An Appalachian Country Rag--Country Reckoning

Click here for Next Section
(Every Day Matters)

A Country Rag Country Reckoning

Graphic below: Lizard Rex, by Patricia Allingham Clarlson
-- Click for her website, information and more artwork

Many of the customs of the American Indians were of great interest to travelers from the East who ventured west and observed firsthand the native Americans' way of life. One of the most interesting was the mode of their women carrying thier infants slung on their backs in their beautifully ornamented cradles.
The custom of carrying the child in this manner is not pecular to just one, but to all tribes. In earliest infancy, the child had its back lashed to a straight board and was fastened to it by bandages which passed around it in front and on the back of the board. The bandages were tightened to the necessary degree by lacing strings which held it in a straight and healthy position with its feet resting on a broad hoop which passed around the foot of the cradle. The child's position of standing erect was supported by a broad strap that passed across the mother's forehead. This had a tendency to produce straight limbs, sound lungs, and long life.
The bandages that passed around the cradle holding the child in were completely covered with beautiful embroidery of purcupine quills and with figures of horses, men, and buffalo. A broad hoop of elastic wood passed around in front of the child's face to protect it in case of a fall. A little toy of exquisite embroidery was suspended in front for the child for it to play with. Also attached were little tinseled and tinkling things of the brightest colors to amuse both the eyes and the ears of the child.
Whilst traveling on horseback, the arms of the child were fastened under the bandages to protect it should the cradle fall. When at rest, the arms were taken out allowing the infant to reach the little toys and trinkets.
(Although many of the American Indian's customs have faded away, this is one of the few that has not been abandoned. But it is sad to say that most American Indians became too poor to cover the cradle with more than rags and strings.)
The infant was carried in this manner until it was five, six, or even seven months old. If the infant died during that time, it would be buried and the grieving mother filled the empty cradle with black quills and feathers and carried it around wherever she went for a year or more with as much care as if her infant were alive and still in it. While she was engaged in her needlework, the mother would stand the cradle up against the wigwam, chatting and talking to it as if her child was alive.
So lasting and so strong was the affection of these women for their children, it mattered not how burdensome their load was or how rugged the route they had to travel. For the American Indians (being a spiritual people), this custom helped to keep the memory of the lost chhildn alive in their hearts and minds forever.
-- Wayne Rogers in Customs of the American Indians, for The Historical News, Vol. 30 No. 4-TN

"Cherokee Removal"

by Richard Manion, Instructor, Appalachian Studies
Native people understood the whites well and understood that the white people wanted their land. The whites also had what native people wanted - trade goods. Flintlock muskets, steel bladed knives and hatchets, copper pots, cloth clothes made life easier for Native Americans. Many tribes, including the Cherokee, were willing participants in selling land to whites in return for their products. Later the Cherokee sold land to accommodate their white neighbors. The land did seem endless. Finally, the Cherokee were in danger of pushed off the land themselves and passed a law that further sales of lands must be approved by the Cherokee Council. That lasted until 1829 when gold was discovered in north Georgia near Dahlonega and set off the first of the gold rushes. The gold was on Cherokee land and the Georgians wanted the Cherokee out. They held a land lottery in 1832 selling off parcels of Cherokee land while the Cherokee were still living on it. Two factions emerged in the Cherokee Nation. One headed by principal Chief John Ross took the traditional view that forbade any more land sales. The other faction under Major Ridge held that it was inevitable that the Cherokee would lose their land and better to take the government money and start again someplace else. The U.S. government declared the land west of the Mississippi River as Indian Territory. Major Ridge secretly met with representatives of the United States government and signed a treaty ceding the Cherokee homeland to the U.S. The treaty passed the United States Senate by one vote and was ratified. That treaty set into motion the forced removal of the Cherokee people - the Trail of Tears. Within a year of their arrival in Oklahoma, Major Ridge and his sons were dead, assassinated by the Cherokee for breaking the tribal law regarding land sales.

