Lest We Forget: The Trail of Tears (my great great grandmother SURVIVED)

[Omaha Steve]

Every so often somebody brings up Native (now called FIRST AMERICANS) Americans and how they were treated after the white man landed on Americas Eastern shores. It came up today on a Yahoo group I'm on. It got to me. My reply:



Tell that to my several relatives that died on the trail of tears!

My great great grandmother escaped the forced march and was protected by a bi-racial household until it was safe to leave. My great great grandmother never saw any of her family members again.

My favorite flower is the Cherokee Rose. Today it still blooms along the trail paths. My paternal grandmothers maiden name was Hatie Rose. Hatie was the 1/2 breed that harbored my great great grandmother.




http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/trail-of-tears.htmTrail of Tears

In 1838, the United States government forcibly removed more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, and sent them to Indian Territory (today known as Oklahoma). The impact to the Cherokee was devastating. Hundreds of Cherokee died during their trip west, and thousands more perished from the consequences of relocation. This tragic chapter in American and Cherokee history became known as the Trail of Tears, and culminated the implementation of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which mandated the removal of all American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to lands in the West.

Early in the 19th century, the United States felt threatened by England and Spain, who held land in the western part of the continent. At the same time, American citizens clamored for more land. President Thomas Jefferson proposed the creation of a buffer zone between U.S. and European holdings, to be inhabited by eastern American Indians. This plan would also allow for American expansion westward from the original colonies to the Mississippi River.

Between 1816 and 1840, tribes located between the original states and the Mississippi River, including Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, signed more than 40 treaties ceding their lands to the U.S. In his 1829 inaugural address, President Andrew Jackson set a policy to relocate eastern Indians. In 1830 his plan was endorsed by the Congress passed the Indian Removal Act to force those remaining to move west of the Mississippi. Between 1830 and 1850, about 100,000 American Indians living between Michigan, Louisiana, and Florida moved west after the U.S. government coerced treaties or used the U.S. Army against those resisting. Many were treated brutally. An estimated 3,500 Creeks dies in Alabama and on their westward Journey.

Beginning in 1791 a series of treaties between the United States and the Cherokees living in Georgia gave recognition to the Cherokee as a nation with their own laws and customs. Nevertheless, treaties and agreements gradually whittled away at this land base, and in the late 1700s 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 1800s, 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 traditional homelands.

FULL article at link.


This picture, The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal. If any depictions of the "Trail of Tears" were created at the time of the march, they have not survived.

Image Credit: The Granger Collection, New York

The trail map:

Nothing to do with the trail, but I thought I'd see who read the entire post.

[Maccagirl]

1. Andrew Jackson (and Congress) have blood on their hands

Of course Jackson was a slave-owner as well. Despicable human being.

[Blue_Tires]

24. +1

[MicaelS]

33. And yet "Jacksonian Democracy"

Is at the root of who and what we are as a country today. Jackson was for the common (white) man, and his supporters were the roots of the modern Democratic Party. I'm not defending his policies with Native Americans, his Manifest Destiny policy was part and parcel of the times. But if you want to understand America, you have to understand him and his appeal to the farmer, the small business owner, working class in the East, and the middle class.

[jwirr]

38. I think we would have to look a long ways for any human being that

is all good or all bad. There are some who come close though. If we are going to reject everything that any one who has done bad things then we will also be rejecting some of the best they have done. I have always taught my children and now my great grandchildren that you take the best out of any situation and reject the bad.

[cilla4progress]

2. Largest stain on our republic,

along with slavery: genocide, plain and simple. America needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like S. Africa had, to address this.

[aquart]

3. Seminoles, too, right?

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Hey Steve, not on the trail of tears

But in recovering memory of a past

http://www.amazon.com/Cahokia-Ancient-Americas-Mississippi-American/dp/0670020907

Highly recommended book on Cahokia, the third largest new world pyramid complex. To quote the half governor...partly, you betcha this is going into my us history class. Like Mexicans are proud of the Maya and the Aztec..it is time to recover this past...as well as what Andrew Jackson did. Good read.

[southmost]

6. I was fascinated when I read about the pyramids on the Mississippi

I found out about them a few years back on a Mexica/Aztec/Ute site, interesting read, most Americans don't know about the existence of Cahokia

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I am preparing a class

It was never mentioned in my college course work

So will parallel this with the history of Mexico. The first few lectures will deal with the pre-Columbian period. Mexico I can almost do in my sleep. This...readying, notes and all that.

[southmost]

8. lucky students

in college, we only got to quickly skim through the course dealing with the First Americans

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Yeah I made that decision since it is important info...that be two to three

Lectures starting with out of Africa, the lythic period, rise of agriculture...us deal with the Pueblo and Cahokia, as well as contact.

