PEOPLE DIE VERY MUCH

In his 1942 painting Cherokee Trail of Tears, Robert Lindneux depicts the forced journey of the Cherokees in 1838 to present-day Oklahoma.

"Long time we travel on way to new land. People feel bad when they leave Old Nation. Women cry and make sad wails, Children cry and many men cry...but they say nothing and just put heads down and keep on go towards West. Many days pass and people die very much."

a woman survivor, 1839


I saw a History Detective Episode a while back where they tracked down someone’s ancestor that had been on the Trail of tears. It seems that the ancestor was not a Cherokee, but one of the Wagon masters that had contracted to help move the Indians who had been effectively screwed out of their land.
I don’t know that much about the ‘Trail of Tears” and believe it or not, my other historical Posts have been done more or less off the top of my head, with research being done to verify quotations I used.
For my new friend ‘Anonymous” who is home schooling 2 girls, I found this ‘Teachers Aid” that seems to be as directed towards the “how to’s” concerning a research project as much as it is about the “Trail of Tears”.

I've done pretty good with a 5th Grade Education and a good Christian raisin', but I am no researcher. Yet.

What I learned
I had thought the removal of the Cherokee from lands in the Southeastern United States was based on gold being discovered there. Gold was only one part of the equation. The removal of the Cherokees was also product of the demand for land during the growth of Cotton Agriculture (fueling Slavery in the land of Freedom) in the Southeast, and the racial prejudice that many white southerners harbored towards but did not limit to American Indians.

From the ‘New Georgia Encyclopedia”
“In the late 1780s U.S. officials began to urge the Cherokees to abandon hunting and their traditional ways of life and to instead learn how to live, worship, and farm like Christian American yeomen. Many Cherokees embraced this "civilization program." The Cherokees established a court system, formally abandoned the law of blood revenge, and adopted a republican government. A Cherokee man named Sequoyah created the Cherokee syllabary, which enabled the Cherokees to read, write, record their laws, and publish newspapers in their own language.” (the last paragraph in the Sequoyah link is very telling)

It is my understanding that the literacy rates in some Cherokee communities surpassed that of the white settlers encroaching on their land. Most Cherokee Communities were publishing newspapers. If ever there was a group of people willing to embrace a new lifestyle even while in the clutches of an Imminent Domain “ issue, I give you the Cherokee

General Andrew Jackson called for the United States to end what he called the "absurdity" of negotiating with the Indian tribes as sovereign nations. Thomas Jefferson wanted to move all Indians West of the Mississippi and the Louisiana purchase was a big step towards doing that. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee nation to keep their land, it was Jefferson who said ‘Let them try to enforce that ruling”.

The bottom line of all this is that some 15,000- 16,000 (estimated)Indians were forced off their lands and made to walk 1000 miles to lands unknown, some in the middle of Winter while boats for transport were frozen fast in rivers, and others through the brutally scorching sun and humidity of Gulf States.

An estimated 5,000 Cherokee died during this forced march that is now known as the "Trail of Tears”

For many years previous, treaties were made and broken, almost exclusively by the White man and always to the benefit of the White man. It is the under handed nature of the way this was done that I find unsavory.
Racial prejudice was nothing new to our Founding Fathers and it is still a huge global issue.
The idea that a cultures Art and the way they worship should be eradicated is a policy against which we are involved against the Taliban. It was also "Part and Parcel" our policy and practice against the Native Americans.

The term ‘Imminent domain” would be a whole research subject itself. I wonder if there is a way to inflict Imminent domain that is not underhanded.

Another Chapter in this story is that of Cheif Joseph and the Nez Perce, who had their own sort of Trail of Tears 50 years later and 2000 miles to the West.

A wound to the heart.

I never taught my people to trust Americans.
I have told them the truth - that the Americans are great liars.
I have never dealt with the Americans. Why should I?
The land belonged to my people.

sitting bull, 1883