The Trail Where They Cried

by Osceola Waters

They say that there were approximately ten million American Indians, When white man first set his foot on our land, That's what the scholars say, We are not stupid, The pale faced one's carved their way through millions more, They came from the old world and stepped onto the new world, Our world, Known to us as Turtle Island, Over the next four hundred years over ninety percent of all the Indians, Would not survive, Along with the whites came darkness, A silent enemy, An invisible enemy, Killed more of us than the whites did, Small Pox, all forms of sickness followed the white man like a shadow, Bringing death to our people, Disease was imported, Exploited, Dispatched, Hatred hatched, Whole nations exterminated, The whites used Indian against Indian in warfare, Whites fought whites over our land, Over a country that was not there's, President Jefferson had a policy, Civilize, Christianize, Indians resisted, The churches persisted, Assimilation was the proclamation, The policy of removal adopted in 1825, Carried out with callousness, Carried out extensively, With no exceptions, With brutality and indifference, By Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, Out numbered and over whelmed, All Indians were force marched, Cherokee, Muskogee Creek, Seminoles, Many many nations driven hundreds of grueling miles, Cold, starving and exhausted, Many were ill and old, The trail became the trail of tears, The trail of death, The trail of ghosts, The death song was sung often, The Indians suffered unimaginable hardships, This exodus was deliberately schemed to eliminate as many as possible, Now today in Oklahoma the government is trying to make English only a law, Has anything really changed?

In his book Don't Know Much About History, Kenneth C. Davis writes: Hollywood has left the impression that the great Indian wars came in the Old West during the late 1800's, a period that many think of simplistically as the "cowboy and Indian" days. But in fact that was a "mopping up" effort. By that time the Indians were nearly finished, their subjugation complete, their numbers decimated. The killing, enslavement, and land theft had begun with the arrival of the Europeans. But it may have reached its nadir when it became federal policy under President (Andrew) Jackson.
**************
The route they traversed and the journey itself became known as "The Trail of Tears" or, as a direct translation from Cherokee, "The Trail Where They Cried" ("Nunna daul Tsuny").
**************

Cherokee Removal and Causes

by Brandon Burroughs
Being raised by a registered member of the Cherokee nation and being on the roles myself I have been told stories and legends my entire life about the trail of tears or "The Trail Where We Cried" which is a more literal interpretation of the native term. The pictures that have been printed to depict the removal do not tell the story and to most natives who know and have heard the truth told from a natives perspective.
From a people who chose to enslave a race of people who seemed substandard to them and make them nothing more than a farm animal, it is to be expected that much annimocity would leach to the same people who had a lust for Land and the power it had the ability to create. This means that any society other than their own that had the organization of government, building, religion, and a extensive written language could hold the ability to utilize the land and resources they had at their disposal to create a substance to live on without outstripping the usefulness of the land and the soil. This places any people who would confront these savage vagrants as a hero to the cause of gaining land for the cause of country.
When the final chapter is written it all comes down to land. Whoever has the land has the power and money. If the government was able to control that land they could also harness the power that comes with the land and choose who was able to purchase the land so that no single interest became too powerful in a given area. When it was realized that the Cherokee land was worth more than just valuable hunting ground and that the foothills of these mountains had fertile soil where many crops could be grown, it became evident that the Cherokee settled these areas with a purpose in mind. They had a grasp of agriculture far beyond the expectation of the encroaching white invader. When gold was discovered in GA it was only a matter of time till the government would have to find a way to get to it first. When the realization came that the gold rights were on Indian country the conflict became evident and unavoidable. The lust for gold drove greedy land grabbers to make every way they could to buy swindle and seize the land claims held by native peoples. This measure pushed whole tribal units to one condensed area or several small segregated areas.
May 26 1830 Andrew Jackson signed the Indian removal act into law forcing the military to remove native peoples from their ancestral homes forcing them to march from Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Florida to Oklahoma. This removal forced men women and children to take what they could carry and go. Along the first several trips there were many native people who died due to the forced march style the army used. The Chief of the Cherokee people John Ross, petitioned Winfield Scott to allow him to lead the people himself back and forth creating a much higher survival rate because it permitted the native people to hunt and forage along the way and allowed them to move at their own pace.(studyworld.com)
One oral legend my father passed on was the legend of the corn bead. The corn bead is a small seed that comes from a non-flowering bush. It is non-edible, in fact if eaten it can make you very sick or may even cause death. This seed is sacred to native people because legend says that everywhere a tear fell one of these bushes grew as a reminder of all that were lost along the way.(Burroughs)
It is a shame that in a society that would fight so hard to be free from a tyrant would take away the rights and liberties of people who were here long before them to gain what they have. The simple root of the cause is that they viewed the native people as less human than they were. They were so blinded by their own greed that they destroyed a society that was far more advanced than they had ever imagined.
*****************
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html When the Cherokee came through Nashville, they passed Andrew Jackson's home. Some had fought in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend for Jackson and even though he betrayed them, they paid respect to him on their journey through.
******************

