Native American Biography: John Lynch Adair, Cherokee

John Adair is of Cherokee and Irish descent.  When he was ten years old, his people were removed from their native lands and moved to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.  John Adair was important in the new community as he provided leadership.  When he was older, he penned the Cherokee Constitution which came out of a convention for that purpose.  After declaring that the East and West Cherokee were now unified, the constitution continues, "We, the people of the Cherokee Nation, in National Convention assembled, in order to establish justice, insure tranquility, promote the common welfare, and to secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of freedom—acknowledging with humility and gratitude, the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, in permitting us so to do, and imploring His aid and guidance in its accomplishment—do ordain and establish the Constitution for the government of the Cherokee Nation.'
The constitution was published when Adair was already older, 1893.  Adair passed away in 1896.  The Constitution would remain in effect until the statehood of Oklahoma in 1907.