Mexico well the usual horizons and finally contact. Both will deal with the concept of inventing the continent.

[southmost]

5. for most, the survival of the Cherokee was dependent

on how well they were integrated with the european immigrants, most of my maternal relatives who were Cherokee intermarried with immigrant settlers in Oklahoma

[tawadi]

10. K&R

[dgibby]

16. Haunting. Thanks for posting. n/t

[tawadi]

20. YW

Here's a link for more about the symbolism.

http://www.guthriestudios.com/Print-Shadow%20of%20the%20Owl.htm

[Odin2005]

11. Jackson was a racist monster and should not be celebrated by our party.

Nor does he deserve to be on our money. He was a genocidal maniac and a war criminal.

[Omaha Steve]

12. Out of respect for my First American (1/4 Cherokee) ancestors ...

I don't like to carry or use the $20 bill with Old Hawk Nose on it!

[Blue_In_AK]

13. I have been told that one of my ancestors

was involved with the Trail of Tears, also. Geneology is sketchy on that side of the family, but apparently my grandfather had Cherokee heritage. I would like to know more.

[dgibby]

17. I have a membership in Ancestry.com.

If you want me to research anything for you, just let me know.

[Blue_In_AK]

18. I've been thinking of joining myself.

My mother died in a car wreck when I was 8. When my dad married the nurse who took care of him in the hospital not long after (8 months after the accident), we moved to Colorado and I completely lost contact with that side of the family. There were some hard feelings within my mother's family because my father remarried so soon after my mother's death and they made no efforts to stay in touch with us. Six aunts, two uncles and their spouses, cousins, grandma and grandpa, all lost.

Now I'm old and the people who could tell me things are all dead. It kind of sucks.

[dgibby]

32. I know what you mean.

There are 4 1st cousins left on my dad's side. I'm the youngest at 65, the oldest is almost 88. Hopefully, we're going to get together next week and swap photos, info, tall tales over lunch.

My mom's family is scattered, plus we never lived close to them.

I didn't know what to expect when I joined Ancestry, but I've had really good results. Found my mother's people all the way back to Europe! My dad's family has been much harder to find, but I love all the "detective" work involved in tracking them down!

I found several genealogy pages on FB, and between that and Ancestry, have found many, many cousins I didn't even know I had! I highly recommend it. I've also found info, stories, photos, wills, military records, etc. Well worth it. Good luck!

[jwirr]

39. If you were 8 years old then and old now you may be able to find

census data on your mother which could lead you to your mother's family. If you know her last name she will no doubt be in the census along with her parents. That is where I would start. The 1930 census is not available.

[DeschutesRiver]

42. I'm thinking of joining too, same reasons

We just finished a trip to Jackson Wyoming to find out more about dh's grandfather's death. He had a place in what is now GTNP, and is even mentioned in a park history book briefly and not exactly flattering or accurate in the way our own research has proven. DH was told he died after his car went over a ravine, at age 57, but not much else. We ended up finding out that there was someone else in the car with him by finding newspaper accounts in Jackson (his grandfather was smashed every way possible and died in route to a hospital; the survivor wasn't hurt much at all), found where he owned that land (much much more extensive than anyone ever mentioned) and finally stood on it and saw the same views we'd seen in our family photos from then, that he'd been negotiating with the Snake River land co. (rockefeller's group that bought up land that would eventually be included in GTNP's expansion, including dh's grandfather's land), finally found out where he was buried, and that despite what the park book stated, his grandfather had actually lived and worked in WY there for 9 years, was in love with the area and a part of the community, only leaving to spend the bad winters in KS, as did many there. He was making plans to move there permanently year round when he was killed. The family always said he was run off the road, but would not say why or by who.

We dug out some old chests of correspondence that we've had stored in our barn, of all places, for 40 years, not realizing the treasure trove it would be, since his family never said much in a good way - it was bit of a time capsule of letters, articles, other memorabilia from all of his grandfather's time in wars, from his time with Teddy Roosevelt's calvary at war, to Brest France, and all points inbetween. There are apparently boxes of papers concerning his dad's time in GTNP at a museum in NY. The best thing was finding the original land patents signed by the president back then granting the homestead land to him. It was a fragmented look at something that we are absolutely fascinated by, but everyone is dead now. All dh remembers is that no one wanted to say much after his grandfather died - there was bad blood about quite a few things, and also quite a few mysteries about exact events.

And after all this we said the same thing - we are old now, very interested in what is turning out to be quite a fascinating story, one that most families would have spoken more about (quite an adventure), and everyone that could tell us is gone.