Starting 8 years before the beginning of the actual removal of the Cherokee from their land, the federal government began building illegal housing on Cherokee land. These Removal Forts were the direct result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and were used to contain and keep track of the Cherokee, even though the Cherokee themselves were a sovereign nation. In Georgia, the earliest of these forts was know as Camp Hinar Sixes in September of 1830. Living in these Removal Forts also, were the Georgia Guard.The Georgia Guard were a group of illegal immigrants who brutalized and mistreated the Cherokee and made life more difficult. Also noted is the fact the Guard was not officially establish until December of that same year.
http://ngeorgia.com/history/cherokeeforts.html
*******************

A traveler from Maine encountered a group of the Cherokee in December while on their march. A few weeks later he had reported the following in the New York Observer. "We found them [about 1,100 in all] in the forest camped for the night by the side of the road...under a severe fall of rain, accompanied by heavy wind. With their canvas for a shield from the inclemency of the weather, and the cold wet ground for a resting place, where after the fatigue of the day, they spent the night. When I read the President's message that he was happy to inform the Senate that the Cherokee were peaceable and without reluctance removed...., I thought I wished the President could have been there that very day in Kentucky with myself, and have seen the comfort and willingness with which the Cherokee were making their journey."

*******************

"I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the 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....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm with freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March the 26th 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold and exposure..."
Private John G. Burnett
Captain Abraham McClellan's Company,
2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39
http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/128/Page/default.aspx

********************

"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.)
http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/history/trail.htm

********************

"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
Letter to the Cherokee from Major General Winfield Scott
http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/125/Page/default.aspx

