ONEOFMANYFEATHERS'
Indian Territory
Trail of Tears
"My friends, circumstances render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach, and that is to remove to the west. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity." ~Andrew Jackson~
Indian Territory
Indian Territory, in U.S. history, name applied to the country set aside for Native Americans by the Indian Intercourse Act (1834). In the 1820s,the federal government began moving the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) of the Southeast to lands W of the Mississippi River. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 gave the President authority to designate specific lands for them, and in 1834 Congress formally approved the choice. 
The Indian Territory included present-day Oklahoma N and E of the Red River, as well as Kansas and Nebraska; the lands were delimited in 1854, however, by the creation of the Kansas and Nebraska territories. Tribes other than the original five also moved there, but each tribe maintained its own government. As white settlers continued to move westward, pressure to abolish the Indian Territory mounted. With the opening of W Oklahoma to whites in 1889 the way was prepared for the extinction of the territory, achieved in 1907 with the entrance of Oklahoma into the Union.
In the early 1800s, white settlers began to discover the rich soils and minerals (Gold) on the lands belonging to the Cherokee Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River. In response to pressure from settlers, President Andrew Jackson in 1830 authorized the removal of the Cherokees who lived in North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.
In the spring and summer of 1838, more than 15,000 Cherokee Indians were removed by the U.S. Army from their ancestral homeland in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. Held in concentration-like camps through the summer.
In the fall of 1838, over 16,000 Cherokee men, women, and children were force marched 800 miles from Georgia to unfamiliar lands in Oklahoma. During the winter of 1838-39, an endless line of wagons, horsemen, and people on foot made the exodus to Oklahoma. Exposed to drought, disease, frigid weather, and provided with little or NO food, clothing, or shelter, the march took its toll on the proud Cherokees; over one-fourth, 4,000 Cherokee Indians, men women and children, died during the winter trek.
TRAIL OF TEARS
"The ferries had trouble crossing the river due to ice floes, and some groups were separated and stranded until everyone crossed. When a group was finally together, they would start the march again."
"Long time we travel on way to new land. People feel bad when they leave old nation. Women cry and make sad wails. Children cry and many men cry, and all look sad like when friends die, but they say nothing and just put heads down and keep on go towards West. Many days pass and people die very much. We bury close by Trail." ~A survivor~
A survivor of one of the most shameful episodes in American history made this wrenching observation about a brutal forced march perpetrated by the U.S. government against Native Americans. The march was the final act in a little-known land grab by the government that forced the Cherokee Indians from their ancestral lands.
In the early 1800s the European settlement of Georgia was in full swing and settlers were hungry for Cherokee land. On top of this hunger, or more likely because of it, rumors spread through the white population that there was gold to be found on Cherokee land in Georgia. Through trickery and treachery, the government conspired to take these much-coveted ancestral lands from the Cherokee Nation. In 1838, a combination of maneuvering by Congress and the signing of the Echota Treaty by a small minority of Cherokee leaders culminated in the removal of the Cherokee from Georgia.
"I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into 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." ~Private John G. Burnett~ Captain Abraham McClellan's Company, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
In the fall of that year, U.S. troops under the command of General Winfield Scott began marching the Cherokee Nation out of Georgia to what is now Oklahoma. They traveled across northern Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas before finally reaching resettlement points in Oklahoma. In May, 1838, federal troops and state militias began the roundup of the Cherokee into concentration camps. In spite of warnings to troops to treat the Cherokee kindly, the roundup proved harrowing. Families were separated--the elderly and ill forced out at gunpoint-- people given only moments to collect cherished possessions. White looters followed, burning or occupying homesteads as Cherokees were led away. The roundup began in the late spring of 1838 and the march continued through the winter.
The Army commanded some of 13 separate groups, while others were hired out to contractors who were paid $65 by the Government for food and medicines for each person in their care - money that was often not used for its intended purpose.
"The sick and feeble were carried in waggons-about as comfortable for traveling as a New England ox cart with a covering over it--a great many ride on horseback and multitudes go on foot--even aged females, apparently nearly ready to drop into the grave, were traveling with heavy burdens attached to the back--on the sometimes frozen ground, and sometimes muddy streets, with no covering for the feet except what nature had given them." ~A native of Maine travling in western country~
By the late 1830's, Indian nations located between the original states and the Mississippi River, including Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, had signed over 40 treaties ceding most of their lands to the United States. 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 who resisted. Many were treated brutally. Many were transported in chains.
"When the first lands were sold by the Cherokee, in 1721, a part of the tribe bitterly opposed the sale, saying....the whites would never be satisfied, but would soon want a little more again, until there would be little left for the indians. Finding that they could not prevevt the treaty, they determined to leave their old homes forever and go far into the west, beyond the great river, where the white man could not follow them." Legend of the "Lost Cherokees" James Mooney,Ethnologist who lived among the Cherokee from 1887 - 1890
More Tears
Three groups left in the Summer, traveling from present-day Chattanooga by rail, boat and wagon, primarily on the Water Route. But river levels were too low for navigation. 