[hfojvt]

14. lest we forget

Although the Sioux were hereditary enemies of the Crows and had
driven them from their rich hunting grounds, (BMHWK p. 133)

By the early 1700s, however, they (the Sioux) had been driven west to the prairies by their enemies the Ojibwe. In but a short time they adapted to the prairie environment and, with the aid of ther horse, became 'the undisputed masters of an immense territory extending ... from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains and from Yellowstone to the Platte' (Mooney 1896: 824) (AIHS p 145)

"South of the Kansas-Nebraska buffalo ranges were the Kiowas. Some of the older Kiowas could remember the Black Hills, but the tribe had been pushed southward before the combined power of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. By 1860 the Kiowas had made peace with the northern plains tribes and had become allies of the Comanches, whose southern plains they had entered." BMHWK pp 10-11

"Here they (Tecumseh and his brother) developed the concept of a permanent Indian state, co-existing with the United States but separated from it by a fixed boundary." TESW p 155

"In 1660 large groups of Shawnee were driven south by the Iroquois. The Cherokee allowed one group to settle in South Carolina and serve as a buffer between them and the Catawba. Other Shawnee were permitted to locate in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee for a similar purpose against the Chickasaw." web http://www.tolatsga.org/Cherokee2.html

"Several tribes ultimately fled west beyond the Mississippi River leaving much of Indiana, Ohio, southern Michigan, and southern Ontario depopulated, although leaving in place several large Anishinaabe military forces," wiki Beaver Wars

AIHS -
American Indian Holocaust and Survival, a population history since 1492
by Russell Thornton 1987 University of Oklahoma press

TESW - The Earth Shall Weep by James Wilson

BMHWK - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

[dgibby]

15. Steve, check this out. I think you'll appreciate it.

The following is a link to the Persinger Family Journals. This family is a mix of Cherokee, White, and Black. They lived, for the most part, in Alleghany Co, Va. My great great uncle, Jacob Craft, married Phebe (Phoebe) Persinger, daughter of Sarah Persinger and Joseph Sparrowhawk. The journals are written by Mary Margaret Persinger, a descendant of Sarah's brother Gabriel, and cover approx. 100 years of the family history, before, during, and mostly after the Civil War.

Mary Margaret is a treasure, as are the Journals. She writes in the vernacular of the area during that time, but many of the idioms she uses are still in use here today. An example: So and so just up (or upped) and died. Nobody here just dies, they up and die! I felt like she was speaking to me as I read.

There is also a Persinger-Craft-Tucker Family page on FB where this (and a lot more) is posted. Check it out and let me know what you think.

http://files.usgwarchives.org/va/botetourt/history/other/persinge266gms.txt

Enjoy!

on edit: Joseph and one of his daughters went to Oklahoma, but Sarah and the other children stayed in Va.

[Supersedeas]

22. Thank you for posting that and great post Steve

[AnnieK401]

19. Great Post!

Being from a long line of Georgians, I have Cherokee ancestors also - on both sides. On one side of my family there is a disagreement. My mother did some research and discovered that my father's grandmother was at least part Cherokee. His sister denied it, even though the family had high cheekbones and dark hair. My mother tried to explain about the Indian Removal act/trail of tears and how anyone living in Georgia during that period would have done anything to hide the fact that they had native blood. It still didn't work. Anyway, thanks for posting this.

[Marrah_G]

21. Steve- I am glad your great great grandmother survived

Imagine how many Omaha Steve's were never conceived because of this :(

[CanonRay]

23. Why is Andrew Jackson still on the $20 bill?

We've never had a more racist President than him.

[raccoon]

26. Probably all the dudes on our money are racists. I vote we should change

our money and put musicians on our bills. Elvis on a $1.00, Chuck Berry on a $5.00,
Brian Wilson on a $10.00, Bruce Springsteen on a $20.00...you get the picture.

[cheapdate]

25. The governor of Alabama honored the Choctaw people

for helping defend the white settlers against attack by Creeks in the Creek War of 1813-1814. After the war, the Alabama governor wrote and signed a resolution that said, 'The people of Alabama will never forget the debt they owe the Choctaw Nation'. Twelve years later, another Alabama governor signed the Choctaw Removal Act, forcing the Choctaw people from their homes and out of the state on flatboats.

