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Posted on 06/03/2003 5:24:32 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.
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1838-1839 "There were ten million Native Americans on this continent when the first non-Indians arrived. Over the next 300 years, 90% of all Native American original population was either wiped out by disease, famine, or warfare imported by the whites."  The first contact between southeastern American Indians and Europeans was the expedition of Hernando de Soto in 1540. De Soto took captives for use as slave labor, while others were abused because the Europeans deemed them savages. Epidemic diseases brought by the Europeans spread through the Indian villages, decimating native populations. Over the next two centuries more and more white settlers arrived, and the native cultures responded to pressures to adopt the foreign ways, leading to the deterioration of their own culture. During the colonial period Indian tribes often became embroiled in European colonial wars. If they were on the losing side, they frequently had to give up parts of their homelands.  After the American Revolution the Indians faced another set of problems. Even though it took time for the new government to establish a policy for dealing with the Indians, the precedent had been set during the colonial period. The insatiable desire of white settlers for lands occupied by Indian people inevitably led to the formulation of a general policy of removing the unwanted inhabitants. Political leaders including President Thomas Jefferson believed that the Indians should be civilized, which to him meant converting them to Christianity and turning them into farmers. Many other whites agreed, and missionaries were sent among the tribes. But when the transformation did not happen quickly enough, views changed about the Indian people's ability to be assimilated into white culture. "We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for...we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go...to let it go it will be like throwing away...[our] mother that gave...[us] birth." (Letter from Aitooweyah, to John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees.)  National policy to move Indians west of the Mississippi developed after the Louisiana Territory was purchased from the French in 1803. Whites moving onto these lands pressed the U.S. government to do something about the Indian presence. In 1825 the U.S. government formally adopted a removal policy, which was carried out extensively in the 1830's by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. The result was particularly overwhelming for the Indians of the southeastern United States - primarily the Cherokee, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles - who were finally removed hundreds of miles to a new home. Perhaps the most culturally devastating episode of this era is that concerning the removal of the Cherokee Indians, who called themselves (Italicized- Ani Yun wiya.) Traditionally the Cherokees had lived in villages in the southern Appalachians - present-day Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, western North Carolina, and South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. Here in a land of valleys, ridges, mountains, and streams they developed a culture based on farming, hunting, and fishing. The Cherokees took on some of the ways of white society. They built European-style homes and farmsteads, laid out European-style fields and farms, developed a written language, established a newspaper, and wrote a constitution. But they found that they were not guaranteed equal protection under the law and that they could not prevent whites from seizing their lands. They were driven from their homes, herded into internment camps, and moved by force to a strange land.  Beginning in 1791 a series of treaties between the United States and the Cherokees living in Georgia gave recognition to the Cherokees as a nation with their own laws and customs. Nevertheless, treaties and agreements gradually whittled away at this land base, and in the late 1700's some Cherokees sought refuge from white interference by moving to northwestern Arkansas between the White and Arkansas rivers. As more and more land cessions were forced on the Cherokees during the first two decades of the 1800's, the number moving to Arkansas increased. Then in 1819 the Cherokee National council notified the federal government that it would no longer cede land, thus hardening their resolve to remain on their dispute traditional homelands. The Cherokee situation was further complicated by the issue of state's rights and a prolonged dispute between Georgia and the federal government. In 1802 Georgia was the last of the original colonies to cede its western lands to the federal government. In doing so, Georgia expected all titles to the land held by Indians to be extinguished. However, that did not happen, and the Principal People continued to occupy their ancestral homelands, which had been guaranteed to them by treaty. "...Inclination to remove from this land has no abiding place in our hearts, and when we move we shall move by the course of nature to sleep under this ground which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors and which now covers them in their undisturbed peace." Cherokee Legislative Council New Echota July 1830 Georgia residents resented the Cherokees success in holding onto their tribal lands and governing themselves. Settlers continued to encroach on Cherokee lands, as well as those belonging to the neighboring Creek Indians. In 1828 Georgia passed a law pronouncing all laws of the Cherokee Nation to be null and void after June 1, 1830, forcing the issue of states' rights with the federal government. Because the state no longer recognized the rights of the Cherokees, tribal meetings had to held just across the state line at Red Clay, Tennessee. When gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1829, efforts to dislodge the Principal People from their lands were intensified. At the same time President Andrew Jackson began to aggressively implement a broad policy of extinguishing Indian land titles in affected states and relocating the Indian population.  