Introduction

Lessons:

Links:

Introduction

This Unit may be regarded as having two parts. It is recommend that students and teachers read the Lecture Narrative, its textual sources and its various Analytic Questions, below, by Dr. Blue Clark, first. Central to Dr. Clark’s discussion is a reading selection from Daniel Butrick’s Journal, a primary document recording the actual day-to-day movement of a Cherokee group through the lower Ohio River/Mississippi River crossings during the winter of 1838. Afterward, you may wish to read Lesson 1, Part 2 Reappraising Cherokee Removal the second part of Dr. Raymond Fogelson’s Unit 1 lecture.

Guiding Questions

• What responses did the Cherokee offer to the implementation of the removal process?
  
• What was the overall cost for United States expansion in terms of lives and losses?
  
• Did Cherokee removal establish a precedent for later American Indian removals?
  

Learning Objectives

After completing this lesson:

• Students will be able to locate passages in historical documents related to stated positions, showing links to evidence and to a student’s arguments.
• Students will have a better grasp of nineteenth-century journalism and diary accounts of the Trail of Tears and relocation to Indian Territories (the future state of Oklahoma.)

Lecture Narrative

  Convulsed within by dissension and assaulted from without, members of the Cherokee Nation in 1838 immediately had to confront their pending forced removal from their homeland. (See Textual Sources entry for Manufacturers & Farmers Journal)
In the state of Georgia, the military roundup of the Indians, using United States soldiers and state militia, began on 26 May 1838. Enforcers struck isolated farmsteads, driving Cherokee families into collection camps. From the encampments, removal detachments departed for their new homeland west of the Mississippi River. (For detailed information on the widely different governance, construction, and location of these camps or forts, see http://georgiatrailoftears.com and go through the “Fort” button.) Ill-prepared, the travelers suffered much privation, illness, and loss. Finally, Cherokee leaders requested that they be allowed to oversee their own removal, hoping to lessen the impact of the tragedy. Leaders of the 17 contingents led their members along either overland or water routes to the new region allocated to them, a portion of the Indian Territory in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Thirteen of those detachments traveled under Cherokee supervision and Cherokee conductors, most journeying along the preferred northern route from Nashville, TN, to Hopkinsville, KT, Golconda, IL, Springfield, MO, and into Indian Territory.

  Cherokee Indians, including both friend and foe of the federal government, traveled the “trail where they cried,” which came to be commonly called the “Trail of Tears.” The rich rode wagons, while the poor trudged on foot. Missionaries like Evan and his son John Jones, Daniel Buttrick, and Stephen Foreman accompanied their flocks over the Trail. They held regular Christian services along the route and sang hymns as they journeyed. Cherokee Christians of one church even took their structure apart in their homeland, numbered the boards, and carried them into Indian Territory, where they lovingly reconstructed their building as the Old Baptist Mission near what is now Westville, Oklahoma. Sometimes the devotion of the Christian Indians won converts among their accompanying soldiers.

  Others felt differently. Removal was a major setback not only for the Indians but also for missionary endeavors. The adverse reaction against missionaries within the Cherokee resulted from widespread opposition against all aspects of mainstream American society which arose from the trauma of relocation. After all, it was the Reverent John Schermerhorn who negotiated the Treaty of New Echota. It took some years before conversions were achieved again by mainstream denominations among the Cherokee.

  Great controversy centers on the usual number of 4,000 (or approximately one-quarter) as the figure for those Cherokee who perished on the Trail of Tears. Poor counting, scattered travelers, and wintry weather made for challenging record keeping. Additionally, some died just before departure, while others deceased well after their arrival in the new Indian Territory. Those are not included in the overall figure. Now, scholars often use one-third as the total loss.

(Readers should turn, at this point, to Daniel Butrick’s Journal [Link to Buttrick Journal] and read the daily entries from December 13, 1838 to February 12, 1839. See also, the National Park Service, National Historic Trails Program, which offers information about the historic trail routes at:
http://imgis.nps.gov/national_historic_trails.html. The “lavender colored” route, the Northern route, is Buttrick’s group’s route.)

  No matter what route was used, survivors offically ended their journey at various locations within Indian Territory. Northeastern Indian Territory became the new “Cherokee Nation” as the travelers began their life in their new land. Old Settlers and treaty party Cherokee had arrived earlier in the area west of the great river and had subsequently been moved into the same region as a part of the United States consolidation policy. The Aftermath of removal is addressed at the end of this lesson.

  Of course, other Indian tribes underwent their own removals both before and after the Cherokee experience.

