(47) The Ketoowah Society (p. 156): This Cherokee secret society, which has recently achieved some newspaper prominence by its championship of Cherokee autonomy, derives its name--properly Kitu'hwa, but commonly spelled Ketoowah in English print--from the ancient town in the old Nation which formed the nucleus of the most conservative element of the tribe and sometimes gave a name to the Nation itself (see Kitu'hwagi, under Tribal Synonyms). A strong band of comradeship, if not a regular society organization, appears to have existed among the warriors and leading men of the various settlements of the Kituhwa district from a remote period, so that the name is even now used in councils as indicative of genuine Cherokee feeling in its highest patriotic form. When, some years ago, delegates from the western Nation visited the East Cherokee to invite them to join their more prosperous brethren beyond the Mississippi, the speaker for the delegates expressed their fraternal feeling for their separated kinsmen by saying in his opening speech, "We are all Kituhwa people" (Ani'-Kitu'hwagi). The Ketoowah society in the Cherokee Nation west was organized shortly before the civil war by John B. Jones, son of the missionary, Evan Jones, and an adopted citizen of the Nation, as a secret society for the ostensible purpose of cultivating a national feeling among the full-bloods, in opposition to the innovating tendencies of the mixed-blood element. The real purpose was to counteract the influence of the "Blue Lodge" and other secret secessionist organizations among the wealthier slave-holding classes, made up chiefly of mixed-bloods and whites. It extended to the Creeks, and its members in both tribes rendered good service to the Union cause throughout the war. They were frequently known as "Pin Indians," for a reason explained below. Since the close of the great struggle the society has distinguished itself by its determined opposition to every scheme looking to the curtailment or destruction of Cherokee national self-government. The following account of the society was written shortly after the close of the civil war: