The Trail of Tears and the Cherokee Indians, Research Paper Example

Although a great amount of material has been written and published on the Trail of Tears, it appears that most of it does not discuss one of the most important and intriguing aspects of this tragedy in American history–how the Cherokee Indians in 1838 managed to survive under very harsh conditions while mostly walking from their homeland in the Southeast in the states of Georgia and Alabama, and into Indian territory in the state of Oklahoma, a distance of some twelve hundred miles. This unexplored aspect on the history of the Trail of Tears is why I have chosen to write on this topic, not to mention another area that will be discussed in the pages that follow.

Like most people with an avid interest in the history of the United States, I knew only the basic historical facts concerning the history of the Trail of Tears. For instance, it has been estimated that more than 16,000 Cherokee Indians traveled on foot, by horseback, and wagon to reach their “promised land” in Oklahoma. Most of these Indians were dressed in nothing more than rags, trudging through one of the coldest winters ever recorded in the state of Arkansas. Food was scarce and supplies of firewood and food for their horses and cattle was almost non-existent. To make matters worse, thousands of Cherokee Indians, especially women and their children, “died from infectious diseases, such as cholera, dysentery, measles, and smallpox,” and to this very day, the number of Indians buried along the trail and exactly how many died or survived remains unknown (Sloan, “Trail of Tears”).

It would appear that the Cherokee Indians that were forced to relocate to Indian territory in 1838 because of specific federal laws that required the removal of Indians from lands that should be occupied and farmed by white Americans possessed something far more powerful and influential than mere physical endurance and stamina–their religious and spiritual beliefs which enabled them to withstand the physical demands of the journey and to look ahead with optimism and hope. Unfortunately, this was not to be, due to what the future held in relation to the continuing onslaught against Native American Indians by white Americans and the U.S. federal government.

It should be mentioned that prior to the removal of the Cherokee Indians from their homelands, the U.S. government and most white Americans held the view that Indians “led uncivilized lives, not because of some inherent inferiority but because they had not yet been able to imagine a better future for themselves and their children.” Thus, due to ignorance, they were nothing more than “uncivilized heathens.” However, by obtaining a white man’s education and with the right training, Indians “could become respectable citizens in a fully assimilated (excluding black slaves) American society” (Smith, 15). This viewpoint is completely inaccurate, due to the fact that Indians saw the world around them through very different eyes steeped in religious and spiritual traditions and customs and therefore saw no need to imagine “a better future for themselves” and their descendants.

According to Theda Purdue, the natural world in which the Cherokee Indians lived was constantly shaped by spiritual forces and the “knowledge, ceremonies, and rules” associated with the spirits “enabled them to call on those forces when they needed to do so” (4). Without a doubt, the Cherokees that were forced to relocate to Indian territory in what is now Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears often called upon these spiritual forces for strength and guidance. In effect, all they had to do while traveling on the Trail of

Tears was to look about them and ponder the plants and animals in this environment and the mountains and rivers, all of which the Cherokees associated with spiritual power (Purdue, 4).

Purdue also relates that all of the fundamental religious principles and beliefs of the Cherokee Indians “were written on the land” and that they “lived in constant interaction with it,” meaning that for the Cherokee Indians, the physical environment was a reflection of the “Great Spirit” who had created the world and intended for the land to belong to the Cherokee. In effect, the Cherokee Indians “knew that this land” (i.e., their homeland) was meant for them” and that because of their cosmological beliefs, they were located in the very center of the universe (5). In addition, Purdue maintains that the West, in this case all of the lands beyond the great Mississippi River, represented death in the eyes of the Cherokees, and that Cherokee conjurers or those individuals gifted with the power to speak to the “Great Spirit” and put into effect what the “Great Spirit” told them, symbolized the West as a place of destruction (5).

In 1818, a counsel of wise old Cherokee women, some of them conjurers themselves, declared that their homeland and all of the land surrounding it “was given to us by the Great Spirit to raise our children upon and to make support for our rising generations” (Purdue, 6). Thus, when the U.S. federal government and President Andrew Jackson demanded the removal of the Cherokee Nation from its homeland, the idea of abandoning the land given to them by the “Great Spirit” and heading west toward the unknown “was unthinkable” (Purdue, 6), due in part to believing that their homeland was the center of the world and the universe and that nothing awaited them in the far and distant West except starvation, disease, and death.

