Chapter 1 "Jesus Wept"
Chapter 2 Law, Law Understood, and Law Executed
Chapter 3 The Trail Where They Cried
"All Nations have their rises & their falls.
This has been the case with us.
Within the orbit the U. States move the States
& within these we move in a little circle,
dependent on the great center.
We may live this way fifty years and then we shall
by Natural Causes merge in & mingle with the U. States.......
Cherokee blood, if not destroyed,
will win its courses in beings of fair complexions,
who will read that their ancestors became civilized
under the frowns of misfortune
& the causes of their enemies." -
John Ridge , letter to Albert Gallatin, member of Thomas Jefferson's staff - February 27, 1826
Chapter 1 - "Jesus Wept" John 11:35
Searcy County, Arkansas circa 1914"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found!
Was blind, but now I see!"
The righteous singing in that little wooden Southern Baptist Church was the sweetest thing about life for six year old Lena Kimbrell. She could be as loud as she wished and not be punished, it made her feel, well, BIG, even if she always did seem to be the 'little' one. And no one seemed to care how badly anyone sang. But sooner or later the music always has to stop.
"Now our brothers and sisters will recite a verse from the good book, which they have all dedicated the time to memorize this week," announced the preacher sternly.
Yep, same routine every Sunday, Lena thought. The recital began when Old Ben said his verse, and not before. Ben stood at the back pew, and loudly proclaimed, "Jesus Wept!" as he had each Sunday for as long as she could remember being big enough to go to church.
Then all the boys laughed and their mothers swatted them. Then they all act like they don't do the same thing every Sunday morning. She thought it was curious. Her brother missed the swat by skipping out of the church service again. How does he get away with such bad behavior, she thought, just because he's a boy? Curious.
Papa said poor ol' Ben was pretty simple and never learned to read or write. But he never forgot that verse and never missed a Sunday at church. Still, Lena thought, it felt nice to be able to count on some things never changing. Finally, her turn came and Lena repeated her verse, even though someone else had used the very same one. She grabbed her straw hat and ran outside to look for her missing brother before Mama saw her.
A breeze filtered through the open door of the church; at least she didn't have to get by those rusty hinges as she sneaked out. Wild honeysuckle was floating in the air in the warm sunshine. It smelled like she imagined heaven must smell. She closed her eyes and seemed to disappear in the vapor, but then remembered her mission.
After a search, she heard the sounds of 'boys' rising out of a draw near the creek. There they were, in their Sunday's best, slicing apart cold blooded amphibious creatures. And boastfully enjoying it. Several good size frogs had been skinned and their hides tacked to a stump. The boys looked on with pride as if they'd embellished some fancy ceiling in Rome.
Lena yelled, "J.B.! Ya got frog blood all over that shirt I just had to wash and iron! How will I get it clean now? Huh?" Her brother looked up at Lena from his slaughtered treasures, snickered and slowly wiped his slimy hands up and down his chest.
"You're going to Hell for sure, J.B. I ain't praying for ya. No sir!" And with that admonishment she started back up the hill and down the road to catch up, having been left far behind Mama and Papa and her sisters. Over fifty years since slavery was abolished, but she was absolutely sure she was being treated ever as badly as some Negro servant girl.
"Hello there! Thomas!"
Dwelling on the annoyance of her conditions and kicking rocks was interrupted by the welcome tenor of Grampa Jim O'Neal, who always had a kind word to say and a story to tell as he leaned on his hickory cane.
"Everyone went on home and left you behind, Sister. You can walk with me, I'm sorta slow too."
"Why do you call me Thomas, Grampa?" Lena quizzed.
"Doubting Thomas. From the Bible, " he teased. "The disciple who thought he was from Missouri. He wanted to be showed everything and asked almost as many questions as you do!"
"Grampa, today I'm gonna tell you a story 'bout the Civil War! Papa told me one about his Mama. Her name was Miss Mary Jane Waterson. Before she married Grampa Kimbrell she was married to Rufus Henderson. They had one little girl that was real sick. But Mr. Henderson had to go off to the big war."
"Why, there was a Henderson at Lewisburg in my unit!" remembered Jim. "Your Grampa Kimbrell fought for the Union, too, ya know."
"Anyways," Lena continued, "Poor Mr. Henderson got killed fightin' the Rebs and no place to bury him! They just had to load 'em up in a wagon and drop 'em off near where ever home was. Just dump 'em in the front yard I reckon!"
She stopped to take a breath and sigh. "And then her baby girl died, too. So when she got done with all that buryin', that's how she got to be my Grandma and how it is we're related to the Murphys, or somethin' like that.
I can't 'member it all, Grampa."
She slipped her hand in Grampa's after waving good bye to the preacher who was proudly watching his flock from the steps of his church. Off they went for another week of sinning so they could be saved next Sunday.
"Tell me about the war, Grampa. I like those stories about the Yanks and the Rebs. They say there was a battle right here. Is it true, Grampa?"
"Yep, there was lots of battles 'round here. Not big ones like Pea Ridge or Honey Springs where there was thousands of men, but lots of bad skirmishes and such. One over yonder was on Independence Day in July of sixty-four. In sixty-five down at Dardenelle we were trying to hold the town from Confederates who were getting to all our supply lines. Ran 'em off too! One of our Arkansas boys was wounded four times in that battle and was awarded the first medal of honor for any Arkansan."
He explained, "Ya see, Marshall wasn't named 'til after the war. During the war the town was known as Burrowsville here abouts. In the winter of sixty-four, Union soldiers raided this whole place looking for Confederate sympathizers, burned the courthouse and looted the town."
Lena was confused. "I still can't figure out who the good guys was and who the bad guys was, Grampa."
"Sometimes we couldn't tell no difference neither," he agreed. "This whole place was tore up so bad when refugees and soldiers came back they had to rebuild from scratch. Some soldiers didn't get mustered out 'til August, and the war ended in April......so they kept sayin' in the East anyway. It was so bad around here with marauders and some that just wouldn't quit fightin', just for fightin's sake, that the Union put troops right in Burrowsville for months to keep the peace.
"Teacher said that Negro slaves was treated awful bad before they was free. That the masters whipped 'em like mules," Lena reported. "Did they, Grampa? Is such an awful thing true?"
"I think it must a been awful enough just being owned by another man." Grampa told her. I suppose if a man has a mean streak and beats his Missus and children, then he'd likely beat his slaves."
"Hmmm", She said. "I guess Mama woulda been a pretty good Negro master! Why do you think she's always so mad anyway, Grampa?"
"No one on this earth knows that, Thomas, but if I don't get you home pretty soon, she'll have both our hides tacked to a stump!" Grampa warned as they both had a good laugh.
"Well, Grampa, I been praying to not be as poor and tired of pickin' cotton as those poor slaves was but he's not hearin' me it don't look like."
Lena complained as she shook her head full of black curls tucked under a wide brim hat.
"God always answers your prayers, Thomas," Grampa assured her. "But sometimes he's got to say 'No'. Sometimes there is so much misery in this ol' world to comfort, he can't get around to little things."
She shrugged her shoulders, mumbling to herself, "Even the things I pray for are 'little'? May as well pray for it all. Maybe J.B. is right when he says ya might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb."
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In April of 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal:
" Then is this disaster of Cherokees brought to me
by a sad friend to blacken my days & nights.
I can do nothing. Why shriek?
Why strike ineffectual blows? .........
It is like dead cats around one's neck.......
It is like School Committees & Sunday School classes and
Teachers' meetings & the Warren Street Chapel
& all the other holy hurrahs........
I stir in it for the sad reason that no other mortal will move
& If I do not, why it is left undone."
" Then is this disaster of Cherokees brought to me
by a sad friend to blacken my days & nights.
I can do nothing. Why shriek?
Why strike ineffectual blows? .........
It is like dead cats around one's neck.......
