Posted on 03/07/2008 11:21:32 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
A lone Cherokee Indian walked the barren earth where bulldozers had cleared the way for construction of a monument to the people who were at the Blythe Ferry staging area prior to the Trail of Tears in 1838.
Alva Crow of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee from Cherokee, N. C., arrived at Blythe Ferry Landing, west of Georgetown, two hours early. It was a difficult journey for Crow, who is undergoing chemotherapy.
“I am blessing the people who were here that made the removal on the Trail of Tears is here,” he said. “The people who passed away is here.”
He blessed the people to help them relieve their anger and help them go home.
“It’s time for them to go home,” Crow said. “It’s time for them to welcome the new world, the new Trail of Tears, to make it a beautiful place for them, not for us. They can go on and be happy now.”
He said it is important for people to remember how America was in the freedom they had.
US Congressman Zach Wamp has been in the forefront of passing national Trail of Tears legislation that will double the size of the trail based on 29 immigration depots and two other routes that were never documented or recorded as the Trail of Tears. A full length feature film will be released in the next two years.
“This is part of who we are. This is one of the great lessons of history that mistakes can be made by the greatest government in the history of the world,” Wamp said. “The US Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional and couldn’t be done. President Andrew Jackson did it anyway. He basically told the Supreme Court to enforce their ruling, knowing full well they had no enforcement power.”
Wamp said Jackson denied his responsibility and ordered the forced removal that led to the death of 4,000 to 5,000 before their arrival in Oklahoma.
“Here at Blythe Ferry is where 9,000 Cherokee crossed the Tennessee River,” he said. “That’s why this is a special place. That’s why it is appropriate the Cherokee Removal Memorial is here.”
The 2,400 sq. ft. memorial was funded by $1.3 million of federal transportation enhancement funds. There is an overlook on a bluff above Jolly Island where Sam Houston lived for a time. Eventually, there will be a boat dock at Blythe Ferry.
“There will be three amenities here where 9,000 Cherokee spent quite some time before they headed west,” he said. “The bright spot in this tragedy is they survived and they have very strong character. The Cherokee Nation is a strong tribe.”
The Cherokee Removal Monument was the dream of one woman, then two and then a third.
Shirley Hoskins, who had relatives on the trail was born in Oklahoma, but moved to Tennessee when her husband went to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority. A monument has been a dream of hers for 30 years.
“I lived in Chattanooga 15 years before I even knew where the Cherokee came from,” she said.
The dream began to solidify 12 years ago when Gloria Schouggins and Shirley Lawrence, of Decatur, began helping her.
County Mayor Ken Jones said Schouggins was a constant picture on his radar screen. “Every time I looked up from my desk, Gloria was right there in front of me.”
Jones said it is important the memorial be built so we do not forget.
“Building this is just, and it is right,” he said.
I believe in honoring people that had blended with the European society, and then were forced to leave, because others wanted their land.
However, I do not believe in another government grant. This is OUR money being spent frivolously.
Give US our money back and let us contribute to the memorial, if WE want to.
My mother was born is Swiftown Mississippi, but was not a US citizen because her father was Choctaw. For some, these "bad things" are not so distant in the past.
This is something that did not happen in the US, partly because our aboriginal population was lower, and partly because the British were never interested in converting the Indians, teaching them European ways...
You might want to read up on the Five Civilized Tribes before the trail of tears. They were not called civilized for nothing.
True. We visited the Cherokee reservation and museum in N. Carolina (not all Cherokees were deported, some managed to remain). The history is fascinating, and tragic. This was a great injustice.
I don't think this is "wallowing in it," this is proper recognition of a great people who have been loyal Americans for a long time, despite what was done to them.
Here’s a little bit of Bell related Tennessee history.
May be a different branch of the family....
The Trail of Tears runs right through where I live.
Probably to avoid the Ozark Mountains. Just a guess.
LOL! I remember the night I first ran across the “Bell witch” when researching and thought....do I want to know this??? But, it’s some other Bells. Mine were from NW Georgia. My bunch didn’t have time for witches!
My point was that the Spanish were much more respectful of native cultures than the British. All the Spanish wanted to do was convert them, trade with them, and marry them.