One group traveling overland in Arkansas, suffered three to five deaths each day due to illness and drought. Fifteen thousand captives still awaited removal. Crowding, poor sanitation and drought made them miserable. Many died. The Cherokee asked to postpone removal until the Fall and to voluntarily remove themselves. The delay was granted, provided that they would remain in internment camps until travel resumed.
About 1,000 Cherokee in Tennessee and North Carolina escaped the roundup. They gained recognition in 1866, establishing their tribal government in 1868 in Cherokee, North Carolina. They are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Today, the Cherokee are the second largest Indian nation in the United States.
In the Trail of Tears State Park, in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, a memorial monument was dedicated in 1962 to: "Princess Otahki, daughter of Chief Jesse Bushyhead -- one of several hundred Cherokee 
Indians who died here -- in the severe winter of 1838-39". Actually, according to documented evidence, the inscription is misleading. The girl could not have been a princess since her father was not a chief but a minister. The Bushyhead who did become a Cherokee chief was only a lad of 12 when he accompanied his parents on the long journey that was the trail of tears.
The St. Louis Bushyhead descendants were aware of the inaccuracy when they attended the dedication, but according to one, "We had not been consulted, only invited to the ceremony, and we had a hard time keeping our father quiet about the facts".
"These were nice people who were doing such a nice thing in memory of our family, and we are grateful. We accepted the tribute on behalf of all the Cherokees who suffered and died during their sad journey. And if there are those who want to think in terms of a mythical princess, well - it's often difficult to separate legend from fact and sometimes legend becomes more appealing".
James Butler Bushyhead said, "Of course I'm aware - and proud - of our Cherokee heritage. When some of our friends let go with pointed Indian 'arrows' the best thing I can think of to say is that in those earlier days the Indians should have had stricter immigration laws. That would have taken care of the whole problem".
On a more serious note, he asked, "Do you think the current land and oil boom in Alaska, as it involves the Indians and Eskimos, might turn out to be a parallel to what happened to the Cherokees - another forced Trail of Tears"?
John Ridge
"You asked us to throw off the hunter and warrior state - we did so. You asked us to form a representative government - we did so. You asked us to cultivate the earth and learn the mechanical arts - we did so. You asked us to cast aside our idols and worship your God - we did so." ~John Ridge~ (1832) Said to a white audience in New York when he was trying to mobilize white opposition to Cherokee removal.
After Major Ridge signs The Treaty of New Echota he says, "I have just signed my death warrant," and indeed he had. Ridge, John and Buck lay dead less than six months after the arrival of the Cherokee in the Oklahoma Territory. In an orchestrated plot Ridge is shot while travelling to Arkansas. A few minutes later a group of Cherokee drag his son John from his home and stab 43 times in front of his wife and children.
"The Cherokee are probably the most tragic instance of what could have succeeded in American Indian policy and didn't. All these things that Americans would proudly see as the hallmarks of civilization are going to the West by Indian people. They do everything they were asked except one thing. What the Cherokees ultimately are, they may be Christian, they may be literate, they may have a government like ours, but ultimately they are Indian. And in the end, being Indian is what kills them." ~Richard White~, Historian
"...Inclination to remove from this land has no abiding place in our hearts, and when we move we shall move by the course of nature to sleep under this ground which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors and which now covers them in their undisturbed peace." ~Cherokee Legislative Council~ New Echota July 1830
In a letter from Aitooweyah, to John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees.
"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."
"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
"A common ancestry promotes understanding between Cherokee full bloods and the mixed bloods. They are poles apart in many respects but, under the skin, are still brothers. For one thing, they have Cherokee traditions in common, and no amount of white blood can dilute the remembrance of what happened in centuries past to the Cherokee people." ~Grace Steele Woodward~
One group of Cherokees did not leave the mountains of North Carolina. This group traced their origin to an 1819 treaty that gave them an allotment of land and American citizenship on lands not belonging to the Cherokee Nation. When the forced removal came in 1838, this group--now called the Oconaluftee Cherokees - claimed the 1835 treaty did not apply to them as they no longer lived on Cherokee lands. Tsali and his sons were involved in raids on the U.S. soldiers who were sent to drive the Cherokees to the stockades. The responsible Indians were punished by the army, but the rest of the group gained permission to stay, and North Carolina ultimately recognized their rights. Fugitive Cherokees from the nation also joined the Oconaluftee Cherokees, and in time this group became the Eastern Band of Cherokees, who still reside in North Carolina.
There were ten million Native Americans on this continent when the first non-Indians arrived. Over the next 300 years, 90% of all Native American original population was either wiped out by disease, famine, or warfare imported by the whites.
