with "Abilene", another song penned by Loudermilk, along with Bob Gibson and Lester Brown. The song spent four weeks at number one on Billboard's country singles chart and reached the Top 20 of the Hot 100. The success of "Abilene" was followed with the song "Fort Worth, Dallas or Houston" (a top-five hit in late 1964).

In 1962, Hamilton started the first Music City USA and Homes of the Stars Bus Tour in Nashville. By the mid-1960s, Hamilton's music began showing a decidedly folk influence. This was especially evident with 1966's "Steel Rail Blues" and "Early Morning Rain" (both by Gordon Lightfoot), and 1967's "Urge for Going" penned by Joni Mitchell. Another 1967 hit was "Break My Mind" (by John D. Loudermilk). One more Hamilton song of this genre was a moderate hit in 1969—the Ray Griff-penned "Canadian Pacific". His last top-five single came in 1970, with "She's a Little Bit Country".

After his American chart success declined in the early 1970s, Hamilton began touring the world, across the Soviet Union, Poland, Australia, the Middle East, and East Asia. Those widely acclaimed international performances earned Hamilton the nickname the International Ambassador of Country Music. In the 1970s, Hamilton was the first American country singer to have his own British TV series on BBC. He also hosted a successful TV series in Canada for six years in the late 1970s. In the 1990s, he played himself in the West End musical Patsy, based on the life of Patsy Cline.

In the 1980s, Hamilton appeared with Billy Graham on Ministry Tours throughout the United States and Canada, and including the UK tour "Mission England".

In 2004, he recorded an acoustic gospel album with producer Dave Moody titled On a Blue Ridge Sunday, which earned Hamilton a Dove Award nomination in the "Best Bluegrass Album of the Year" category by the members of the Gospel Music Association. A single from the album, "Little Mountain Church House", won nominee recognition in the "Best Bluegrass Recorded Song" category the following year.

Until the very late years of his life, Hamilton was a regular at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and in country shows throughout the U.S. and the UK. Hamilton celebrated his 50th year as a Grand Ole Opry member in 2010. He mainly concentrated on gospel tours both at home and abroad. In 2007, he collaborated with Live Issue, a group from Northern Ireland, to record a live album based on the life of Joseph Scriven, who wrote the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". The two also toured together again in 2009.

In 2008, at the height of the soaring U.S. gas prices, Hamilton released "Gasoline", a parody of his classic hit "Abilene". The acoustic single featured "The Oil Spots" (a.k.a. the Moody Brothers & George Hamilton V) and became a hit with audiences during Hamilton's Opry appearances. Hamilton was also a regular participant in the Country's Family Reunion video series.

In 2010, Lamon Records released the album Old Fashioned Hymns, recorded transatlantic with producers Dave Moody in Nashville and Colin Elliott in Ireland. Hamilton was joined on the 28-track collection by a number of musical guests, including Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, Gail Davies, Pat Boone, Del McCoury, Bill Anderson, Connie Smith, Tommy Cash, Cliff Barrows, and George Beverly Shea, among others.

Personal life and death
Hamilton married his high school sweetheart Adelaide "Tink" Peyton and had two sons, George and Peyton, and one daughter, Mary. When he was seven years old, Hamilton's elder son, George Hege Hamilton V, found one of his father's guitars and began writing songs. He became a singer, using the name Hege V, because his father as well as the actor, George Hamilton, were already using the George Hamilton name. The younger Hamilton said his father "never pushed me", but he eventually began playing in nightclubs. On tours, which sometimes included his father, Hege V played rhythm guitar and sang harmony and occasionally the lead, including some of his father's songs. George has four grandchildren including George Hege "Nash" Hamilton VI, Peyton McAlester Hamilton, Aubrey Elizabeth Arcure, and James Michael "Mick" Arcure.

Hamilton had a heart attack on September 13, 2014, and died on September 17 at Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital in Nashville. On September 24, the Ryman Auditorium hosted a memorial service, which included performances by Marty Stuart, Ricky Skaggs, the Whites, Jett Williams, Gail Davies, Connie Smith, Dave Moody, Jimmy Capps, Barry and Holly Tashian, the Babcocks, Andrew Greer, and Cindy Morgan. Those who shared stories of Hamilton's life and career at the memorial service included English music historian and journalist Tony Byworth, music writer and author Frye Galliard, artists and songwriters John D. Loudermilk and Bill Anderson, Grand Ole Opry general manager Pete Fisher, and WSM announcer Eddie Stubbs. The service concluded with "Amazing Grace" performed on bagpipes by Nashville Pipes and Drums Pipe Sergeant David Goodman. George Hamilton IV is buried in God's Acre Cemetery in Old Salem, North Carolina.

The George Hamilton IV Collection is located in the Southern Folklife Collection of the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Honors
Hamilton was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

The North Carolina Board of Transportation voted to name a bridge on Business 40 for Hamilton. The ceremony naming the bridge was held on July 19, 2016, which would have been Hamilton's 79th birthday.

title: George Hamilton IV