The untold truth of the Trail of Tears

The untold truth of the Trail of Tears

The story of the real trail of tears is quite simple. From the 1830s, the Cherokees were forced off their land by the US government and forced to walk nearly 1,000 miles to a new home in a place they had never seen before. Thousands of people died on the hard way and totally useless. It was, quite simply, one of the worst violations of human rights in American history.

But the story around the track is incredibly complicated. This is a decade of accumulation, dubious treaties, government legislation, Supreme Court cases, and more. The people involved are just as fascinating, real and fake Cherokee leaders to various presidents in the general in charge of all this. We have contemporary accounts tearing up Amerindians and soldiers. Everything comes together to paint a very clear picture of how something so horrible has been allowed to happen. Here are some things you probably did not learn about the trail of tears at school.

1 It was because of gold, of course

If historians ever put up a list of "reasons for terrible atrocities," right next to the top would be gold.The shining thing everyone's favorite people caused to Straight-Up lose their spirit for centuries You can erase entire companies from the map as long as you get enough of the stuff.

So with the beginnings of the trail of tears. In 1829, a Georgia newspaper announced a ton of gold had been found in the state (via New Georgian Encyclopedia). The northern part of Georgia had been set aside for the Cherokee nation, but that did not put off prospectors with dollar signs in their eyes. They poured into the area by the thousands. One participant, writing decades later, said that people came from all walks of life, many on foot, and that they acted "more like crazy men than anything else." even at the time, it was known as "Great Intrusion."

Native Americans were in the way of these newcomers and they were treated like garbage because of this. But so much worse would come as a result: speculators seeking to enrich themselves from their lands began to ask the government to do something about these pesky natives. Less than a year after gold was discovered, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Abduction Act, which led directly to the trail of tears.

Then at almost the exact time the last Cherokee was taken off the track, the gold ran away because God has a sick sense of humor.

2 Andrew Jackson was just the worst

According to the official website of the Cherokee Nation, Andrew Jackson probably owed his life to 500 Cherokees who came to his aid during a battle in 1814. He would spend the rest of his days being really pissed off about it.

PBS says Jackson called Native Americans "the kids need advice," and his version of the guidance was trying to kill them all. He began in 1814, when he commanded a force against the brook. Then he attacked the Seminoles in 1818. More than a decade ago, he was the guy to negotiate nine out of 11 treaties with the United States that completely screwed up the Native Americans more.

As President, he pushed through the Indian Abduction Act, putting him in the Bad Guy Hall of Fame. Then the Supreme Court ruled for the Cherokee in a case, but he just ignored it, because the brakes and balances if that meant being decent for the natives. About North Georgia tells us that, like rumors of swirling forced kidnapping, a worried Cherokee delegation came to see him in Washington and he had the nerve to tell them, "you will stay in your old land as long as the grass grows and the water flows. "

Even old and out of power, he did not leave in place. When a small change of policy made the second stage of the trail of tears a little less suck for the Indians, he was absolutely furious, but fortunately he was not President anymore, so all he could do was scream on this subject.

3 Native Americans could not win

Bien que le terme  "Trail des larmes" est généralement utilisé uniquement pour désigner l'enlèvement forcé des Cherokee, ils n'étaient pas les seuls Amérindiens du gouvernement expulsé dans les années 1830. Pas par un long shot. Selon l'Encyclopédie Britannica, environ 100 000 personnes seraient expulsées de leurs maisons, et 15 000 d'entre eux mourront en allant vers l'Ouest. La plupart appartenaient aux tribus Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw et Seminole.

Ces tribus essayé absolument tout pour obtenir les Johnny-Come-récents américains à les aimer. PBS dit qu'ils étaient connus comme le  "cinq tribus civilisées" parce qu'ils ont embrassé beaucoup de choses des blancs dans l'espoir d'être acceptée. Cela incluait des choses comme l'agriculture à grande échelle et le style de l'éducation occidentale, et certains ont même pris possession d'esclaves. Au lieu de cela, ce fait leurs voisins blancs encore plus énervé.

Une fois que la Loi sur l'enlèvement des Indiens a été signée, ces tribus ont tous pris des approches différentes pour y faire face. Certains ont offert de quitter leurs terres volontairement, tandis que d'autres sont allés à la guerre avec les États-Unis pendant des années dans une tentative de rester en place. Le Cherokee a élaboré une constitution basée sur les États-Unis pour prouver leurs droits et même utilisé la Cour suprême à leur avantage, remportant un cas majeur en leur faveur. Mais ils n'ont jamais eu de chance. Peu importe ce que les tribus ont fait, le résultat était le même, et il a culminé dans la traînée des larmes.