There should be a memorial for this.
That’s true. The tribes were very different, and there certainly were some Protestant divines in New England who wanted to Christianize the Indians.
The difference was that Christianizing the native population was an official objective of Spanish colonization. This, of course, applied to Spanish government sponsored expeditions; privately sponsored ones were uneven, but the Church (particularly through the Franciscan order) usually managed to send some missionaries along to preach to and convert the native population, and even to defend their rights against the aggressive Spanish entrepreneurs.
Many bright young Indians were sent to Spain to study, and the Spanish also taught European art techniques to the native peoples, to the extent that many 17th century “Spanish” art works were actually produced in workshops in Quito and other places in Latin America and then sent to Spain.
And they were still forced out of their homes and lands--which the government recognized--when gold was discovered there.
Thanks, livius, I don’t know much of the Spanish influence on the East Coast. England also brought over a few Cherokee, not sure of other tribes. I have a photo of a painting somewhere in my files (?), I think it was the early 1700’s.
Here’s some on that:
http://books.google.com/books?id=8-4s2aXr8oQC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=cherokee+delegation+to+britain&source=web&ots=ARRZRWiQY0&sig=4-kczJWAjJdoLaDjOV-dyzi8Mas&hl=en
| To: livius
"Basically, under the [United States], the Indians did eventually get a fair deal"
The American government reneged on numerous agreements and treaties recognizing tribal land. 'Fair' is subjective, but the government did not keep its word. "The Spanish were much [kinder] colonizers than the British, and thus ended up with mestizo populations."
The Spanish were much crueler colonizers than the British, and were responsible for the enslavement of a huge number of Amerindians. Precious metals mined by Amerindian slave labor fueled European economic growth (and inflation). As you pointed out--and did almost a 180--the Mesoamerican Amerindian population was much larger than what was in what is now the United States. That is why there are so many mestizos. Furthermore, in many former Spanish colonies, there is a caste system, with people of Amerindian blood being lower on the totem pole than those with European blood. Just look at Latin American news and television shows. How many almost 'pure' Amerindians do you see? How many almost 'pure' European-descendants? Actually, there's a fair chance that the United States is as much 'mestizo' as Mexico, by the one drop rule, with the majority of Americans having at least one distant Amerindian ancestor. The British and the Americans were much kinder to the Amerindians than the Spanish (in general). The French beat the British (actually English, for the most part) in the kindness-to-the-natives department, though.
As for the rubbing it in over and over part, how about this BBC forum: here. Looks as if there is misunderstanding all around. Posted on 03/07/2008 8:11:29 AM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu ( What is your take on Acts 15:20 (abstaining from blood) about eating meat? Could you freepmail? ) |
*This is the big point that trying to make: what is particularly bad is not soooo much that the government decided to ethnically cleanse these people and move them to cruddy land, but that the government broke its treaties and agreements. Legally, the government broke the law. That is the primary point why these things about Amerindians being chased off their land is so bad, although the unethical/immoral part is bad, too.
Here’s a first hand account you will appreciate. Many of the Cherokee in No. Georgia (not so of others) lived as aristocrats, many educated in the North East. Some had homes designed by European architects.
The circumstances and fate of the Cherokee in their homelands of Georgia is best described by Too-qua-stee, who was known as DeWitt Clinton Duncan, native to the area and the brother of Rev. Walter Duncan. He was New England educated as were many of his Cherokee contemporaries and later became a lawyer and a teacher of English, Latin and Greek at the Cherokee Male Seminary. In the “Story of the Cherokees’ he wrote:
” The Cherokees, from time to time, sold portions of their territory to the whites in the hope of saving by that expedient small part, at least, of their ancient heritage as a permanent home for themselves and their children.
....The Cherokees made the question of civilization a subject of deliberation in the council of the nation. ‘Shall the Cherokee adopt the habits, customs, and institutions of the white race, or shall they continue in the way of their forefathers?’ That was the question. They determined in favor of civilization.