Ironically, because of the U.S. government’s insistence that the Cherokee Nation must relocate to Indian territory in the Far West and give up their homeland, they were placed in a most perfect environment to practice their religious beliefs, being the wide open expanses of America beyond the Mississippi River which in the late 1830’s was mostly unexplored and populated by other Native Indian tribes and with few white men to be seen.

As Karen Raley informs us, everything that existed in the natural world, whether animals, plants, natural landforms like mountains, streams, rivers, and lakes, possessed “an intelligent spirit and played a central role” in the daily lives of the Cherokee Indians. Much unlike the white man, the Cherokee “did not view themselves as separate from their environment,” for they believed that as human beings, they were part of the natural world around them (“Maintaining Balance”). In essence, these and many other religious beliefs created a sense of balance, but when this balance became upset, such as when forced from their homeland, the Cherokee Indians became fearful that their new and unbalanced world would bring them “sickness, bad weather, failed crops, poor hunting” and other problems that normally they would not have to face in their homeland (Raley, “Maintaining Balance”).

As previously pointed out, during the long and difficult journey west from their homeland in the American Southeast, the Cherokee Indians were constantly searching for some type of guidance and protection by the spirits of the Upper World, the place where all men lived in the natural world, in order to help maintain balance and harmony. Certainly, the Cherokee Indians, much like other North American Indian tribes, sought out this guidance and protection through ” daily prayers, rituals, and seasonal ceremonies,” such as during the phase of the new moon when they would practice a ritual known as “going to water” which “cleansed the spirit as well as the body” (Raley, “Maintaining Balance”).

Always performed at sunrise, the Cherokee during this ritual would “face the east, step into a river or creek, and dip under the water seven times,” and upon emerging from the water would be free of “bad feelings and ready to begin anew with a clear mind” (Raley, “Maintaining Balance”). Ironically, this is very similar to the Christian ritual of baptism. Strange as it may seem, the Cherokee Indians while traveling on the Trail of Tears even performed songs and dances which promoted balance in nature, harmony with the spirit world, and good health and happiness.

Overall, the horrors that the Cherokee Indians had to endure on a daily basis while traveling along the twelve hundred mile-long Trail of Tears cannot be fully imagined. Exactly why this matters is quite obvious, for it serves as a prime example on how human beings treat one another, due to not understanding a particular culture and its beliefs and practices. This is especially relevant when we consider the terrible results of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson so that white people could occupy the homeland of the Cherokees. In addition, although the American government and most white Americans in the 1830’s did not realize the scope and depth of the Cherokee’s religious beliefs, they were blatantly discriminated against on religious grounds, due to forcing them to occupy lands in the West which they considered as symbolizing physical death.

I must admit that before I began to read and study the history of the Trail of Tears, I was not aware of how much the Cherokees suffered during this harrowing ordeal, nor did I realize the importance of religion and spirituality in the lives of the Cherokee Indians. One would think that the U.S. government (which certainly was very ignorant of the Cherokee’s religious beliefs and rituals) would have spared no expense to guarantee that the removal of the Cherokees from their homeland would be as well-organized and burden-free as possible; however, this was not the case. Thus, I must ask why the U.S. government allowed this tragedy to occur in the first place. Perhaps the recollections of U.S. cavalry veteran John G. Burnett, written in 1890, will induce others to more fully explore the tragic history of the Trail of Tears in order to come to some kind of consensus regarding the lack of concern and feelings by the government and the people of the United States in 1838:

“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 4000 silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile.

In my mind, covetousness on the part of the white race was the cause of all that the Cherokees had to suffer and those who participated in and made possible this travesty helped to write the blackest chapter on the pages of American history” (Ehle, 245).

Bibliography

Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York : Doubleday, 1988.

Purdue, Theda. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. New York: Penguin Library of American Indian History, 2008.

Raley, Karen. “Maintaining Balance: The Religious World of the Cherokees.”. 1998. Web. 25 February 2012.

Sloan, Kitty. “Trail of Tears.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. 2011. Web. 23 February 2012.

Smith, Daniel Blake. An American Betrayal: Cherokee Patriots and the Trail of Tears. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2011.