It is like School Committees & Sunday School classes and
Teachers' meetings & the Warren Street Chapel
& all the other holy hurrahs........
I stir in it for the sad reason that no other mortal will move
& If I do not, why it is left undone."
Chapter 2 - Law, Law Understood, and Law Executed
Cherokee Nation, East circa 1780 - 1837
Scotch-Irish traders, some having served in the War for Independence, settled among the Cherokee where they felt at home and some married into the Indian clans. They appreciated many of the customs of the Cherokee that were similar to their own in the Scottish Highlands, as well as the warrior history, the clansman ship, the sense of family and loyalty. With them came missionaries, Christianity, merchants, proper education and prosperity for these families of Cherokee who became known as the Ridge or Treaty Party. They adapted to 'modern' American culture so well that many of their white Georgia neighbors were envious of the more aristocratic, successful and better educated "Injuns".
An unnamed Scotsman living among the Cherokee declared, "I made many enemies among the whites, because I corrected them about their stories." One such Indian trader was James Adair, who spent several years with the Cherokee and chronicled his experiences in his book "History of the American Indians", published in 1775.
"The equality among the Indians, and the just rewards they always confer on merit, are the great and leading -- the only motives that warm their hearts with a strong and permanent love for their country. Governed by the plain and honest law of nature, their whole constitution breathes nothing but liberty; and where there is that equality of condition, manners, and privileges . . . . If the governed are convinced that their superiors have a real affection for them, they will esteem it in their duty and interest to serve them, and take pleasure in it.
The Indian method of government . . . in general . . . consists of a federal union for mutual safety. . . . The Indians, therefore, have no such titles, or persons as emperors, or kings, or an appellative for such, in any of their dialects. . . . They have no words to express despotic power, arbitrary kings, oppressed, or obedient subjects. . . . The power of their chiefs is an empty sound. They can only persuade or dissuade the people, either by the force of good nature and clear reasoning, or by colouring things, so as to suit the prevailing passions. It is reputed merit alone, that gives them any titles or distinctions.
Every town is independent of the other. Their own friendly compact continues the union. . . . They are very deliberate in their councils, and never give an immediate answer to any message sent to them by strangers, but suffer some nights first to elapse. They reason in a very orderly manner, with much coolness and good-natured language, though they may differ widely in their opinions. "
Lieutenant John Bell, a Scottish immigrant, served with the Third Virginia Regiment Continental Dragoons for the American Revolution. Settling in Georgia after the war, he married a Deer Clan woman, a cousin of Chief Dragging Canoe who was said to be the last Cherokee War Chief.
The Cherokee National Council, on November 12, 1819 was held at New Echota, Cherokee Nation, where now exists modern day Northwest Georgia. They resolved that any white man who should marry a Cherokee woman is required to be married legally by a minister of the Gospel or some other legally authorized person and obtain a legal license from the national clerk. During this time, the Cherokee often took 'American' names and named their children after founding fathers and ancient world heroes who they particularly admired. The tribe functioned under a constitutional form of government.
No society has been known to make such a dramatic cultural shift as the Cherokee accomplished in Northern Georgia between 1794 and 1825. During this time they not only created and learned to read and write their own language, but learned English as well. They not only converted, voluntarily bringing in many of the missionaries themselves, but embraced the practice of Christianity. These progressive Cherokees simply elected not only to accept 'the white man's ways', but to be better at it than anyone. Political powers of the time led by President Andrew Jackson did not let the Cherokee progress stop his Indian removal act of 1830.
Elias Boudinot, son of OOWatee and brother of Stand Watie, had been educated at a school established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Cornwall, Connecticut. Here he took the name of a rich colonial benefactor, a citizen of New Jersey and a friend of George Washington who had served as a president of the Continental Congress.
Elias married a white woman, Harriet Gold from Connecticut, much to the dismay of her cultured neighbors and family of New England. They settled near New Echota, the Capitol of the Cherokee Nation, among other Deer Clan families such as Bell, Adair, Lynch, Vann, Martin, Starr, Ridge.
After some time passed, Benjamin Gold, Harriet's father traveled to the 'wilderness' to look in on his daughter living among the savages. On the 8th of December, 1829, he wrote from New Echota to his brother in New England describing his daughter's home.
"She has a large and convenient framed house, two story, 60 by 40 ft. on the ground, well done off and well furnished with comforts of life.
They get their supplies of clothes and groceries—they have their year's store of teas, clothes, paper, ink, etc.,—from Boston, and their sugars, molasses, etc., from Augusta; they have two or three barrels of flour on hand at once.
This neighborhood is truly an interesting and pleasant place; the ground is smooth and level as a floor—the centre of the Nation—a new place laid out in city form, —one hundred lots, one acre each—a spring called the public spring, about twice as large as our sawmill brook, near the centre, with other springs on the plat; six framed houses in sight, besides a Council House, Court House, printing office, and four stores all in sight of Boudinot's house."
The 1835 Cherokee Census in Georgia reported: Indians 8,946, Intermarried Whites 68, Slaves 776, Farms 1,735, Acres under Cultivation 19,216. Because many of these Cherokees were above average in socio economic success, they were also more likely to suffer acts of violence from other factions of the tribe as well as settlers encroaching on their homes.
The circumstances and fate of the Cherokee in their homelands of Georgia is best described by 'Too-qua-stee', who was known as DeWitt Clinton Duncan, native to the time and place and the brother of Reverend Walter Duncan. He was New England educated as were many of his Cherokee contemporaries and later became a lawyer and a teacher of English, Latin and Greek at the Cherokee Male Seminary. In the 'Story of the Cherokees' he wrote:
"The Cherokees, from time to time, sold portions of their territory to the whites in the hope of saving by that expedient small part, at least, of their ancient heritage as a permanent home for themselves and their children.
....The Cherokees made the question of civilization a subject of deliberation in the council of the nation. 'Shall the Cherokee adopt the habits, customs, and institutions of the white race, or shall they continue in the way of their forefathers?' That was the question. They determined in favor of civilization.
Accordingly, they organized a civil government founded on the three fundamental ideas: Law, Law understood, and Law executed. The rights and liberties of the citizens were suitably guaranteed; religion was made free; morality encouraged and education provided for. With the greatest unanimity and most commendable zeal, they addressed themselves to the employments of civilized life, and pleasant homes, mingled with churches and schoolhouses, sprang up and adorned the land.
They had begun to appreciate and enjoy the blessings of home, and to love wife and children with a more refined devotion. The land, which they inhabited, was no more their cherished 'hunting ground', but their country, which they had learned to love with all the fervor of an enlightened patriotism. Their increased intelligence enabled them to discern more accurately the distinctions between justice and injustice, while their moral sensibilities, vitalized by the influence of civilization, experienced a new delight in the triumphs of the former, and flamed with an unwonted indignation at the invasions of the latter. In their estimation, the white men were no more, as in ancient times they had been supposed to be, 'children of the sun', but were only men, like themselves, capable of evil as well as good. To be, at this period, driven from their country, endeared by so many improved causes of attachment, and sent to new and untried abodes in the western wilderness far beyond the Mississippi, was a prospect, which filled the heart of the nation with sensations of chilly horror.
..... They cried to their 'Great Father at Washington', but his answers never rose to anything higher than hypocritical expressions of parental regard for his 'Red children'. Georgia well understood this bias of the Administration.......'The Cherokees must go,' was her motto; it had been whispered in her ear at the White House. 'The Cherokees must go' was caught up and echoed by the intruders. 'The Cherokees must go,' was the war cry throughout the state.
An act was hurried through the forms of legislation having in view the twofold purpose of driving the Cherokees out of their country and putting Georgia in possession of their lands. The statute abolished the Cherokee body politic, annulled all Cherokee laws, and made it a penal offense for any person to enforce, or attempt to enforce, a judgment or process of any Cherokee court. It extended the laws of Georgia over the Cherokee country, and punished all white men with imprisonment who should be found remaining therein without first taking the oath of allegiance to the state government and to support her in her measures against the Cherokees.
