The Trail of Tears, A Walking Song

To our friends: The following is a story about “The Trail of Tears.” Lieutenant John G. Burnett’s assisted in the Removal of Cherokee Indians from their native home in 1838. In 1890, he tells a story to his children and grandchildren. We would like to share this story with you – in Greek – so that our praise song for Mrs. Ross as a hero of compassion makes better sense to you. The so-called “Trail of Tears” continues to this day in many parts of the world, in the Middle East, in Tibet, in Africa, and elsewhere. We share with you this story from America’s history in the hope that other heroes of compassion and tolerance may come forward to help us proceed on the long journey to peace and human dignity.

Mitakuye oyasin—we are all related. From White Buffalo Woman of the Sioux Nation.

PART I.

This is my birthday December the 11th 1890, I am eighty years old today. I was born at Kings Iron Works in Sullivan County, Tennessee, December the 11th, 1810. I grew into manhood fishing in Beaver Creek and roaming through the forest hunting the deer the wild Boar and the timber Wolf - often spending weeks at a time in the solitary wilderness with no companions but my rifle, hunting knife, and a small hatchet that I carried in my belt in all of my wilderness wanderings.

…The removal of the Cherokee Indians from their life long homes in the year of 1838 found me a young man in the prime of life and a Private soldier in the American army. Being acquainted with many of the Indians and able to fluently speak their language, I was sent as interpreter into the Smoky Mountain Country in May, 1838, and witnessed the execution of the most brutal order in the History of American Warfare. 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.

One can never forget the sadness and solemnity of that morning. Chief John Ross led in prayer and when the bugle sounded and the wagons started rolling many of the children rose to their feet and waved their little hands good-by to their mountain homes, knowing they were leaving them forever. Many of these helpless people did not have blankets and many of them had been driven from home barefooted.

On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snowstorm 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.

Among this number was the Christian wife of Chief John Ross. This noble hearted woman died a martyr to childhood, giving her only blanket for the protection of a sick child. She rode thinly clad through a blinding sleet and snowstorm, developed pneumonia and died in the still hours of a bleak winter night, with her head resting on Lieutenant Gregg’s saddle blanket.

I was on guard duty the night Mrs. Ross died. When relieved at midnight I did not retire, but remained around the wagon out of sympathy for Chief Ross, and at daylight was detailed by Captain McClellan to assist in the burial of the other unfortunates who died on the way. Her uncoffined body was buried in a shallow grave by the roadside far from her native mountain home, and the sorrowing Cavalcade moved on.

PART II.

The long painful journey to the west ended March 26th, 1839, with 4,500 silent graves reaching from the foothills of the Smoky Mountains to what is known as Indian territory in the West. And covetousness on the part of the white race was the cause of all that the Cherokees had to suffer.

…In the year of 1828, a little Indian boy living on Ward creek had sold a Gold nugget to a white trader, and that nugget sealed the doom of the Cherokees. In a short time, the country was over run with armed brigands claiming to be Government Agents, who paid no attention to the right of the Indians who were the legal possessors of the country. Crimes were committed that were a disgrace to civilization. Men were shot in cold blood. Lands were confiscated. Homes were burned and the inhabitants driven out by the Gold hungry brigands.

…Men working in the fields were arrested and driven into the stockades. Women were dragged from their homes by soldiers who spoke a language they did not understand. Children were often separated from their parents and driven into the stockades with the sky for a blanket and the earth for a pillow. And often the old and infirm were prodded with bayonets to hasten them to the stockades. In one home death had come during the night, a little sad faced child had died and was lying on a bear skin couch and some women were preparing the little body for burial. All were arrested and driven out leaving the child in the cabin. I don’t know who buried the body.

In another home was a frail Mother, apparently a widow and three small children, one just a baby. When told that she must go, the Mother gathered the children at her feet, prayed a humble prayer in her native tongue, patted the old family dog on the head and told the faithful creature good-by. With a baby strapped on her back and leading a child with each hand she started on her exile. But the task was too great for that frail Mother. A stroke of heart failure relieved her sufferings. She sunk and died with her baby on her back, and her other two children clinging to her hands.

Twenty-five years after the removal it was my privilege to meet a large company of the Cherokees in uniform of the Confederate Army under Command of Colonel Thomas, they were encamped at Zollicoffer. I went to see them. Most of them were just boys at the time of the removal but they instantly recognized me as “the soldier that was good to us.” …From them I learned that Chief John Ross was still ruler of the nation in 1863. And I wonder if he is still living? He was a noble hearted fellow and suffered a lot for his race…And his Christian wife sacrificed her life for a little girl who had pneumonia. The Anglo Saxon race should build a towering monument to perpetuate her noble act in giving her only blanket for comfort of a sick child. Incidentally the child did recover, but Mrs. Ross is sleeping in an unmarked grave far from her native Smoky Mountain Home.

I can truthfully say that I did my best for them when they certainly did need a friend. Twenty-five years after the removal I still lived in their Memory as “the soldier who was good to us.” However murder is murder whether committed by the villain skulking in the dark or by uniformed men stepping to the strains of martial music. Murder is murder and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in the summer of 1838. Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile. I wish I could forget it all, but the picture of six-hundred and forty-five wagons lumbering over the frozen ground with their Cargo of suffering humanity still lingers in my memory….

Let the Historian of a future day tell the sad story with its sighs, its tears and dying groans. Let the great Judge of all the earth weigh our actions and reward us according to our work.

Children—Thus ends my promised birthday story. This December the 11th, 1890….

Links

The trail of tears in wikipedia