4 He had a fragile "legal" base

If you ever find someone trying to defend the trail of tears, they will probably point out that, technically, it was all legal. Why, the Cherokee themselves signed a treaty saying they would be happy to get out of Dodge!

By the mid-1830s, it was clear that the government was serious about the Indian Abduction Act. Other tribes were already displaced either by themselves or by force. The Cherokee were debating what to do. Unfortunately, some random guys basically decided for them.

John Ridge (pictured) was a member of the Cherokee Nation, but he pictured himself to the United States government as Chief Honcho when he was away from her. According to today in the history of Georgia, he signed the New Echota Treaty in 1835 which agreed to trade all Cherokee lands for $ 5 million. The story says that the real Cherokee leader, John Ross, wrote to Congress explaining their mistake, saying, "The instrument in question is not the act of our nation." We have not gone to his covenants; He did not receive the sanction of our people, "but the government did not care. They had a treaty, and they stuck to it.

Everything came back to bite the crest in the buttocks, however. In 1839, after the trail of tears was well underway and the Cherokee realized how badly epic that false treaty had been for their people, a group of Cherokee met and murdered him.

5 Not everyone was happy about it

Obviously, the Cherokee were not aboard being ripped off their old home and sent on a dangerous journey in the middle of nowhere. After the New Echota Treaty, more than 15,000 of them (virtually the entire nation at that time) signed a petition demanding not to be forced to move.

Not all politicians were for forced kidnapping, either. John Quincy Adams (above) had at best a mixed record of Amerindian relations as President, but when he became a member of Congress, he became seriously uncomfortable with the situation. According to the Indian country today, he called the trail of tears "among the heinous sins of this nation." Davy Crockett, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster all spoke against him too. The Indian Abduction Act and the New Echota Treaty have hardly been passed at Congress until after bitter debates.

A group of random whites were also sympathetic and active against her, especially the Quakers and the Abolitionists. The "Ladies of Steubenville, Ohio" petitioned Congress against the practice in 1830, while the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson made an eloquent appeal to President Van Buren in 1936. According to the online coastline, seven US cities classified "memorials" asking for previous treatises to be honored and Amerindians to stay put. Even many Georgia residents, especially those who had been around before the Gold Rush, wanted the Cherokee to stay. While the nation did not agree with the idea, the government was not listening.

↚

6 The guy in charge had good intentions

The lucky guy chosen to be in charge of the actual logistics of the forced kidnapping of thousands of people was Winfield Scott. He is widely regarded as the greatest general of his time: he commanded troops in three major wars and ran for the President three times. The giant, embarrassing Blot on Scott's resume, which he certainly would not put up in a job interview, was in charge of dragging tears.

The trip was never going to be a success, but he really wanted it to go as well as he could, according to Agent of Fate: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott. He gave incredibly detailed instructions to his soldiers not to shoot people who fled and to take care of those who were weak or sick. Scott even taught them some of the highlights of Cherokee's story so that they would have more respect for their prisoners, and the guilt-triggered soldiers by telling everyone in America would be furious with them if they were still a little hard or cruel.

Scott spoke with the Cherokee himself and tried to reassure them, they would get a decent treatment. He listened to the leaders when they asked him not to travel in the summer because of the ridiculous heat, and encouraged the Native Americans to get vaccinated before leaving. He also sent messages to the settlers along the trail, asking them to pretty please be kind to the Cherokee as they went through.

7 The best laid plans of mice and men

Bien sûr, ça n'a pas marché aussi bien que le général Scott l'a imaginé. Les récits contemporains révèlent de terribles abus. Un Cherokee qui a été soumis à l'horreur plus tard a écrit sur ce qui s'est passé et a envoyé son écriture au Bureau américain des affaires indiennes. Même avant qu'ils ont commencé à marcher sur la piste, il était horrible, surtout si les gens ne vont pas de volonté:

 "Pour ces soldats ont été envoyés, par Gorgia [sic], et [les Cherokee] ont été rassemblés et conduit, à la pointe de la baïonnette, dans le camp avec les autres. [Traduction] «on n'avait pas le droit de prendre un de leurs trucs ménagers, mais on les obligeait à partir comme ils étaient, avec seulement les vêtements qu'ils avaient. Un vieil homme, très âgé, a demandé aux soldats de lui laisser le temps de prier une fois de plus, avec sa famille dans la vieille maison chère, avant qu'il ne l'ait laissé pour toujours. La réponse a été, avec un serment brutal, «non! pas le temps de prier. Aller! en même temps lui donnant une Poussée grossière vers la porte. Les Indiens ont été expulsés, les blancs sont entrés, en prenant la pleine possession de tout ce qui restait.  "

Une fois qu'ils ont commencé, les choses ont empiré. C'était l'hiver et la plupart des Cherokee avait des vêtements inadéquats et des couvertures. Ils ont été parqués comme du bétail, fouettés pour aller plus vite, et sont morts par milliers de l'exposition, la malnutrition, l'épuisement, et la maladie. Un soldat qui était là l'a appelé  "l'ordre le plus brutal dans l'histoire de la guerre américaine," dire,  "les souffrances des Cherokees [sur la piste des larmes] ont été terribles " et qu'il était Straight-Up  "assassiner".

8 The forts were even worse than the trail

As soon as the Indian Abduction Act was signed in 1830, the forts were built from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma that would "house" the Indians along their journey. You will notice that it was eight years before the start of the track, and even five years before the New Echota Treaty. But about North Georgia says it's because the government absolutely knew what was coming, even though they played dumb when the Cherokee actually asked them about it.

It was basically concentration camps, and if anything, life was even worse in them than on the track itself. According to the inside of America's concentration camps: two centuries of internment and torture, they were dangerously overpopulated, with small forts holding hundreds of Cherokees at a time. People are dying every day. Thanks to the "primitive conditions" many died of the same disease and malnutrition that killed people when they walked, but many saw no way out of the horror and committed suicide. The soldiers guarding the forts were epic bastards. As if the Cherokees did not already have food, clothes and blankets, the guards stole what little they had with them. Many have also repeatedly raped women and children, as well as do them and Cherokee men perform absolutely inmentionable "acts of depravity."

A soldier who was guarding the forts would later write, "During the civil war, I saw hundreds of men die, including my own brother, but none of this compares to what we did to the Cherokee Indians".

9 The legend of the Cherokee rose 

Legend has it that to this day we still have a very visual reminder of how the Cherokee has suffered on the trail of tears. Child after the child died, the mothers were overcome by grief. But the leaders knew that if the mothers gave up hope, everyone was completely screwed up. Cherokees of California says one night, they all gathered and prayed to the inhabitant of heaven (GA LV the HI di). They explained that things were not going well. They feared that if too many children died, the Cherokee Nation was over.

According to Barbara Shining Warren's wife, the resident of heaven replied, "To let you know how much I care, I will give you a sign. In the morning, tell the women to look back along the track. Where their tears have fallen, I will grow a plant that will have seven leaves for the seven Cherokee clans. In the middle of the plant will be a delicate white rose with five petals. In the center of the flower will be a pile of gold to remind the Cherokee of the white man's greed for gold found on the Cherokee homeland. This plant will be strong and strong with stickers on all stems. He will defy anything that tries to destroy him. "

The next morning, the mothers were watching, and wherever they had shed a tear, a beautiful symbolic rose was growing. And they continue to flourish along the trail to this day.

10 "Indian Territory" did not last long

The idea at the time was that, as horrible human rights abuse as it was, the trail of tears was totally going to be worth it for the Cherokee in the end. According to the University of Minnesota, in exchange for reluctantly abandoning their land in Georgia so that prospectors could make a quick buck, an area called Indian Territory west of the Mississippi would be set aside for their use for all eternity . Of course, we now call the same area of ​​Oklahoma, so obviously it did not work that way.

That's not what people expected to happen at the time, though. Most citizens thought that America would stop at the river, a natural end point for the country. The term "manifest destiny" was not even invented until seven years after the trail of tears began. But it was a short time shocking before there were any problems.

After only two relatively boring decades in their new home, the Civil War divided the Cherokee just like the rest of the United States and it led to border disputes in the territory. Then, in 1887, when the US region was engulfing their nation, an act was passed saying they had to buy the land they had been given by the government. Then oil was discovered, everyone's second favorite thing after gold, and the whites started to flood the place. In 1907, Oklahoma officially became a state and the Cherokee nation was abolished, less than 70 years after they left their homes on the trail.

الوسوم: history