What made stand watie decide to join the civil war?

He was also a slaveholder, and established a successful plantation in Indian Territory. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Watie wasted no time in joining the Confederacy, viewing the federal government, not the South, as the Cherokees’ principal enemy. He raised the first Cherokee regiment of the Confederate Army, the Cherokee Mounted Rifles, and helped secure control of Indian Territory for the rebels early in the conflict.