John Ross was principal chief of the Eastern Cherokees and later the combined Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory. He served from 1828 until his death in 1866. Ross was 1/8 Cherokee by blood. Although allied with the Confederacy in the American Civil War, Ross allowed himself to be captured without incident by Union troops in 1862 and moved to Philidelphia where he lived until the end of the war. John Ross, as Cherokee chief, had to lead his people on the "Trail of Tears" "No eastern tribe had struggled harder or more successfully to make white civilization their own. For generations the Cherokee had lived side by side with whites in Georgia. They had devised a written language, published their own newspaper, adopted a constitution, and a Christian faith. But after gold was discovered on their land, even they were told they would have to start over again in the West." The West, a documentary by Ken Burns and Stephen Ives In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which directed the executive branch to negotiate for Indian lands. This act, in combination with the discovery of gold and an increasingly untenable position with the state of Georgia, prompted the Cherokee Nation to bring suit in the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for the majority, held that the Cherokee Nation was a "domestic dependent nation," and therefore Georgia state law applied to them. That decision, however, was reversed the following year in Worcester v. Georgia. Under an 1830 law Georgia required all white residents in Cherokee country to secure a license from the governor and to take an oath of allegiance to the state. Missionaries Samuel A. Worcester and Elizur Butler refused and were convicted and imprisoned. Worcester appealed to the Supreme Court. This time the court found that Indian nations are capable of making treaties, that under the Constitution treaties are the supreme law of the land, that the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation, and that state law had no force within the Cherokee boundaries. Worcester was ordered released from jail.  President Jackson refused to enforce the court's decision and along with legal technicalities, the fate of the Principal People seemed to be in the hands of the federal government. Even though the Cherokee people had adopted many practices of the white culture, and had used the court system in two major Supreme Court cases, they were unable to halt the removal process. "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." President Andrew Jackson re: Worcester v. Georgia The state of Georgia continued to press for Indian lands, and a group of Cherokees known as the Treaty Party began negotiating a treaty with the federal government. The group led by Major Ridge and including his son John, Elias Boudinot, and his brother Stand Watie, signed a treaty at New Echota in 1835. Despite the majority opposition to this treaty - opposition led by Principal Chief John Ross - the eastern lands were sold for $5 million, and the Cherokees agreed to move beyond the Mississippi River to Indian Territory. The Senate ratified the treaty despite knowledge that only a minority of Cherokees had accepted it. Within two years the Principal People were to move from their ancestral homelands. "My friends, circumstances render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach, and that is to remove to the west. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity." Andrew Jackson President Martin Van Buren ordered the implementation of the Treaty of New Echota in 1838, and U.S. Army troops under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott began rounding up the Cherokees and moving them into stockades in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Altogether 31 forts were constructed for this purpose - 13 in Georgia, five in North Carolina, eight in Tennessee, and five in Alabama. All of the posts were near Cherokee towns, and they served only as temporary housing for the Cherokees.  As soon as practical, the Indians were transferred from the removal forts to 11 internment camps that were more centrally located - 10 in Tennessee and one in Alabama. In North Carolina, for example, Cherokees at the removal forts were sent to Fort Butler, and by the second week in July on to the principal agency at Fort Cass. By late July 1838, with the exception of the Oconaluftee Citizen Indians, the fugitives hiding in the mountains, and some scattered families, virtually all other Cherokees remaining in the East were in the internment camps. According to a military report for July 1838, the seven camps in and around Charleston, Tennessee, contained more than 4,800 Cherokees: 700 at the agency post, 600 at Rattlesnake Spring, 870 at the first encampment on Mouse Creek, 1,600 at the second encampment of Mouse Creek, 900 at Bedwell Springs, 1,300 on Chestooee, 700 on the ridge east of the agency, and 600 on the Upper Chatate. Some 2,000 Cherokees were camped at Gunstocker Spring 13 miles from Calhoun, Tennessee. One group of Cherokees did not leave the mountains of North Carolina. This group traced their origin to an 1819 treaty that gave them an allotment of land and American citizenship on lands not belonging to the Cherokee Nation. When the forced removal came in 1838, this group--now called the Oconaluftee Cherokees - claimed the 1835 treaty did not apply to them as they no longer lived on Cherokee lands. Tsali and his sons were involved in raids on the U.S. soldiers who were sent to drive the Cherokees to the stockades. The responsible Indians were punished by the army, but the rest of the group gained permission to stay, and North Carolina ultimately recognized their rights. Fugitive Cherokees from the nation also joined the Oconaluftee Cherokees, and in time this group became the Eastern Band of Cherokees, who still reside in North Carolina.
