Records of the Moravians Among the Cherokees, Volume 5: The Anna Rosina Years, Part 3: Farewell to Sister Gambold, 1817-1821

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Must they be removed? Or can they remain in their ancestral land?
That is the great question confronting the Cherokee Nation and forming the backdrop to volume 5 of “Records of the Moravians among the Cherokees.” Subtitled “The Anna Rosina Years, Part 3: Farewell to Sister Gambold,” volume 5 spans the years 1817 to 1821, years of great change within the Cherokee Nation and the end of an era at the Moravians’ Springplace mission.
Increasingly the Cherokees see the need to adopt new ways. Long gone is the hunter-gatherer way of life, supplanted by farming for livelihood. A new town, soon to be called New Echota, is begun as the “permanent seat of government,” and Abraham Steiner, the Moravians’ “Apostle to the Cherokees,” is invited to consecrate the council house. And throughout the Nation an awakening has begun, as more and more Cherokees open their hearts to the preaching of missionaries among them.
At the Moravians’ little Springplace mission, Br. John and Sr. Anna Rosina Gambold have toiled since 1805 and have only two converts for all their labor. But now they too share in the awakening, and a second station, at Oochgeelogy, is proposed. The Springplace school also prospers, and Sr. Gambold sees four of her “brown pupils” go to Cornwall in Connecticut for further education to be-come the next generation of leaders of the Cherokee Nation.
But then tragedy strikes. Margaret Ann Scott Crutchfield — Sr. Peggy, widow of the notorious Chief James Vann — the “first-fruit” of the Cherokee Nation at Springplace, passes away. And then it’s Sr. Gambold’s turn, and like her husband John, we are left to stand weeping at the grave of our “unforgettable Anna Rosel.”
With major financial support from the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, “Records: Cherokees” will next turn to the series of volumes subtitled “March to Removal.”