********************

Letter to Martin Van Buren President of the United States
1836
Sir:
The seat you fill places you in a relation of credit and nearness to every citizen. By right and natural position, every citizen is your friend. Before any acts contrary to his own judgment or interest have repelled the affections of any man, each may look with trust and living anticipation to your government. Each has the highest right to call your attention to such subjects as are of a public nature, and properly belong to the chief magistrate; and the good magistrate will feel a joy in meeting such confidence. In this belief and at the instance of a few of my friends and neighbors, I crave of your patience a short hearing for their sentiments and my own: and the circumstances that my name will be utterly unknown to you will only give the fairer chance to your equitable construction of what I have to say.
Sir, my communication respects the sinister rumors that fill this part of the country concerning the Cherokee people. The interest always felt in the aboriginal population – an interest naturally growing as that decays – has been heightened in regard to this tribe. Even in our distant State some good rumor of their worth and civility has arrived. We have learned with joy their improvement in the social arts. We have read their newspapers. We have seen some of them in our schools and colleges. In common with the great body of the American people, we have witnessed with sympathy the painful labors of these red men to redeem their own race from the doom of eternal inferiority, and to borrow and domesticate in the tribe the arts and customs of the Caucasian race. And notwithstanding the unaccountable apathy with which of late years the Indians have been sometimes abandoned to their enemies, it is not to be doubted that it is the good pleasure and the understanding of all humane persons in the Republic, of the men and the matrons sitting in the thriving independent families all over the land, that they shall be duly cared for; that they shall taste justice and love from all to whom we have delegated the office of dealing with them.
The newspapers now inform us that, in December, 1835, a treaty contracting for the exchange of all the Cherokee territory was pretended to be made by an agent on the part of the United States with some persons appearing on the part of the Cherokees; that the fact afterwards transpired that these deputies did by no means represent the will of the nation; and that, out of eighteen thousand souls composing the nation, fifteen thousand six hundred and sixty-eight have protested against the so-called treaty. It now appears that the government of the United States choose to hold the Cherokees to this sham treaty, and are proceeding to execute the same. Almost the entire Cherokee Nation stand up and say, “This is not our act. Behold us. Here are we. Do not mistake that handful of deserters for us;” and the American President and the Cabinet, the Senate and the House of Representatives, neither hear these men nor see them, and are contracting to put this active nation into carts and boats, and to drag them over mountains and rivers to a wilderness at a vast distance beyond the Mississippi. As a paper purporting to be an army order fixes a month from this day as the hour for this doleful removal.
In the name of God, sir, we ask you if this be so. Do the newspapers rightly inform us? Man and women with pale and perplexed faces meet one another in the streets and churches here, and ask if this be so. We have inquired if this be a gross misrepresentation from the party opposed to the government and anxious to blacken it with the people. We have looked at the newspapers of different parties and find a horrid confirmation of the tale. We are slow to believe it. We hoped the Indians were misinformed, and that their remonstrance was premature, and will turn out to be a needless act of terror.
The piety, the principle that is left in the United States, if only in its coarsest form, a regard to the speech of men, forbid us to entertain it as a fact. Such a dereliction of all faith and virtue, such a denial of justice, and such deafness to screams for mercy were never heard of in times of peace and in the dealing of a nation with its own allies and wards, since the earth was made. Sir, does this government think that the people of the United States are become savage and mad? From their mind are the sentiments of love and a good nature wiped clean out? The soul of man, the justice, the mercy that is the heart’’ heart in all men, from Maine to Georgia, does abhor this business. In speaking thus the sentiments of my neighbors and my own, perhaps I overstep the bounds of decorum. But would it not be a higher indecorum coldly to argue a matter like this? We only state the fact that a crime is projected that confounds our understanding by its magnitude, a crime that really deprives us as well as the Cherokees of a country for how could we call the conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians our government, or the land that was cursed by their parting and dying imprecations our country, any more? You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world.
You will not do us the injustice of connecting this remonstrance with any sectional and party feeling. It is in our hearts the simplest commandment of brotherly love. We will not have this great and solemn claim upon national and human justice huddled aside under the flimsy plea of its being a party act. Sir, to us the questions upon which the government and the people have been agitated during the past year, touching the prostration of the currency and of trade, seem but motes in comparison. These hard times, it is true, have brought the discussion home to every farmhouse and poor man’s house in this town; but it is the chirping of grasshoppers beside the immortal question whether justice shall be done by the race of civilized to the race of savage man, whether all the attributes of reason, of civility, of justice, and even of mercy, shall be put off by the American people, and so vast an outrage upon the Cherokee Nation and upon human nature shall be consummated.
One circumstance lessens the reluctance with which I intrude at this time on your attention my conviction that the government ought to be admonished of a new historical fact, which the discussion of this question has disclosed, namely, that there exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government.
On the broaching of this question, a general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill? – We ask triumphantly. Our counselors and old statesmen here say that ten years ago they would have staked their lives on the affirmation that the proposed Indian measures could not be executed; that the unanimous country would put them down. And now the steps of this crime follow each other so fast, at such fatally quick time, that the millions of virtuous citizens, whose agents the government are, have no place to interpose, and must shut their eyes until the last howl and wailing of these tormented villages and tribes shall afflict the ear of the world.
I will not hide from you, as an indication of the alarming distrust, that a letter addressed as mine is, and suggesting to the mind of the Executive the plain obligations of man, has a burlesque character in the apprehensions of some of my friends. I, sir, will not beforehand treat you with the contumely of this distrust. I will at least state to you this fact, and show you how plain and humane people, whose love would be honor, regard the policy of the government, and what injurious inferences they draw as to the minds of the governors. A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood. The potentate and the people perish before it; but with it, and its executor, they are omnipotent.
I write thus, sir, to inform you of the state of mind these Indian tidings have awakened here, and to pray with one voice more that you, whose hands are strong with the delegated power of fifteen millions of men, will avert with that might the terrific injury which threatens the Cherokee tribe.
With great respect, sir, I am your fellow citizen,
Ralph Waldo Emerson
*********************

STUDY SITES:

"Andrew Jackson and The Indian Removal Act", http://www.historynet.com/andrew-jackson-and-the-indian-removal-act.htm
The Cherokee Cutural Society Houston. "Brief History of the Trail of Tears." http://www.powersource.com/cheorkeehistory.html
"Cherokee Nation ." Cherokee Nation . http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/58/Page/default.aspx
"Cherokee North Carolina." Trail of Tears. http://www.cherokee-nc.com/index.php?page=62
"Cherokee Removal." History & Archaeology. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2722
"Tennessee Online History Magazine." http://www.tennesseehistory.com/class/TrailofTears.htm
" The effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes” http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/indianremoval.htm
"The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears: Cause, Effect and Justification." History
"The Indian Removal Period." http://digitalhistory.uh.edu/credits.cfm.
“Indian Removal”, 2010. U.S. History Encyclopedia, http://www.answers.com/topic/indian-removal
Indian Removal Act of 1830 http://www.studyworld.com/indian_removal_act_of_1830.htm
“Trail of Tears”, 2006. Native American Public Telecommunications-Indian Country Diaries, http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/trail.html
The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7402

Graphic: The Rainbow People, digitized acrylic by jH