[swilton]

27. Thanks for reminding us!

I had trouble with the link - I did a search for 'Trail of Tears' on the webpage which stated there was an error.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/trail-of-tears.html

Of note, the town that I am from (Ponca City, OK) was settled by the Ponca Tribe - forcibly moved there from Nebraska in a later 'trail'. Here is the story of their great leader - Standing Bear whose US Supreme Court case established a precedent for civil rights in the US. Wikipedia understates the story, but is provided for an overview. The story is better dealt with in books such as STANDING BEAR IS A PERSON (Stephen Dando-Collins), and BUCKSKIN AND BLANKET DAYS (Tibbles).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Bear

Here is a link to a great park in Ponca City that commemorates this great leader...only recently opened in 2002.

http://www.standingbearpark.com/

[afbiii]

28. I wrote the book!

I've spent 37 years writing the book on AJ and can't find a literary agent nor willing publisher. My ancestor was Jackson's greatest enemy. I can document everything said in this post and will gladly correspond with any who wish a copy or can help me get this book out. My ancestor died on the way back to DC trying to prevent the Trail of Tear snd he spent the lst winter of his life with the Cherokee at New Echota. I also have an answer to the $20 bill question, but it won't let me post a picture; somebody write me and I'll send it to you. Oh, yes, I'm still a Democrat and live in Nashville, but people won't face the facts on pre-Presidential Jackson. HELP ME GET THIS OUT!

[LeftishBrit]

29. k&r

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

30. In the 1850s in our area of the southern Oregon coast,

we had a trail of tears as well.

Every man, woman and child First American in 2500 square miles, was captured, shipped or matched, two hundred miles north.
They were relocated on the Siletz Reservation for the crime of defending themselves from being killed by white gold miners that invaded their lands.
Many died as a result.

This weekend a small town of 1200 persons called Port Orford will host and honor elders and participants from the Siletz Reservation with an event called, "Run to the Rogue", it is a relay run from Siletz, down the coast and up the Rogue River to their old lands that commemorates that trail of tears.

We will open our hearts, sing songs and share food.
We are the only town on the Oregon coast that honors the tragic memories of that sad march.

[unapatriciated]

31. Thanks for a great post.

My Great Great Maternal Grandmother was Sioux, sadly she spent most of her life alone. My Great Great Grandfather was white and his family never accepted her. After their first and only child was born he left her taking the child with him. He did continue to support her. His "second" wife raised my great grandfather.

It makes me 1/16 or as my mom would say one nose bleed and your out of the tribe.


on edit: Wounded Knee was required reading in my home as a child.

[defendandprotect]

34. Used to wonder where all those in government who did this evil went?

Sadly, the answer comes later that they enver left -- we're still in the

same gene pool!!


And in just a few hundred years, they have destroyed all they have touched --

Humanity lost the Native American -- the victors were the most violent among us!


Thank you for this reminder -- and would forward to other reminders and information --


:hi:

[hfojvt]

35. we didn't rxactly lose them

according to Russell Thornton's "American Indian: Holocaust and Survival"

In 1650, there were approximately 22,000 Cherokee. This fell to about 13,000 by 1808 and then grew to 21,500 by 1835. He estimates that about 8,000 died "as the more or less direct result" of their removal. By 1852 there were almost 16,000, but they were devastated again because some of them fought for the South and some for the North in the Civil War. By 1866, they had experienced no population growth, but by 1900 they were up to over 32,000, and by 1980 over 232,000.

[defendandprotect]

41. From originally 40 million, it's my understanding that less than 1 million have survived ....

And, btw, continue to be persecuted by the US government which is still stealing

from them!

[yellerpup]

36. Osiyo, dinadanatli

Thank you for posting this excellent post. :kick: & Rec.

[jwirr]

37. Thank you. Where or where can I get that First Americans for Obama

poster for my First Americans?

[Dogtown]

40. Thank you for this thread.

My father's family also splintered from the trail, near Marion IL. That's about all that's known of my history; the Diaspora was hard on my family.


Would you have a link for any Native American genealogy sites besides the Dawson Lists?
No recognizable connections in that list.

[DeschutesRiver]

43. I started a search a few years back with my Oklahoma grandmother's name and

ended up finding her on the Dawson Rolls - at least I was pretty sure it was her, as it was a lengthy search without any more than single family story casually told. And then my computer crashed and I lost all those sites and the work that took me there.

Neither my dad nor his OK family would speak much of it, if at all; my mom mentioned a couple of times that she'd heard that one of dad's family members or more in OK were native american and that the family was ticked off about the whole thing, so they made it unmentionable. Something about an affair, possibly offspring re my grandmother - but what got me looking was when I really focused on my grandmother's face and saw that whatever our native links were, they started before my grandmother and were a part of her. Finding what I think was her name on the rolls confirmed that - and after reading your moving OP, I am going to start my search again.

I'd been helping dh do something similar with his grandparents, as his whole family is gone now. My parents are alive and could help, except that my whole family is estranged from one another, and otherwise unpleasant, bigoted and mean. So am hoping I can do this on my own.