By its terms, no Indian was allowed to bear witness against a white man in any of the courts of the state; and if any Indian should be detected in digging gold, except in the employ of a loyal citizen of the state, he was liable to be arrested and punished with imprisonment. It also provided for a survey of the Cherokee lands and for dividing them up 'by lot' in homesteads to such loyal citizens as might see fit to venture out and make improvements in the wilds of the newly acquired territory.....
To put this oppressive law into execution, the militia of the state were called out, armed and mounted. Dr. Elizar Butler and Rev. S. A. Worcester, who were in the service of the American Board among the Cherokees, were the most distinguished of these recusant missionaries.
They were arrested by militia on charge of being found in the Cherokee country contrary to the terms of the statute.... The prisoners were pinioned. For each, they prepared a rope. One end they tied around the prisoner's neck, the other to the pummel of a saddle. The ruffians then rode away, while these good men trotted along behind them on the way to jail. They were tried, found guilty of violating the statute and sentenced to the penitentiary. They served out their time and were discharged, and returning to the Cherokees in their new home west of the Mississippi, resumed their labors. They gave their lives to the Cherokees, and their works live after them and bless their memory.
If a lot happened to cover an occupied improvement, the owner was thrown out of possession on private responsibility. Such personal property as was found upon the premises, especially the implements of husbandry and the mechanical arts were appropriated by the newcomer. The poultry was dressed and enjoyed by him, his wife and little ones.
The hogs were remarked and the cattle re-branded in the name of the white man, and went to augment his patrimony.
Two horsemen now came into view far down the highway in the direction of the white settlement. They were armed with rifles certainly and doubtless with other weapons that are visible only in cases of emergency. They were white men. It was a good hit for them, for their 'lot' covered the man's premises completely. They were coming to see their newly acquired property. The first part of the improvement that came under their notice was the pasture in which the man's horses were grazing. Here they loitered and looked for a time with evident satisfaction. At length, they moved on. The orchard next attracted their attention. Here they estimated the number of fruit trees and tried to take in their quality and variety.
By and by, they came to the great gate that stood near the barn.
One of them here dismounted, flung the gate open, remounted and they both rode in. On they went, inspecting, prospecting-slowly onward till at last they were lost from sight in the expanse of the farm. They arrived at the same great gate and passed out still wearing an impenetrable air of inquiry and investigation. Here one of the white men drew from his pocket and read a certificate showing that he had won the man's premises at Georgia's infamous lottery box. They then rode away in the direction they had come.
The man's dark eye followed them as they went. His deep sense of wrong had hung itself in shadows upon his swarthy brow, and in the tones of one whose spirit, oppressed by a power which it cannot repel, finds its last support in hopeless feelings of contempt, he said: 'The impudence of a white man! Specimens of a glorious civilization! Those obdurate villains have the hardihood to say that God has a peculiar liking for them and their race on account of what they know and what they are; that He gives them the whole world for a possession, and commissions them on errands of rapine and murder against us as He did Joshua against the poor Canaanites. If that be so, it is wonderful how such great meanness can be so popular in heaven, and be entrusted with such fearful prerogatives over the rest of mankind! Away with such civilization! -Nations are rarely human when they are not afraid to play the beast.'
A fortnight passed and two emigrant wagons rolled into view. They were attended by the same two white men that had a few days before explored the man's premises. Their wives and their children were with them, also their hired hands. They came trudging, dusty, dirty, evidently weary. A long way they had doubtless traveled. Step by step their teams tugged on, freighted to the bows of their wagons' white arching roofs with all the precious prospects of a new and happy home in the beautiful land of the Cherokees. On they came, soberly and directly, tending toward the big gate just back of the barn. They arrived and halted before its majesty. There was no god in all the Cherokee nation that commanded the reverence of those impious white men like that gigantic gate. They swung it wide open upon its ponderous hinges, though, and in they drove.
In the meantime, the man himself had received a threatening notification that his own well-being was conditioned upon his own gentle behavior, and that in case he should attempt any interference, his right to life and liberty would be deemed forfeited. He brought an action in the superior courts of the state of Georgia..... a system of persecution was inaugurated by the intruders, and daily the man and his family felt their sensibilities galled by insulting epithets and brutal maledictions. Their national pride was outraged by heaping contemptuous ridicule upon their name and race.
At length, the case came on for trial. 'Bring on your witnesses, Mr. Plaintiff,' came the injunction from the bench.
'Hold!' cried a voice from the defense. 'We object to the competency of those witnesses. Those witnesses, your honor, are all Cherokee Indians; this defendant is a white man, and the statute of our state provides that no Indian shall be allowed to testify against a white man in any of the courts of the state of Georgia.'
'The objection is well taken,' responded the court, 'and must be sustained. Have you no white persons to testify for you, Mr. Plaintiff?'
'None, your honor.'
'Your case, then, must be dismissed at your own cost, and it is so ordered.'
Years have since rolled away. He and his heroic wife have long since found rest in death. The children still live, and that malignant power, falsely called civilization, is to this day still at their heels demanding their room or their ruin."
Preserved from history is a formal notice delivered to a Cherokee citizen to vacate his home as per a lot drawing. It states:
"It becomes my duty to give you notice to evacuate the lot of land No. 125, in the 14th District, of the third section, and to give the house now occupied by you to Col. William Handen, or whoever he may put forward to take possession of the same and that you may have ample time to prepare for the same, I will allow you until the 28th day of this month to do the same. "
President Jackson passed his Indian Removal act into law. Settlers were moving into Cherokee homes and it became apparent to the sensible leaders of the Cherokee Nation that removal would happen. Their protests and their Supreme Court victory which stated the Cherokee Nation had all the rights of any state of the union and was by any legal definition, sovereign, did not matter. Jackson's position was that he would not enforce the ruling of the court to stop the incursion. Prominent Cherokees in the community were made examples of to further the ends of white settlement of the Cherokee homes. Others were held long enough for their property to be siezed if they were perceived as troublesome.
An 1832 edition of the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper in New Echota tells of the arrest of the twenty-six year old son of John Bell, Jr. and Charlotte Adair. He was also the grandson of John Bell, the earlier mentioned Scottish immigrant and his Cherokee wife. For decades, four generations of this family occupied their homes in Georgia as did their native ancestors before them.
"We understand on Wednesday morning Mr. John A. Bell of Coosewaytee was arrested by a detachment of the Georgia Guard. Mr. B. is a native. What the charge was we are unable to say; and in fact it is impossible to know, for these law officers go to work without a written precept."
Subsequent issues of The Phoenix contain letters from other citizens stating that weeks later Bell and others had not been charged, but were still held in custody, not allowed representation or visitation. No 'crime' was necessary. The only prerequisite was having something the 'powers that be' of Georgia wanted or to be eloquent and bold enough to speak against them. Such treatment would explain why Cherokees like John Adair "Jack" Bell signed the Treaty of New Echota in December of 1835 and voted to accept the offer by the U.S. Government to remove voluntarily beyond the Mississippi. To escape living with the daily persecution by the State of Georgia Militia and its citizens must have seemed logical. To them, it was a choice of having life and home somewhere with dignity or to lose it all.
Some historians contend Congressman David Crockett's political career ended because of his support for the Cherokee against President Jackson's removal plans. Crockett explains his position in 1834:
".......His famous, or rather I should say infamous, Indian bill was brought forward, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favourite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this I wouldn't go for him, or any other man in the whole creation.
I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment."
Other popular voices of reason and compassion of the time appealed to the powers of the government on the Cherokees' behalf, only to be ignored. One such advocate was Ralph Waldo Emerson. The unwelcome duty of Cherokee removal fell to President Martin Van Buren who succeeded Jackson. From Concord, Massachusetts on April 23rd, 1838, Emerson wrote Van Buren with his concerns.