(Alexis DeTocqueville, Democracy in America, Chapter 10 on the future of the three races; p. 324 describing the forelorn column of Choctaw on their Trail of Tears passing him in Arkansas in 1831. Begin with the character string, “it is impossible to conceive” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch18.htm.)

Students and Teachers May wish to refer to Unit 1, Lesson 2 at this point, for a continuation of study about the Trail of Tears and its Aftermath

Dr. Blue Clark
School of Law
Oklahoma City University

Questions for Analysis:

• Manufacturers & Farmers Journal, March 15, 1838, a part of the ACTC documentation in PDF format, contains a long letter from Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross to the reading public. http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/Default.aspx?tabid=638   Ross tries to rebut the claims of the legality and soundness of the Cherokee treaty party’s actions. Examine his arguments. Do you agree or disagree with Ross? Using this core text, you are faced with the basic arguments from one of the key players in the whole historical drama. In his Journal, Daniel Buttrick (the entry for Thursday, December 20, 1838) thought about the announcement that the American Board made Elias Buodinot an assistant missionary in the west, after he had signed the Treaty of New Echota. The news upset not only Buttrick but also other missionaries like Samuel A. Worcester. In his Monday, December 31, entry in his Journal, Buttrick addressed again the issue of the Treaty. How do those entries reflect on Ross’s letter?
  
• Are there portions of documents, such as the Journal of Daniel Buttrick, with which you identify? An example may be his lament, recorded in his Journal for Monday, December 31, 1838, as a summary of the year 1838 while he was en route. “O what a year it has been! “ During a cold drizzle, he noted, “For what crime . . . was the whole [Cherokee] nation doomed to this perpetual death”? [Link to Buttrick Journal]
  
• Is Alexis De Tocqueville sympathetic to the Indians he observed in 1831 passing before him? Is his overall account sympathetic in general to Americans? You may extend your reading, if you wish, to the entire section (on line, below) on The Present and Probable Future Condition of the Indian Tribes That Inhabit the Territory Possessed by the Union. For specific direction to the migration De Tocqueville observed, see the link in the Textual Sources, below.
  
• After reading the accounts, do you think that educated Cherokee, especially mixed-bloods, had advantages over full-bloods?
  
• The Reverend Daniel Buttrick kept a Journal of his trek. He was an eyewitness of the events along the Trail of Tears for his detachment. Have you taken a journey? What preparations did you undertake before you traveled? During your journey? Upon your arrival at your destination?

Dr. Blue Clark
School of Law
Oklahoma City University

Textual Sources:

  Manufacturers & Farmers Journal, March 15, 1838, a part of the ACTC documentation in PDF format, contains a long letter from Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross to the reading public. http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/Default.aspx?tabid=638

  Alexis DeTocqueville, Democracy in America, tr. George Lawrence, pp. 38-47, on the influence of religion and the legal concept of freedom and the formation of American civilization, building upon obtaining land from tribal nations (begin with the character string, “the foundation of New England” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch02.htm; Chapter 10 on the future of the three races; p. 324 describing the forelorn column of Choctaw on their Trail of Tears passing him in Arkansas in 1831. Begin with the character string, “it is impossible to conceive” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch18.htm

  The Journal of Daniel S. Buttrick, National Trail of Tears Association edition, in an excerpt in PDF format, pp. 48-58, May 19, 1838-April 1, 1839, entries on the Trail of Tears crossing into Illinois and across the Mississippi on Thursday, December 13, 1838, to February 12, 1839. Similar material is also found in Rozema (below), pp. 136-48, for exceprts from June-December 1838. [Link to Buttrick Journal]

The National Park Service, National Historic Trails Program, offers information about the historic trail routes at:
http://imgis.nps.gov/national_historic_trails.html. The “lavender colored” route, the Northern route, is Buttrick’s group’s route.

Further Questions:

• Are there examples of Good Samaritans aiding the removal detachments along their route, as revealed in Buttrick’s Journal, as for example in the entry for Thursday, December 13, 1838?
  
• Because the treaty party traveled earlier and was better prepared, do you think they suffered less along their route? Did they get the choicest land in the Indian Territory?
  
• Are there reflections of earlier divisions among the Cherokee in later events like the American Civil War, allotment, schooling?
  
• Do you think the United States government was responsible for the treaty terms that led to Cherokee removal? It is termed liability. Would the federal government later have to pay the Indians for claims to lands seized?
  
• Some missionary groups at first supported Cherokee resistance to removal. But once removal became a reality, most support for the Indians evaporated into acquiescence of government policy? Why?