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"One by one Indian peoples were removed to the West. The Delaware, the Ottawa, Shawnee, Pawnee and Potawatomi, the Sauk and Fox, Miami and Kickapoo, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole. In all some 90 thousand Indians were relocated. The Cherokee were among the last to go. Some reluctantly agreed to move. Others were driven from their homes at bayonet point. Almost two thousand of them died along the route they remembered as the Trail of Tears."
Documentary: The West (Ken Burns/Stephen Ives)
Three detachments of Cherokees, totaling about 2,800 persons, traveled by river to Indian Territory. The first of these groups left on June 6 by steamboat and barge from Ross's Landing on the Tennessee River (present-day Chattanooga). They followed the Tennessee as it wound across northern Alabama, including a short railroad detour around the shoals between Decatur and Tuscumbia Landing. The route then headed north through central Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio River. The Ohio took them to the Mississippi River, which they followed to the mouth of the Arkansas River. The Arkansas led northwest to Indian Territory, and they arrived aboard a steamboat at the mouth of Salisaw Creek near Fort Coffee on June 19, 1838. The other two groups suffered more because of a severe drought and disease (especially among the children), and they did not arrive in Indian Territory until the end of the summer.
The rest of the Principal People traveled to Indian Territory overland on existing roads. They were organized into detachments ranging in size from 700 to 1,600, with each detachment headed by a conductor and an assistant conductor appointed by John Ross. The Cherokees who had signed the treaty of New Echota were moved in a separate detachment conducted by John Bell and administered by US. Army Lt. Edward Deas. A physician, and perhaps a clergyman, usually accompanied each detachment. Supplies of flour and corn, and occasionally salt pork, coffee, and sugar, were obtained in advance, but were generally of poor quality. Drought and the number of people being moved reduced forage for draft animals, which often were used to haul possessions, while the people routinely walked.
The most commonly used overland route followed a northern alignment, while other detachments (notably those led by John Being and John Bell) followed more southern routes, and some followed slight variations. The northern route started at, Tennessee, and crossed central Tennessee, southwestern Kentucky, and southern Illinois. After crossing the Mississippi River north of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, these detachments trekked across southern Missouri and the northwest corner of Arkansas.
Road conditions, illness, and the distress of winter, particularly in southern Illinois while detachments waited to cross the ice-choked Mississippi, made death a daily occurrence. Mortality rates for the entire removal and its aftermath were substantial, totaling approximately 8,000.
Most of the land route detachments entered present-day Oklahoma near Westville and were often met by a detachment of US. troops from Fort Gibson and the Arkansas River. The army officially received the Cherokees, who generally went to live with those who had already arrived, or awaited land assignments while camped alone the Illinois River and its tributaries east of present-day Tahlequah.
In the Indian Territory problems quickly developed among the new arrivals and Cherokees who had already settled, especially as reprisals were taken against the contingent who had signed the Treaty of New Echota. As these problems were resolved, the Cherokees proceeded to adapt to their new homeland, and they reestablished their own system of government, which was modeled on that of the United States.
"A common ancestry promotes understanding between Cherokee full bloods and the mixed bloods. They are poles apart in many respects but, under the skin, are still brothers. For one thing, they have Cherokee traditions in common, and no amount of white blood can dilute the remembrance of what happened in centuries past to the Cherokee people."
Grace Steele Woodward
This autonomy remained reasonably strong until the Civil War, when a faction of the Cherokees sided with the Confederacy. During Reconstruction they suffered a loss of self-government and, more importantly, their land base. Government annuities were reduced, and lands were sold to newly arrived tribes. Cessions of land continued during the later 19th century, and the federal government emerged as the major force for land cessions under the Dawes Act of 1887, which divided up tribal lands. The establishment of the state of Oklahoma in 1907 increased pressure for land cessions. Many people of questionable Cherokee ancestry managed to get on the tribal rolls and participate in the allotment of these lands to individuals. By the early 1970's the Western Cherokees had lost title to over 19 million acres of land.