"Sir, my communication respects the sinister rumors that fill this part of the country concerning the Cherokee people. ...... Even in our distant State some good rumor of their worth and civility has arrived. We have learned with joy their improvement in the social arts. We have read their newspapers. We have seen some of them in our schools and colleges. In common with the great body of the American people, we have witnessed with sympathy the painful labors of these red men to redeem their own race from the doom of eternal inferiority, and to borrow and domesticate in the tribe the arts and customs of the Caucasian race.
[Rumors are]…you are contracting to put this active nation into carts and boats, and to drag them over mountains and rivers to a wilderness at a vast distance beyond the Mississippi. And a paper purporting to be an army order fixes a month from this day as the hour for this doleful removal.
In the name of God, sir, we ask you if this be so. Do the newspapers rightly inform us? Men and women with pale and perplexed faces meet one another in the streets and churches here, and ask if this be so. We have inquired if this be a gross misrepresentation from the party opposed to the government and anxious to blacken it with the people. We have looked in the newspapers of different parties and find a horrid confirmation of the tale. We are slow to believe it. We hoped the Indians were misinformed, and that their remonstrance was premature, and will turn out to be a needless act of terror.
In speaking thus the sentiments of my neighbors and my own, perhaps I overstep the bounds of decorum. But would it not be a higher indecorum coldly to argue a matter like this? We only state the fact that a crime is projected that confounds our understandings by its magnitude, - a crime that really deprives us as well as the Cherokees of a country. For how could we call the conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians our government, or the land that was cursed by their parting and dying imprecations our country, any more? You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world...
I write thus, sir, to inform you of the state of mind these Indian tidings have awakened here, and to pray with one voice more that you, whose hands are strong with the delegated power of millions of men, will avert with that might the terrific injury which threatens the Cherokee tribe. With great respect, sir, I am your fellow citizen,
Ralph Waldo Emerson"
Elias Boudinot, as Editor of The Cherokee Phoenix, which was published both in English and Cherokee and read in the East and Europe, captured the Cherokee situation in just a few words.
"Perhaps Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were only tantalizing us when they encouraged us in the pursuit of agriculture and government. Why were we not told long ago that we could not be permitted to establish a government within the limits of any state? The Cherokees have always had a government of their own. Nothing, however, was said when we were governed by savage laws. Others say it is time for the Cherokees to submit to inevitable destiny.
What Destiny? To be slandered and then butchered? Yes, this is the bitter cup prepared for us by a republican and religious government. We shall drink it to the dregs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 3 - The Trail Where They Cried
Oklahoma , 1937
The young woman, chosen as part of the Federal Writers Project from the Washington D.C. office of the W.P.A., pushed through the unhinged gate as she shifted notebooks and brief cases. Looking across what was once a yard through a thick cloud of Oklahoma dust, she saw an old woman in a wooden rocking chair sitting on a weathered porch. She wondered if she had found Daisy, the former slave of some of the Southern Cherokee, whom she had been dispatched to interview.
A stern voice echoed from the old woman. "Well, I've been waitin' for ya, fer two days. Mules get 'round better 'n those fancy Fords you city folk drive anyway."
"Miss Daisy Bell?" The woman inquired.
"That's right. Jest what did you want to talk to me 'bout anyhow? I don't know much."
"We want you to tell us your story, all about your life in slavery, so people will always know what you want to say about it. I've got all the time you need, Ma'am. I apologize for being late."
"Well, honey, you go in there and get us some lemonade, and we'll talk a spell. I just made a pitcher full. We'll see if I can tell ya anything you don't know. " Daisy pointed to the door. "That was a long time ago. Long time ago." She shook her head. "I've spent most of my years in Indian Territory. I seen this country in it's undeveloped state, when it was paradise. I seen great change. I seen what they call the progress of modern civil-iz-ation ruin a really good country."
After a satisfactory, though tart thirst quenching, the civil servant gathered her pencil and paper, steadied herself on a not-so-steady chair as Daisy began her tale.
"My mother was a slave girl from Georgia pick up by the Bells when they left that country 'bout 1838 with the rest of the Indians before I was born. Old master was John Bell Jr. The mistress was Charlotte Adair Bell and dey was Cherokee Indians of the Deer Clan. Them Adairs was all smart people. Some of 'em went to college!
The old woman leaned forward and began to laugh. "Cousin Hooley Bell was payin' for his nephew Harv Shelton's edu-cation at Dartmouth one time. Harv said he'd been doin' some serious thinking since he'd been at that fine school and he figured he jes' couldn't accept some of dat religion he'd been taught no mo' and dat he didn't believe what he thought he once did. He asked Hooley what he must do. Cousin Hooley told that boy, 'Come on home! Ya can go to hell in Tahlequah as easy as ya can go to hell at Dartmouth!'"
Daisy seemed to enjoy her anecdote and the serious lady scribbling her notes couldn't help chuckling along with her as she continued the narrative of the Bell Family.
"Old Mistress Charlotte lived just a short time after they made that terrible long trip from the old territory. Mammy told me she buried somewhere near Stillwell near where dey finally landed in Indian Territory. Old Master and Mistress Bell had 'bout ten children besides Master Jim. The oldest one called Jack. He led the wagon train to the new Indian Territory."
"Not long after that Jack and his brother Jarrett built a plantation in Texas. Dey was always up to somethin' and always lookin' for some land that the white man wouldn't run 'em off. One time Ezekial Starr and a bunch of 'em went to Colorado, and was going to take us all and settle there away from the government and Ross and everything, have our own separate Cherokee Nation away from that North and South battle. Then the war of Northern aggression broke out before we could go and I never did get out of this Indian Territory," Daisy sighed.
The young woman asked, "So, the Cherokees lived in Texas too, not just Oklahoma?"
Daisy replied, "Oh, they went lots of places! Jarrett and brother Samuel went with John Ridge's son John Rollin to California about de time I was born, I reckon, on an all Cherokee wagon train. They were determined to find gold and somewhere so far away that the government wouldn't come after 'em. They say John was ready to get out of the Territory and was hidin' out in Missouri. Some man name of Kell stole his daddy's black stallion and when he went to get it, the thief got shot somehow." Reassuringly, Daisy added, "Later on, he got it all cleared up."
"Samuel died on dat trip. I didn't ever know him or where he was buried. Lots of 'em died gettin' to California. Jarrett came back to Texas a few years later. He had the most beautiful wife in the nation, dey say. On that wagon train dey ran into some contrary Cheyenne Injuns. The Chief tried to buy Jerrett's wife fer fifty ponies! John Ridge stayed in California, 'cept when he came back for de war. Miss Sarah Bell, they all called her Sally, she married General Stand Watie."
"Did you ever hear about the Legend of the Cherokee Rose, young lady?" Daisy asked.
"No, Ma'am, but I'd like to hear it, if you'd like to tell me".
"Well, they say wild, pure white, single petal roses grow all along de sides of de roads all dat long way from the old territory to this 'un. Lots of unmarked graves on that road, too. The army wouldn't stop long enough for proper buryin'. Dat rose has a bright gold center, said to be the gold taken from the Cherokees in the nation. The Cherokees grew dat flower so much it was named the Georgia state flower. Dey brought the seeds with 'em and planted 'em on the way to the new territory and watered 'em with the tears dat all dem young girls cried. Now dat Cherokee Rose is all over this country too. So when you see beautiful white roses with a gold middle climbing high early in the spring, you know where it came from."