Accordingly, they organized a civil government founded on the three fundamental ideas: Law, Law understood, and Law executed. The rights and liberties of the citizens were suitably guaranteed; religion was made free; morality encouraged and education provided for. With the greatest unanimity and most commendable zeal, they addressed themselves to the employments of civilized life, and pleasant homes, mingled with churches and schoolhouses, sprang up and adorned the land.
They had begun to appreciate and enjoy the blessings of home, and to love wife and children with a more refined devotion. The land, which they inhabited, was no more their cherished ‘hunting ground’, but their country, which they had learned to love with all the fervor of an enlightened patriotism. Their increased intelligence enabled them to discern more accurately the distinctions between justice and injustice, while their moral sensibilities, vitalized by the influence of civilization, experienced a new delight in the triumphs of the former, and flamed with an unwonted indignation at the invasions of the latter. In their estimation, the white men were no more, as in ancient times they had been supposed to be, ‘children of the sun’, but were only men, like themselves, capable of evil as well as good. To be, at this period, driven from their country, endeared by so many improved causes of attachment, and sent to new and untried abodes in the western wilderness far beyond the Mississippi, was a prospect, which filled the heart of the nation with sensations of chilly horror.
..... They cried to their ‘Great Father at Washington’, but his answers never rose to anything higher than hypocritical expressions of parental regard for his ‘Red children’. Georgia well understood this bias of the Administration.......’The Cherokees must go,’ was her motto; it had been whispered in her ear at the White House. ‘The Cherokees must go’ was caught up and echoed by the intruders. ‘The Cherokees must go,’ was the war cry throughout the state.
An act was hurried through the forms of legislation having in view the two-fold purpose of driving the Cherokees out of their country and putting Georgia in possession of their lands. The statute abolished the Cherokee body politic, annulled all Cherokee laws, and made it a penal offense for any person to enforce, or attempt to enforce, a judgment or process of any Cherokee court. It extended the laws of Georgia over the Cherokee country, and punished all white men with imprisonment who should be found remaining therein without first taking the oath of allegiance to the state government and to support her in her measures against the Cherokees.
It also provided for a survey of the Cherokee lands and for dividing them up ‘by lot’ in homesteads to such loyal citizens as might see fit to venture out and make improvements in the wilds of the newly acquired territory.....By its terms, no Indian was allowed to bear witness against a white man in any of the courts of the state; and if any Indian should be detected in digging gold, except in the employ of a loyal citizen of the state, he was liable to be arrested and punished with imprisonment.
To put this oppressive law into execution, the militia of the state were called out, armed and mounted. Dr. Elizar Butler and Rev. S. A. Worcester, who were in the service of the American Board among the Cherokees, were the most distinguished of these recusant missionaries. They were arrested by militia on charge of being found in the Cherokee country contrary to the terms of the statute.... The prisoners were pinioned. For each, they prepared a rope. One end they tied around the prisoner’s neck, the other to the pummel of a saddle. The ruffians then rode away, while these good men trotted along behind them on the way to jail. They were tried, found guilty of violating the statute and sentenced to the penitentiary. They served out their time and were discharged, and returning to the Cherokees in their new home west of the Mississippi, resumed their labors. They gave their lives to the Cherokees, and their works live after them and bless their memory.
If a ‘lot,’ happened to cover an occupied improvement, the owner was thrown out of possession on private responsibility. Such personal property as was found upon the premises, especially the implements of husbandry and the mechanical arts were appropriated by the newcomer. The poultry was dressed and enjoyed by him, his wife and little ones. The hogs were remarked and the cattle re-branded in the name of the white man, and went to augment his patrimony.
Two horsemen now came into view far down the highway in the direction of the white settlement. They were armed with rifles certainly and doubtless with other weapons that are visible only in cases of emergency. They were white men. It was a good hit for them, for their ‘lot’ covered the man’s premises completely. They were coming to see their newly acquired property. The first part of the improvement that came under their notice was the pasture in which the man’s horses were grazing. Here they loitered and looked for a time with evident satisfaction. At length, they moved on. The orchard next attracted their attention. Here they estimated the number of fruit trees and tried to take in their quality and variety. -
By and by, they came to the great gate that stood near the barn. One of them here dismounted, flung the gate open, remounted and they both rode in. On they went, inspecting, prospecting-slowly onward till at last they were lost from sight in the expanse of the farm. They arrived at the same great gate and passed out still wearing an impenetrable air of inquiry and investigation.