Throughout the years, the Cherokees have sought to maintain much of their original cultural identity. To increase public awareness of their heritage, many of them have advocated the designation of the Trail of Tears as a historic trail.
"The Cherokee are probably the most tragic instance of what could have succeeded in American Indian policy and didn't. All these things that Americans would proudly see as the hallmarks of civilization are going to the West by Indian people. They do everything they were asked except one thing. What the Cherokees ultimately are, they may be Christian, they may be literate, they may have a government like ours, but ultimately they are Indian. And in the end, being Indian is what kills them."
Richard White, Historian
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| February | 15,665 people of the Cherokee Nation memorialize congress protesting the Treaty of New Echola. |
| March | Outraged American citizens throughout the country memorialize congress on behalf of the Cherokee. |
| April | Congress tables memorials protesting Cherokee removal. Federal troops ordered to prepare for roundup. |
| May | Cherokee roundup begins May 23, 1838. Southeast suffers worst drought in recorded history. Tsali escapes roundup and returns to North Carolina. |
| June | First group of Cherokees driven west under Federal guard. Further removal aborted because of drought and "sickly season." |
| July | Over 13,000 Cherokees imprisoned in military stockades awaiting break in drought. Approximately 1500 die in confinement. |
| August | In Aquohee stockade Cherokee chiefs meet in council, reaffirming the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. John Ross becomes superintendent of the removal. |
| September | Drought breaks: Cherokee prepare to embark on forced exodus to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Ross wins additional funds for food and clothing. |
| October | For most Cherokee, the "Trail of Tears" begins. |
| November | Thirteen contingents of Cherokees cross Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. First groups reach the Mississippi River, where there crossing is held up by river ice flows. |
| December | Contingent led by Chief Jesse Bushyhead camps near present day Trail of Tears Park. John Ross leaves Cherokee homeland with last group: carrying the records and laws of the Cherokee Nation. 5000 Cherokees trapped east of the Mississippi by harsh winter; many die. |
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| January | First overland contingents arrives at Fort Gibson. Ross party of sick and infirm travel from Kentucky by riverboat. |
| February | Chief Ross's wife, Quati, dies near Little Rock, Arkansas on February 1, 1839. |
| March | Last group headed by Ross, reaches Oklahoma. More than 3000 Cherokee die on Trail of Tears, 1600 in stockades and about the same number en route. 800 more die in 1839 in Oklahoma. |
| April | Cherokees build houses, clear land, plant and begin to rebuild their nation. |
| May | Western Cherokee invite new arrivals to meet to establish a united Cherokee government. |
| June | Old Treaty Part leaders attempt to foil reunification negotiations between Ross and Sequoyah. Treaty Party leaders John Ridge, Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot assassinated. |
| July | Cherokee Act of Union brings together the eastern and western Cherokee Nations on July 12, 1839. |
| August | Stand Watie, Brother of Boudinot, pledges revenge for deaths of party leaders. |
| September | Cherokee constitution adopted on September 6, 1839. Tahlequah established as capital of the Cherokee Nation. |
rosecity.net
www.army.mil
lawweb.usc.edu
www.soulbooks.org
www.guthriestudios.com
www.americaslibrary.gov
www.nps.gov
www.cviog.uga.edu
cherokeehistory.com
www.maxdstandley.com
| 'When the first lands were sold by Cherokees, in 1721, a part of the tribe bitterly opposed the sale, saying... the whites would never be satisfied, but would soon want a little more, and a little more again, until there would be little left for the Indians. Finding [they could not] prevent the treaty, they determined to leave their old homes forever and go far into the West, beyond the great River, where the white man could never follow them.' -- Legend of the "Lost Cherokees" 'I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the west.' -- Private John G. Burnett 'The sick and feeble were carried in waggons-about as comfortable for traveling as a New England ox cart with a covering over it--a great many ride on horseback and multitudes go on foot--even aged females, apparently nearly ready to drop into the grave, were traveling with heavy burdens attached to the back--on the sometimes frozen ground, and sometimes muddy streets, with no covering for the feet except what nature had given them.' -- A Native of Maine Traveling in the Western Country 'I would sooner be honestly damned than hypocritically immortalized.' -- Davy Crockett |
.......FALL IN to The FReeper Foxhole! |
Homecomings