Shaking her head, Daisy recalled, "Miss Charlotte, that's another sister of Master Jim, said the army came and marched 'em out of their houses and took 'em all to some fort 'til the army was ready to take 'em west. Her and the other children watched the soldiers burn de furniture out in de yard! Then white settlers moved right in. I heard dey even rifled the Indian graves for jewelry or anythin' dat might have been buried with the dead. Dey told me 'bout one old Indian woman gettin' dragged out of her fine home by dem soldiers. She couldn't stop sweeping dat floor. Said she didn't want no white Georgia woman saying she left her house dirty."
"Some of 'em died waitin' at the forts for the army to take 'em west. Didn't have food or nothin' for 'em. I reckon dey got de dysentery. It was gettin' onto winter. Took 'em three months of the most terrible kind of journey before dey got to Washington County in Arkansas. Dat was the edge of the new Indian Territory. And dat's where the Army just left 'em to face dat untamed country and Chief Ross's bunch. I have heard, before dey left their homes, the white settlers would come into their houses and look things over and when they found somethin' that they liked, dey would say, 'This is mine, I am going to have it.' When they were gathering their things to start they were driven from their homes and collected together like so many cattle. Some would try to take along something dey love, but were forced to leave it, if it was of any size."
Daisy repeated more of what she had been told of the journey. "Before dey got here, dey had to ferry 'cross a big lake in Tennessee and cross the Mississippi. Dey was riding in a government wagon and dey crossed on ice so thick the mules and wagons didn't even break through. Some of de ox died eatin' poison weeds, 'cause dey weren't nothin' else. It was the time of the big drought in Arkansas and some of the coldest winters there ever was. Master Jack Bell was the wagon master 'cause the army decided to let Master Bell run his own business. Dey was smart though and dey had loads of stuff shipped up de Arkansas River by a barge, so they'd have somethin' left when they got to the territory, 'cause bandits stole from 'em all de way. Some of 'em went ahead to de new territory a year or two earlier tryin' to keep from bein' ambushed by the Ross bunch, and Master Jack took 'em there and found a better way than the others took."
"Mammy say when they come to this country dere musta been 'bout seven hundred on dat train and dey ferried Point Remove Creek on Christmas Day praisin' baby Jesus de whole time. Dey say thousands of Cherokees died on dat trail, Negroes too! Folks seem to forget we was driven from our homes and made dat trip too! But jest a couple dozen was lost on dat train with Master Bell or likely I wouldn't be here today! After old Mistress Bell died and left all them children without a mammy, I guess my mammy was the closest thing to a mammy they had and she weren't much older than some of 'em. Old Mistress jest couldn't take the new uncivilized country and leavin' her ancestors and nice home behind for some stranger to live in I reckon. I didn't ever see it, but they said it was beautiful country."
The legendary "Trail" was actually a series of land routes and water routes. Some went only by land, others only by water. Some combined the two. Because of the large numbers traversing the same landscape over such a short period of time during severe drought, vegetation was scare to feed the livestock and beasts of burden, making alternate routes necessary. Most routes covered nine hundred to one thousand miles. Within a decade of passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, it is estimated sixty thousand Indians, African slaves, white spouses and missionaries crossed through North West Arkansas. Sixteen thousand were Cherokee as well as other tribes from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The Bell Contingent managed to shorten their journey to only seven hundred miles, taking advantage of military roads and Jack Bell's years of scouting and trading between the old nation and their new lands. Along with them from the Army was Lieutenant Edward Deas, who was well known to the Indians and allowed the Bells to oversee the trip. The group led by Cherokee John Benge took a bit longer route north of the Bell Route, but also faired better than the majority who were transferred entirely by the Army.
According to the dates in her dairy, Mrs. Releaf Mason of Little Rock observed the Bell Contingency nearing the end of it's journey. On December 13, 1838 she wrote, "Heard of the unexpected death of a young lady of the Cherokee Nation." A few days later she notes, "When we came to the river our horses took fright at some Indians encamped near the road and came very near precipitating us into the stream." Her December 18th entry reflects, "Today the Indians, amounting to 700 passed off, which for several days have been encamped near us. Many of them very interesting, some Christians."
Private John G. Burnett of Captain Abraham McClellan's Company, penned his observations of the Cherokee Indian Removal. This description is of another contingency which took months longer and did not fare as well as the Bells.
"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....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm 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."
Cherokee Nation, East circa 1780 - 1837
Scotch-Irish traders, some having served in the War for Independence, settled among the Cherokee where they felt at home and some married into the Indian clans. They appreciated many of the customs of the Cherokee that were similar to their own in the Scottish Highlands, as well as the warrior history, the clansman ship, the sense of family and loyalty. With them came missionaries, Christianity, merchants, proper education and prosperity for these families of Cherokee who became known as the Ridge or Treaty Party. They adapted to 'modern' American culture so well that many of their white Georgia neighbors were envious of the more aristocratic, successful and better educated "Injuns".
An unnamed Scotsman living among the Cherokee declared, "I made many enemies among the whites, because I corrected them about their stories." One such Indian trader was James Adair, who spent several years with the Cherokee and chronicled his experiences in his book "History of the American Indians", published in 1775.
"The equality among the Indians, and the just rewards they always confer on merit, are the great and leading -- the only motives that warm their hearts with a strong and permanent love for their country. Governed by the plain and honest law of nature, their whole constitution breathes nothing but liberty; and where there is that equality of condition, manners, and privileges . . . . If the governed are convinced that their superiors have a real affection for them, they will esteem it in their duty and interest to serve them, and take pleasure in it.
The Indian method of government . . . in general . . . consists of a federal union for mutual safety. . . . The Indians, therefore, have no such titles, or persons as emperors, or kings, or an appellative for such, in any of their dialects. . . . They have no words to express despotic power, arbitrary kings, oppressed, or obedient subjects. . . . The power of their chiefs is an empty sound. They can only persuade or dissuade the people, either by the force of good nature and clear reasoning, or by colouring things, so as to suit the prevailing passions. It is reputed merit alone, that gives them any titles or distinctions.
Every town is independent of the other. Their own friendly compact continues the union. . . . They are very deliberate in their councils, and never give an immediate answer to any message sent to them by strangers, but suffer some nights first to elapse. They reason in a very orderly manner, with much coolness and good-natured language, though they may differ widely in their opinions. "
Lieutenant John Bell, a Scottish immigrant, served with the Third Virginia Regiment Continental Dragoons for the American Revolution. Settling in Georgia after the war, he married a Deer Clan woman, a cousin of Chief Dragging Canoe who was said to be the last Cherokee War Chief.
The Cherokee National Council, on November 12, 1819 was held at New Echota, Cherokee Nation, where now exists modern day Northwest Georgia. They resolved that any white man who should marry a Cherokee woman is required to be married legally by a minister of the Gospel or some other legally authorized person and obtain a legal license from the national clerk. During this time, the Cherokee often took 'American' names and named their children after founding fathers and ancient world heroes who they particularly admired. The tribe functioned under a constitutional form of government.
No society has been known to make such a dramatic cultural shift as the Cherokee accomplished in Northern Georgia between 1794 and 1825. During this time they not only created and learned to read and write their own language, but learned English as well. They not only converted, voluntarily bringing in many of the missionaries themselves, but embraced the practice of Christianity. These progressive Cherokees simply elected not only to accept 'the white man's ways', but to be better at it than anyone. Political powers of the time led by President Andrew Jackson did not let the Cherokee progress stop his Indian removal act of 1830.
Elias Boudinot, son of OOWatee and brother of Stand Watie, had been educated at a school established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Cornwall, Connecticut. Here he took the name of a rich colonial benefactor, a citizen of New Jersey and a friend of George Washington who had served as a president of the Continental Congress.
Elias married a white woman, Harriet Gold from Connecticut, much to the dismay of her cultured neighbors and family of New England. They settled near New Echota, the Capitol of the Cherokee Nation, among other Deer Clan families such as Bell, Adair, Lynch, Vann, Martin, Starr, Ridge.