Aftermath:

Life for the survivors began anew in Indian Territory. Retributive murders swept the Indian nation. Eventually, life achieved some peace and prosperity. (For some elaboration on the Civil War damage, see Unit 6, using the find function to locate, “the Civil War”.) A few travelers along the Trail of Tears had dropped off along their route and descendants melded into the mainstream population as a part of a modern diaspora. In Oklahoma today, full-blood Cherokee make up the bulk of the membership of what is called the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee. Their Web site is: www.ukb-nsn.gov. Another group, called the Oconaluftee Cherokee , remained in the mountains of North Carolina and became the Eastern Band of Cherokee. Their Web site today is: www.cherokee-nc.com. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is the largest tribal body and its various economic enterprises provide a wide range of programs for its membership. Its Web site is: www.cherokee.org. Both the Eastern Band and the Cherokee Nation maintain museum programs to help tell their stories.

Descendants remember the pain and tragedy of removal in a variety of ways. Memories remain, passed down in family stories from generation to generation. (See Unit 7.) Some contemporary Cherokee pay homage annually to Trail of Tears leaders like Daniel Buttrick, who is buried in the cemetery at Dwight Mission in Oklahoma, or to Samuel Austin Worcester, who is buried at of Park Hill outside of Tahlequah. Others may pause at the gravesites of White Path and Fly Smith, casualties of first removal detachments, along the Trail of Tears route near Hopkinsville, KY, which are now part of a park commemorating the Trail. Today, some American Indian families in Oklahoma recall their ancestral struggle over their Trail of Tears by placing a blanket over or inside the casket of a deceased tribal family member as part of the funeral service. The gesture calls to mind the suffering from the winter cold of their predecessors over the Trail. Other means as well are used to perpetuate the memories of survival. There is an annual Trail of Tears Art Show held in Muskogee, Oklahoma, at the Five Tribes Museum. The National Park Service has an Historic Trails program that features the variety of routes from east to west (see “Supplemental Sources” above). Perhaps in your area there is some sort of commemoration among descendants from those who trod the Trail long ago.

• Do you think the United States government was responsible for the treaty terms that led to Cherokee removal? It is termed liability. Would the federal government later have to pay the Indians for claims to lands seized?
• Some missionary groups at first supported Cherokee resistance to removal. But once removal became a reality, most support for the Indians evaporated into acquiescence of government policy? Why?

Students and Teachers May wish to refer to Unit 1, Lesson 2 at this point, for a continuation of study about the Trail of Tears and its Aftermath

Supplemental Sources:

  “Trail of Tears” film in DVD, 2006, Rich Heape Films, Dallas, Texas.

  Wilma Mankiller with Michael Wallis. Mankiller: A Chief and Her People (NY: St. Martin’s, 1993). She is a fomer principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

  Diane Glancy, Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1996).

  Robert Conley, Mountain Windsong (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1992), also a novel. Selections of Mountain Windsong are available in Lesson 7.

  Duane King, The Cherokee Trail of Tears (Portland, OR: Graphic Arts Books, 2007), a narrative that includes stunning David Fitzgerald photographs along the routes.

  The About North Georgia group provides a history of removal forts within that region, written by Randy Golden, at its Web site at: http://ngeorgia.com/history.cherokeeforts.html.

  Sarah Hill produced a thorough examination of the collection forts and camps involved in the Georgia portion of the Trail of Tears for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, with support from the National Park Service. Her report is available at: http://georgiatrailoftears.com (and enter through “Fort” button.)

  Vicki Rozema, Voices from the Trail of Tears (Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Publisher, 2003), Chapter 11, pp. 116-123,“Until the Sickly Season Should Pass Away, July 1838,” includes correspondence of Chief John Ross, Gen. Winfield Scott, and a Resolution from the Cherokee Nation; Chapter 12, pp. 124-130, “For the Comfort and Well Being of This People, Summer 1838,” includes letters of John Page and a list of physicians employed in camps; Chapter 13, pp. 131-135, “The Sadness of the Heart, August 1838,” includes a letter from Cherokee leader William Shorey Cooley to John Howard Payne on the departure of an overland detachment.

  Theda Perdue and Michael Green, eds., The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1995), Chapter 5, pp. 160-169, includes a Memorial of Protest, June 1836, Letters from Evan Jones, May-December 1838, a girl named Neugin’s Recollections, and Hitchcock’s Journal, 1841, pp. 1`70-173, on efforts to rebuild the Cherokee Nation. (The co-editors also offer The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears (NY: Viking/Penguin, 2007) in 208 pp.)