Here one of the white men drew from his pocket and read a certificate showing that he had won the man’s premises at Georgia’s infamous lottery box. They then rode away in the direction they had come.
The man’s dark eye followed them as they went. His deep sense of wrong had hung itself in shadows upon his swarthy brow, and in the tones of one whose spirit, oppressed by a power which it cannot repel, finds its last support in hopeless feelings of contempt, he said:
‘The impudence of a white man! Specimens of a glorious civilization! Those obdurate villains have the hardihood to say that God has a peculiar liking for them and their race on account of what they know and what they are; that He gives them the whole world for a possession, and commissions them on errands of rapine and murder against us as He did Joshua against the poor Canaanites. If that be so, it is wonderful how such great meanness can be so popular in heaven, and be entrusted with such fearful prerogatives over the rest of mankind! Away with such civilization! -Nations are rarely human when they are not afraid to play the beast.’
A fortnight passed and two emigrant wagons rolled into view. They were attended by the same two white men that had a few days before explored the man’s premises. Their wives and their children were with them, also their hired hands. They came trudging, dusty, dirty, evidently weary. A long way they had doubtless traveled. Step by step their teams tugged on, freighted to the bows of their wagons’ white arching roofs with all the precious prospects of a new and happy home in the beautiful land of the Cherokees. On they came, soberly and directly, tending toward the big gate just back of the barn. They arrived and halted before its majesty. There was no god in all the Cherokee nation that commanded the reverence of those impious white men like that gigantic gate. They swung it wide open upon its ponderous hinges, though, and in they drove.
In the meantime, the man himself had received a threatening notification that his own well-being was conditioned upon his own gentle behavior, and that in case he should attempt any interference, his right to life and liberty would be deemed forfeited.
He brought an action… in the superior courts of the state of Georgia.....In the meantime, a system of persecution was inaugurated by the intruders, and daily the man and his family felt their sensibilities galled by insulting epithets and brutal maledictions. Their national pride was outraged by heaping contemptuous ridicule upon their name and race.
At length, the case came on for trial. ‘Bring on your witnesses, Mr. Plaintiff,’ came the injunction from the bench.
“Hold!” cried a voice from the defense; “we object to the competency of those witnesses. Those witnesses, your honor, are all Cherokee Indians; this defendant is a white man, and the statute of our state provides that no Indian shall be allowed to testify against a white man in any of the courts of the state of Georgia.’
‘The objection is well taken,’ responded the court, ‘and must be sustained.’ ‘Have you no white persons to testify for you, Mr. Plaintiff?’
‘None, your honor.’
‘Your case, then, must be dismissed at your own cost, and it is so ordered.’
Years have since rolled away. He and his heroic wife have long since found rest in death. The children still live, and that malignant power, falsely called civilization, is to this day still at their heels demanding their room or their ruin.”
************
Preserved from history is one actual formal notice delivered to a Cherokee citizen to vacate his home as per a lot drawing. It states:
“It becomes my duty to give you notice to evacuate the lot of land No. 125, in the 14th District, of the third section, and to give the house now occupied by you to Col. William Handen, or whoever he may put forward to take possession of the same and that you may have ample time to prepare for the same, I will allow you until the 28th day of this month to do the same. “
****from the soon to be released book, “Jesus Wept”.
Actually, the Spanish enslaved the American Indians, in the Carribean and New Mexico.
The New Mexican pueblo dwellers revolted and killed their enslavers.
There is some evidence that in addition to black slaves who came to St Augistine on the very first boat, there were indian slaves as well.
Also, about their language. By 1820, the Cherokee had their own Newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, in New Echota, Ga., which was read in the North East and Europe. It was printed in English and Cherokee. Within 25 years thousands of them, became literate in English and their new Cherokee written language as well. Elias Boudinot (Buck Watie) was editor.
“Legally, the government broke the law. That is the primary point why these things about Amerindians being chased off their land is so bad, “
Oh, you nailed that one!
Appreciated.
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