After some time passed, Benjamin Gold, Harriet's father traveled to the 'wilderness' to look in on his daughter living among the savages. On the 8th of December, 1829, he wrote from New Echota to his brother in New England describing his daughter's home.
"She has a large and convenient framed house, two story, 60 by 40 ft. on the ground, well done off and well furnished with comforts of life.
They get their supplies of clothes and groceries—they have their year's store of teas, clothes, paper, ink, etc.,—from Boston, and their sugars, molasses, etc., from Augusta; they have two or three barrels of flour on hand at once.
This neighborhood is truly an interesting and pleasant place; the ground is smooth and level as a floor—the centre of the Nation—a new place laid out in city form, —one hundred lots, one acre each—a spring called the public spring, about twice as large as our sawmill brook, near the centre, with other springs on the plat; six framed houses in sight, besides a Council House, Court House, printing office, and four stores all in sight of Boudinot's house."
The 1835 Cherokee Census in Georgia reported: Indians 8,946, Intermarried Whites 68, Slaves 776, Farms 1,735, Acres under Cultivation 19,216. Because many of these Cherokees were above average in socio economic success, they were also more likely to suffer acts of violence from other factions of the tribe as well as settlers encroaching on their homes.
The circumstances and fate of the Cherokee in their homelands of Georgia is best described by 'Too-qua-stee', who was known as DeWitt Clinton Duncan, native to the time and place and the brother of Reverend Walter Duncan. He was New England educated as were many of his Cherokee contemporaries and later became a lawyer and a teacher of English, Latin and Greek at the Cherokee Male Seminary. In the 'Story of the Cherokees' he wrote:
"The Cherokees, from time to time, sold portions of their territory to the whites in the hope of saving by that expedient small part, at least, of their ancient heritage as a permanent home for themselves and their children.
....The Cherokees made the question of civilization a subject of deliberation in the council of the nation. 'Shall the Cherokee adopt the habits, customs, and institutions of the white race, or shall they continue in the way of their forefathers?' That was the question. They determined in favor of civilization.
Accordingly, they organized a civil government founded on the three fundamental ideas: Law, Law understood, and Law executed. The rights and liberties of the citizens were suitably guaranteed; religion was made free; morality encouraged and education provided for. With the greatest unanimity and most commendable zeal, they addressed themselves to the employments of civilized life, and pleasant homes, mingled with churches and schoolhouses, sprang up and adorned the land.
They had begun to appreciate and enjoy the blessings of home, and to love wife and children with a more refined devotion. The land, which they inhabited, was no more their cherished 'hunting ground', but their country, which they had learned to love with all the fervor of an enlightened patriotism. Their increased intelligence enabled them to discern more accurately the distinctions between justice and injustice, while their moral sensibilities, vitalized by the influence of civilization, experienced a new delight in the triumphs of the former, and flamed with an unwonted indignation at the invasions of the latter. In their estimation, the white men were no more, as in ancient times they had been supposed to be, 'children of the sun', but were only men, like themselves, capable of evil as well as good. To be, at this period, driven from their country, endeared by so many improved causes of attachment, and sent to new and untried abodes in the western wilderness far beyond the Mississippi, was a prospect, which filled the heart of the nation with sensations of chilly horror.
..... They cried to their 'Great Father at Washington', but his answers never rose to anything higher than hypocritical expressions of parental regard for his 'Red children'. Georgia well understood this bias of the Administration.......'The Cherokees must go,' was her motto; it had been whispered in her ear at the White House. 'The Cherokees must go' was caught up and echoed by the intruders. 'The Cherokees must go,' was the war cry throughout the state.
An act was hurried through the forms of legislation having in view the twofold purpose of driving the Cherokees out of their country and putting Georgia in possession of their lands. The statute abolished the Cherokee body politic, annulled all Cherokee laws, and made it a penal offense for any person to enforce, or attempt to enforce, a judgment or process of any Cherokee court. It extended the laws of Georgia over the Cherokee country, and punished all white men with imprisonment who should be found remaining therein without first taking the oath of allegiance to the state government and to support her in her measures against the Cherokees.
By its terms, no Indian was allowed to bear witness against a white man in any of the courts of the state; and if any Indian should be detected in digging gold, except in the employ of a loyal citizen of the state, he was liable to be arrested and punished with imprisonment. It also provided for a survey of the Cherokee lands and for dividing them up 'by lot' in homesteads to such loyal citizens as might see fit to venture out and make improvements in the wilds of the newly acquired territory.....
To put this oppressive law into execution, the militia of the state were called out, armed and mounted. Dr. Elizar Butler and Rev. S. A. Worcester, who were in the service of the American Board among the Cherokees, were the most distinguished of these recusant missionaries.
They were arrested by militia on charge of being found in the Cherokee country contrary to the terms of the statute.... The prisoners were pinioned. For each, they prepared a rope. One end they tied around the prisoner's neck, the other to the pummel of a saddle. The ruffians then rode away, while these good men trotted along behind them on the way to jail. They were tried, found guilty of violating the statute and sentenced to the penitentiary. They served out their time and were discharged, and returning to the Cherokees in their new home west of the Mississippi, resumed their labors. They gave their lives to the Cherokees, and their works live after them and bless their memory.
If a lot happened to cover an occupied improvement, the owner was thrown out of possession on private responsibility. Such personal property as was found upon the premises, especially the implements of husbandry and the mechanical arts were appropriated by the newcomer. The poultry was dressed and enjoyed by him, his wife and little ones.
The hogs were remarked and the cattle re-branded in the name of the white man, and went to augment his patrimony.
Two horsemen now came into view far down the highway in the direction of the white settlement. They were armed with rifles certainly and doubtless with other weapons that are visible only in cases of emergency. They were white men. It was a good hit for them, for their 'lot' covered the man's premises completely. They were coming to see their newly acquired property. The first part of the improvement that came under their notice was the pasture in which the man's horses were grazing. Here they loitered and looked for a time with evident satisfaction. At length, they moved on. The orchard next attracted their attention. Here they estimated the number of fruit trees and tried to take in their quality and variety.
By and by, they came to the great gate that stood near the barn.
One of them here dismounted, flung the gate open, remounted and they both rode in. On they went, inspecting, prospecting-slowly onward till at last they were lost from sight in the expanse of the farm. They arrived at the same great gate and passed out still wearing an impenetrable air of inquiry and investigation. Here one of the white men drew from his pocket and read a certificate showing that he had won the man's premises at Georgia's infamous lottery box. They then rode away in the direction they had come.
The man's dark eye followed them as they went. His deep sense of wrong had hung itself in shadows upon his swarthy brow, and in the tones of one whose spirit, oppressed by a power which it cannot repel, finds its last support in hopeless feelings of contempt, he said: 'The impudence of a white man! Specimens of a glorious civilization! Those obdurate villains have the hardihood to say that God has a peculiar liking for them and their race on account of what they know and what they are; that He gives them the whole world for a possession, and commissions them on errands of rapine and murder against us as He did Joshua against the poor Canaanites. If that be so, it is wonderful how such great meanness can be so popular in heaven, and be entrusted with such fearful prerogatives over the rest of mankind! Away with such civilization! -Nations are rarely human when they are not afraid to play the beast.'
A fortnight passed and two emigrant wagons rolled into view. They were attended by the same two white men that had a few days before explored the man's premises. Their wives and their children were with them, also their hired hands. They came trudging, dusty, dirty, evidently weary. A long way they had doubtless traveled. Step by step their teams tugged on, freighted to the bows of their wagons' white arching roofs with all the precious prospects of a new and happy home in the beautiful land of the Cherokees. On they came, soberly and directly, tending toward the big gate just back of the barn. They arrived and halted before its majesty. There was no god in all the Cherokee nation that commanded the reverence of those impious white men like that gigantic gate. They swung it wide open upon its ponderous hinges, though, and in they drove.