 A little girl waits on the arrival of the troops from Operation Iraqi Freedom during a welcome home celebration at Buckley Air Force Base, Colo. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Deanna Lenhart  Six-year-old Damon Patterson holds up a "Welcome Home" sign for his father, Aviation Ordnancemen 1st Class Michel Patterson. Patterson saw the sign once he arrived by bus to Naval Air Facility Atsugi. He has been on a four month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Third Class John E. Woods  Operations Specialist Seaman Robert Long meets his mother, Vicki, on the pier after the USS San Jacinto pulled into it's homeport, Norfolk Naval Station after a 6 month deployment with the Truman Battle Group to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Marthaellen L. Ball  Lt. Col. Todd Nading, 37th Bomb Squadron, Ellsworth, Air Force Base, S.D., is greeted by his family on his return from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joanna E. Hensley  Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Brandon Fullbright departs USS Nassau with his wife for the traditional 'First Kiss' during the ship's return home to Naval Station Norfolk, Va. The amphibious assault ship completes an extended deployment which lasted nine months in the Arabian Gulf where the ship and crew supported Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Navy photo by Journalist 2nd Class R. David Valdez  Senior Airman Juan Carlos Ochoa and other Air Force members of 6th Operations Support Squadron, hold up welcome home signs provided by a local news station for Air Force members returning from the Iraqi theater of operations to MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. U.S. Air Force photo by Douglas K. Lingefelt
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But not enough for re-election, Thank God!!
A new postage stamp commemorating the Purple Heart, the nation's oldest military award, was released Friday, May 30, 2003, by the U.S. Postal Service. The 37-cent stamp features a photograph of a Purple Heart awarded in 1968 to James Loftus Fowler, a Marine lieutenant colonel, who served in Vietnam. Originally a 'badge of distinction for meritorious action,' the Purple Heart now is awarded to members of the U.S. military who have been wounded or killed in action.(AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
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 FOOT PATROL — Soldiers of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany, conduct a foot patrol in a local marketplace in Fallujah, Iraq, to get a sense of the local people's feelings on the U.S. presence in the area. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Albert Eaddy  PSYOPS — Soldiers of 346th Psychological Operations Battalion, Cinncinatti, Ohio, hand out flyers during a foot patrol in a local marketplace in downtown Fallujah, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Albert Eaddy  FALLUJAH — Soldiers of 346th Psychological Operations Battalion, Cinncinatti, Ohio, conduct a foot patrol in a local marketplace in downtown Fallujah, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Albert Eaddy  GREETINGS — Soldiers from the 549th Military Police Company, Ft. Stewart, Ga., maintain area security by ensuring that local civilians are kept back, May 30. The 549th MP Company searched for illegal contraband in Al Tawlra suburb of Baghdad, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeremiah Lancaster  MEDICINE STORAGE — U.S. Army Col. Mohamed Ibraheim of the 354th Medical Detachment of Civil Affairs speaks with the head supervisor of all warehouses that hold medicine for hospitals and private docters, May 31. Col. Ibraheim is in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Matthew Willingham  RAID — Soldiers of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 6 Infantry of the 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany, conduct a May 13 raid of a local marketplace which sold illegal weapons in Fallujah, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Albert Eaddy  DISRUPTING CHAOS — Soldiers from B company, 502nd Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), detain an Iraqi citizen that cut in line at a propane distribution point in Mosul, Iraq, May 27, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Since the begining of the conflict in Iraq propane has become a precious commodity, therefore chaos insues whenever it is distributed. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Derek Gaines
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LOL. Of course! Good morning.
Hugs and joy were the order of the day Monday for Sgt. Josh Holden, top right, and other members of the Marine Reserves who returned to Tucson from Iraq. Among those welcoming Holden were Brandy Craig, with the hug, and niece Tiffany Holden, reaching out.
Halfway around the world, through choking dust storms, hellish heat and homesick nights, one thought kept Marine Cpl. Vanessa Matlock going as she served in the war in Iraq.
She dreamed of getting a welcome home kiss from her 3-year-old son. On Monday, she came home to collect it.
"I've got butterflies in my stomach. I've been dreaming about this for months," Matlock, 23, said as she hoisted son Ruben for a smooch as scores of other Tucsonans laughed, cried and hugged their own returning loved ones.
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