The Trail of Tears was the forced relocation and movement of Native Americans from the then present-day United States. It has rightly been described by many social historians as an act of genocide. The image above is the painting Trail of Tears by Max D. Standley commemorating the event.

The removal included many members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, and Choctaw nations among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory (eastern sections of the present-day state of Oklahoma). The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831 and has since become strongly identified with the Cherokee forced march, although it is the forced removal of all of these races, part of what is known as the “civilized” tribes. During this forced relocation as ethnic cleansing, many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while on route to their destinations, and many died, including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee.

If you’re unfamiliar with this dark part of American history, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears for a cursory introduction.

The great American musician, Johnny Cash, found this to be a particularly powerful story. He was of Irish descent but when he was younger believed he also counted Cherokee and Choctaw among his ancestors which he later discovered to be incorrect but continued to champion Amerindian rights (my own ancestors include Cherokee and Comanche, among many others). Cash starred with his wife in a 1970 television film on the subject and produced songs and narrative pieces commemorating the event (see http://www.stevenmenke.com/TrailOftears.htm, unfortunately I have not been able to locate a copy of the film).

The Trail of Tears as Told by Johnny Cash, Part One

Here, Johnny Cash reads a letter from a soldier involved in the forced march.

Removal of the Cherokees: Birthday Story of Private John G. Burnett, Captain Abraham McClellan’s Company, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry, Cherokee Indian Removal, 1838-39.

Children:

This is my birthday, December 11, 1890, I am eighty years old today. I was born at Kings Iron Works in Sulllivan County, Tennessee, December the 11th, 1810. I grew into manhood fishing in Beaver Creek and roaming through the forest hunting the deer and 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.

On these long hunting trips I met and became acquainted with many of the Cherokee Indians, hunting with them by day and sleeping around their camp fires by night. I learned to speak their language, and they taught me the arts of trailing and building traps and snares. On one of my long hunts in the fall of 1829, I found a young Cherokee who had been shot by a roving band of hunters and who had eluded his pursuers and concealed himself under a shelving rock. Weak from loss of blood, the poor creature was unable to walk and almost famished for water. I carried him to a spring, bathed and bandaged the bullet wound, and built a shelter out of bark peeled from a dead chestnut tree. I nursed and protected him feeding him on chestnuts and toasted deer meat. When he was able to travel I accompanied him to the home of his people and remained so long that I was given up for lost. By this time I had become an expert rifleman and fairly good archer and a good trapper and spent most of my time in the forest in quest of game.

The Trail of Tears as Told by Johnny Cash, Part Two

Here, Johnny Cash finishes Burnett’s letter to his children:

In the year 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 overrun with armed brigands claiming to be government agents, who paid no attention to the rights 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.

Chief Junaluska was personally acquainted with President Andrew Jackson. Junaluska had taken 500 of the flower of his Cherokee scouts and helped Jackson to win the battle of the Horse Shoe, leaving 33 of them dead on the field. And in that battle Junaluska had drove his tomahawk through the skull of a Creek warrior, when the Creek had Jackson at his mercy.

Chief John Ross sent Junaluska as an envoy to plead with President Jackson for protection for his people, but Jackson�s manner was cold and indifferent toward the rugged son of the forest who had saved his life. He met Junaluska, heard his plea but curtly said, “Sir, your audience is ended. There is nothing I can do for you.” The doom of the Cherokee was sealed. Washington, D.C., had decreed that they must be driven West and their lands given to the white man, and in May 1838, an army of 4000 regulars, and 3000 volunteer soldiers under command of General Winfield Scott, marched into the Indian country and wrote the blackest chapter on the pages of American history.

Men working in the fields were arrested and driven to the stockades. Women were dragged from their homes by soldiers whose language they could 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, told the faithful creature good-by, with a baby strapped on her back and leading a child with each hand 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.

Chief Junaluska who had saved President Jackson�s life at the battle of Horse Shoe witnessed this scene, the tears gushing down his cheeks and lifting his cap he turned his face toward the heavens and said, “Oh my God, if I had known at the battle of the Horse Shoe what I know now, American history would have been differently written.”

At this time, 1890, we are too near the removal of the Cherokees for our young people to fully understand the enormity of the crime that was committed against a helpless race. Truth is, the facts are being concealed from the young people of today. School children of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point to satisfy the white man’s greed.

Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter.

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 and 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”. Being able to talk to them in their native language I had an enjoyable day with them. From them I learned that Chief John Ross was still ruler in 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.

Apache Tears by Johnny Cash

Apache Tears refers to small black stones found in Arizona that symbolize the tears of those abused. Cash associated the Apache Tears with the Trail of Tears and other atrocities conducted against Amerindians in the United States. This video is from a performance in Germany in 1988.

Trail of Tears by W.A.S.P.

A number of popular musicians have been inspired by the deep sadness of the Trail of Tears. This is a special rendition from W.A.S.P.

Now, it’s certainly been awhile since the Indian Relocation Act was carried out . . . but, even to this day, the peoples of these tribes are living in the shadow of the events. So often, the forced disporia or cleansing or so-called protective reservationing of a conquered people has long lasting cultural impact upon a people. Certainly the increased amount of poverty on Reservation lands and the high incidence of alcoholism and spousal abuse points to some very deep cultural remnants among these once-proud peoples.

However, we should not remember these terrible events merely for what they were – although we most certainly should remember them for what they were – but we should also note that the very powerful danger of history is not learning from it and homo sapiens has a very powerful tendency not to learn from the lessons of history and to repeat mistakes by whitewashing out past. The recent reading of an expurgated US constitution by elected leaders certainly points to a bit of whitewashing of our past, in that case the expurgation of the actual language to create an edited version of the original document so that we can happily pretend that racism and slavery was not inherently part of the system at the get-go.

We need these reminders of just how backward some – but not all – of our forefathers were. We need to be reminded of how President Andrew Jackson turned his back on his friend, a man who saved his life, merely to cater to the greedy interests of powerful men feeding the masses with images of space and freedom in their search for more riches. However, we also need to be reminded of people like John G. Burnett who were there and who saw the events for what they were.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A8811948 and http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/118trail/118trail.htm for more.

It’s important that we let our children know of the sins of our ancestors and of our own sins and that we show them as sins rather than whitewashing them lest our children continue to make those mistakes and we never escape this spiraling cycle into darkness . . . lest, we end up trampling the grass beneath our feet and our children’s children’s feet so that all that remains upon the land is a field of lifeless cold dark black stones, Apache Tears become Humanity’s Tears.

All this is of particular interest to me as Cherokee is my mother’s mother’s tribe and I have always been very proud of my connection to this great people.

All the best,
Brian
http://www.briandavidphillips.com