In the meantime, the man himself had received a threatening notification that his own well-being was conditioned upon his own gentle behavior, and that in case he should attempt any interference, his right to life and liberty would be deemed forfeited. He brought an action in the superior courts of the state of Georgia..... a system of persecution was inaugurated by the intruders, and daily the man and his family felt their sensibilities galled by insulting epithets and brutal maledictions. Their national pride was outraged by heaping contemptuous ridicule upon their name and race.
At length, the case came on for trial. 'Bring on your witnesses, Mr. Plaintiff,' came the injunction from the bench.
'Hold!' cried a voice from the defense. 'We object to the competency of those witnesses. Those witnesses, your honor, are all Cherokee Indians; this defendant is a white man, and the statute of our state provides that no Indian shall be allowed to testify against a white man in any of the courts of the state of Georgia.'
'The objection is well taken,' responded the court, 'and must be sustained. Have you no white persons to testify for you, Mr. Plaintiff?'
'None, your honor.'
'Your case, then, must be dismissed at your own cost, and it is so ordered.'
Years have since rolled away. He and his heroic wife have long since found rest in death. The children still live, and that malignant power, falsely called civilization, is to this day still at their heels demanding their room or their ruin."
Preserved from history is a formal notice delivered to a Cherokee citizen to vacate his home as per a lot drawing. It states:
"It becomes my duty to give you notice to evacuate the lot of land No. 125, in the 14th District, of the third section, and to give the house now occupied by you to Col. William Handen, or whoever he may put forward to take possession of the same and that you may have ample time to prepare for the same, I will allow you until the 28th day of this month to do the same. "
President Jackson passed his Indian Removal act into law. Settlers were moving into Cherokee homes and it became apparent to the sensible leaders of the Cherokee Nation that removal would happen. Their protests and their Supreme Court victory which stated the Cherokee Nation had all the rights of any state of the union and was by any legal definition, sovereign, did not matter. Jackson's position was that he would not enforce the ruling of the court to stop the incursion. Prominent Cherokees in the community were made examples of to further the ends of white settlement of the Cherokee homes. Others were held long enough for their property to be siezed if they were perceived as troublesome.
An 1832 edition of the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper in New Echota tells of the arrest of the twenty-six year old son of John Bell, Jr. and Charlotte Adair. He was also the grandson of John Bell, the earlier mentioned Scottish immigrant and his Cherokee wife. For decades, four generations of this family occupied their homes in Georgia as did their native ancestors before them.
"We understand on Wednesday morning Mr. John A. Bell of Coosewaytee was arrested by a detachment of the Georgia Guard. Mr. B. is a native. What the charge was we are unable to say; and in fact it is impossible to know, for these law officers go to work without a written precept."
Subsequent issues of The Phoenix contain letters from other citizens stating that weeks later Bell and others had not been charged, but were still held in custody, not allowed representation or visitation. No 'crime' was necessary. The only prerequisite was having something the 'powers that be' of Georgia wanted or to be eloquent and bold enough to speak against them. Such treatment would explain why Cherokees like John Adair "Jack" Bell signed the Treaty of New Echota in December of 1835 and voted to accept the offer by the U.S. Government to remove voluntarily beyond the Mississippi. To escape living with the daily persecution by the State of Georgia Militia and its citizens must have seemed logical. To them, it was a choice of having life and home somewhere with dignity or to lose it all.
Some historians contend Congressman David Crockett's political career ended because of his support for the Cherokee against President Jackson's removal plans. Crockett explains his position in 1834:
".......His famous, or rather I should say infamous, Indian bill was brought forward, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favourite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this I wouldn't go for him, or any other man in the whole creation.
I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment."
Other popular voices of reason and compassion of the time appealed to the powers of the government on the Cherokees' behalf, only to be ignored. One such advocate was Ralph Waldo Emerson. The unwelcome duty of Cherokee removal fell to President Martin Van Buren who succeeded Jackson. From Concord, Massachusetts on April 23rd, 1838, Emerson wrote Van Buren with his concerns.
"Sir, my communication respects the sinister rumors that fill this part of the country concerning the Cherokee people. ...... Even in our distant State some good rumor of their worth and civility has arrived. We have learned with joy their improvement in the social arts. We have read their newspapers. We have seen some of them in our schools and colleges. In common with the great body of the American people, we have witnessed with sympathy the painful labors of these red men to redeem their own race from the doom of eternal inferiority, and to borrow and domesticate in the tribe the arts and customs of the Caucasian race.
[Rumors are]…you are contracting to put this active nation into carts and boats, and to drag them over mountains and rivers to a wilderness at a vast distance beyond the Mississippi. And a paper purporting to be an army order fixes a month from this day as the hour for this doleful removal.
In the name of God, sir, we ask you if this be so. Do the newspapers rightly inform us? Men and women with pale and perplexed faces meet one another in the streets and churches here, and ask if this be so. We have inquired if this be a gross misrepresentation from the party opposed to the government and anxious to blacken it with the people. We have looked in the newspapers of different parties and find a horrid confirmation of the tale. We are slow to believe it. We hoped the Indians were misinformed, and that their remonstrance was premature, and will turn out to be a needless act of terror.
In speaking thus the sentiments of my neighbors and my own, perhaps I overstep the bounds of decorum. But would it not be a higher indecorum coldly to argue a matter like this? We only state the fact that a crime is projected that confounds our understandings by its magnitude, - a crime that really deprives us as well as the Cherokees of a country. For how could we call the conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians our government, or the land that was cursed by their parting and dying imprecations our country, any more? You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world...
I write thus, sir, to inform you of the state of mind these Indian tidings have awakened here, and to pray with one voice more that you, whose hands are strong with the delegated power of millions of men, will avert with that might the terrific injury which threatens the Cherokee tribe. With great respect, sir, I am your fellow citizen,
Ralph Waldo Emerson"
Elias Boudinot, as Editor of The Cherokee Phoenix, which was published both in English and Cherokee and read in the East and Europe, captured the Cherokee situation in just a few words.
"Perhaps Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were only tantalizing us when they encouraged us in the pursuit of agriculture and government. Why were we not told long ago that we could not be permitted to establish a government within the limits of any state? The Cherokees have always had a government of their own. Nothing, however, was said when we were governed by savage laws. Others say it is time for the Cherokees to submit to inevitable destiny.
What Destiny? To be slandered and then butchered? Yes, this is the bitter cup prepared for us by a republican and religious government. We shall drink it to the dregs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 3 - The Trail Where They Cried
Oklahoma , 1937
The young woman, chosen as part of the Federal Writers Project from the Washington D.C. office of the W.P.A., pushed through the unhinged gate as she shifted notebooks and brief cases. Looking across what was once a yard through a thick cloud of Oklahoma dust, she saw an old woman in a wooden rocking chair sitting on a weathered porch. She wondered if she had found Daisy, the former slave of some of the Southern Cherokee, whom she had been dispatched to interview.
A stern voice echoed from the old woman. "Well, I've been waitin' for ya, fer two days. Mules get 'round better 'n those fancy Fords you city folk drive anyway."
"Miss Daisy Bell?" The woman inquired.
"That's right. Jest what did you want to talk to me 'bout anyhow? I don't know much."
"We want you to tell us your story, all about your life in slavery, so people will always know what you want to say about it. I've got all the time you need, Ma'am. I apologize for being late."
"Well, honey, you go in there and get us some lemonade, and we'll talk a spell. I just made a pitcher full. We'll see if I can tell ya anything you don't know. " Daisy pointed to the door. "That was a long time ago. Long time ago." She shook her head. "I've spent most of my years in Indian Territory. I seen this country in it's undeveloped state, when it was paradise. I seen great change. I seen what they call the progress of modern civil-iz-ation ruin a really good country."
After a satisfactory, though tart thirst quenching, the civil servant gathered her pencil and paper, steadied herself on a not-so-steady chair as Daisy began her tale.
"My mother was a slave girl from Georgia pick up by the Bells when they left that country 'bout 1838 with the rest of the Indians before I was born. Old master was John Bell Jr. The mistress was Charlotte Adair Bell and dey was Cherokee Indians of the Deer Clan. Them Adairs was all smart people. Some of 'em went to college!
The old woman leaned forward and began to laugh. "Cousin Hooley Bell was payin' for his nephew Harv Shelton's edu-cation at Dartmouth one time. Harv said he'd been doin' some serious thinking since he'd been at that fine school and he figured he jes' couldn't accept some of dat religion he'd been taught no mo' and dat he didn't believe what he thought he once did. He asked Hooley what he must do. Cousin Hooley told that boy, 'Come on home! Ya can go to hell in Tahlequah as easy as ya can go to hell at Dartmouth!'"
Daisy seemed to enjoy her anecdote and the serious lady scribbling her notes couldn't help chuckling along with her as she continued the narrative of the Bell Family.
"Old Mistress Charlotte lived just a short time after they made that terrible long trip from the old territory. Mammy told me she buried somewhere near Stillwell near where dey finally landed in Indian Territory. Old Master and Mistress Bell had 'bout ten children besides Master Jim. The oldest one called Jack. He led the wagon train to the new Indian Territory."
"Not long after that Jack and his brother Jarrett built a plantation in Texas. Dey was always up to somethin' and always lookin' for some land that the white man wouldn't run 'em off. One time Ezekial Starr and a bunch of 'em went to Colorado, and was going to take us all and settle there away from the government and Ross and everything, have our own separate Cherokee Nation away from that North and South battle. Then the war of Northern aggression broke out before we could go and I never did get out of this Indian Territory," Daisy sighed.
The young woman asked, "So, the Cherokees lived in Texas too, not just Oklahoma?"
Daisy replied, "Oh, they went lots of places! Jarrett and brother Samuel went with John Ridge's son John Rollin to California about de time I was born, I reckon, on an all Cherokee wagon train. They were determined to find gold and somewhere so far away that the government wouldn't come after 'em. They say John was ready to get out of the Territory and was hidin' out in Missouri. Some man name of Kell stole his daddy's black stallion and when he went to get it, the thief got shot somehow." Reassuringly, Daisy added, "Later on, he got it all cleared up."
"Samuel died on dat trip. I didn't ever know him or where he was buried. Lots of 'em died gettin' to California. Jarrett came back to Texas a few years later. He had the most beautiful wife in the nation, dey say. On that wagon train dey ran into some contrary Cheyenne Injuns. The Chief tried to buy Jerrett's wife fer fifty ponies! John Ridge stayed in California, 'cept when he came back for de war. Miss Sarah Bell, they all called her Sally, she married General Stand Watie."
"Did you ever hear about the Legend of the Cherokee Rose, young lady?" Daisy asked.
"No, Ma'am, but I'd like to hear it, if you'd like to tell me".
"Well, they say wild, pure white, single petal roses grow all along de sides of de roads all dat long way from the old territory to this 'un. Lots of unmarked graves on that road, too. The army wouldn't stop long enough for proper buryin'. Dat rose has a bright gold center, said to be the gold taken from the Cherokees in the nation. The Cherokees grew dat flower so much it was named the Georgia state flower. Dey brought the seeds with 'em and planted 'em on the way to the new territory and watered 'em with the tears dat all dem young girls cried. Now dat Cherokee Rose is all over this country too. So when you see beautiful white roses with a gold middle climbing high early in the spring, you know where it came from."
Shaking her head, Daisy recalled, "Miss Charlotte, that's another sister of Master Jim, said the army came and marched 'em out of their houses and took 'em all to some fort 'til the army was ready to take 'em west. Her and the other children watched the soldiers burn de furniture out in de yard! Then white settlers moved right in. I heard dey even rifled the Indian graves for jewelry or anythin' dat might have been buried with the dead. Dey told me 'bout one old Indian woman gettin' dragged out of her fine home by dem soldiers. She couldn't stop sweeping dat floor. Said she didn't want no white Georgia woman saying she left her house dirty."
"Some of 'em died waitin' at the forts for the army to take 'em west. Didn't have food or nothin' for 'em. I reckon dey got de dysentery. It was gettin' onto winter. Took 'em three months of the most terrible kind of journey before dey got to Washington County in Arkansas. Dat was the edge of the new Indian Territory. And dat's where the Army just left 'em to face dat untamed country and Chief Ross's bunch. I have heard, before dey left their homes, the white settlers would come into their houses and look things over and when they found somethin' that they liked, dey would say, 'This is mine, I am going to have it.' When they were gathering their things to start they were driven from their homes and collected together like so many cattle. Some would try to take along something dey love, but were forced to leave it, if it was of any size."
Daisy repeated more of what she had been told of the journey. "Before dey got here, dey had to ferry 'cross a big lake in Tennessee and cross the Mississippi. Dey was riding in a government wagon and dey crossed on ice so thick the mules and wagons didn't even break through. Some of de ox died eatin' poison weeds, 'cause dey weren't nothin' else. It was the time of the big drought in Arkansas and some of the coldest winters there ever was. Master Jack Bell was the wagon master 'cause the army decided to let Master Bell run his own business. Dey was smart though and dey had loads of stuff shipped up de Arkansas River by a barge, so they'd have somethin' left when they got to the territory, 'cause bandits stole from 'em all de way. Some of 'em went ahead to de new territory a year or two earlier tryin' to keep from bein' ambushed by the Ross bunch, and Master Jack took 'em there and found a better way than the others took."
"Mammy say when they come to this country dere musta been 'bout seven hundred on dat train and dey ferried Point Remove Creek on Christmas Day praisin' baby Jesus de whole time. Dey say thousands of Cherokees died on dat trail, Negroes too! Folks seem to forget we was driven from our homes and made dat trip too! But jest a couple dozen was lost on dat train with Master Bell or likely I wouldn't be here today! After old Mistress Bell died and left all them children without a mammy, I guess my mammy was the closest thing to a mammy they had and she weren't much older than some of 'em. Old Mistress jest couldn't take the new uncivilized country and leavin' her ancestors and nice home behind for some stranger to live in I reckon. I didn't ever see it, but they said it was beautiful country."
The legendary "Trail" was actually a series of land routes and water routes. Some went only by land, others only by water. Some combined the two. Because of the large numbers traversing the same landscape over such a short period of time during severe drought, vegetation was scare to feed the livestock and beasts of burden, making alternate routes necessary. Most routes covered nine hundred to one thousand miles. Within a decade of passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, it is estimated sixty thousand Indians, African slaves, white spouses and missionaries crossed through North West Arkansas. Sixteen thousand were Cherokee as well as other tribes from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The Bell Contingent managed to shorten their journey to only seven hundred miles, taking advantage of military roads and Jack Bell's years of scouting and trading between the old nation and their new lands. Along with them from the Army was Lieutenant Edward Deas, who was well known to the Indians and allowed the Bells to oversee the trip. The group led by Cherokee John Benge took a bit longer route north of the Bell Route, but also faired better than the majority who were transferred entirely by the Army.
According to the dates in her dairy, Mrs. Releaf Mason of Little Rock observed the Bell Contingency nearing the end of it's journey. On December 13, 1838 she wrote, "Heard of the unexpected death of a young lady of the Cherokee Nation." A few days later she notes, "When we came to the river our horses took fright at some Indians encamped near the road and came very near precipitating us into the stream." Her December 18th entry reflects, "Today the Indians, amounting to 700 passed off, which for several days have been encamped near us. Many of them very interesting, some Christians."
Private John G. Burnett of Captain Abraham McClellan's Company, penned his observations of the Cherokee Indian Removal. This description is of another contingency which took months longer and did not fare as well as the Bells.
"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....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm 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."
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