History - Past and Perspective
Trail of Tears and Blessings

Trail of Tears and Blessings

Reneging on its treaties, the U.S. government forced the “Five Civilized Tribes” in the East to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, causing death, destruction — and faith in God. ...
John J. Dwyer

This article contains true events and events based on truth, and features a composite American Indian narrator of, and participant in, the 1830s Indian Removal or Trail of Tears. This style was chosen in order to best capture not only the deeds and words of both real characters and those based on the historical record, but the first-person experience, emotion, lessons, and even valor of the epic saga. We focus here on the Cherokee Trail of Tears. The more general Trail(s) of Tears lasted more than a decade, from approximately 1831-1842; involved all the “Five Civilized Tribes,” including the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, upwards of 75,000 souls; and cost the lives of thousands of those, mostly women, children, and the aged. 

Indian removal occurred for the benefit of an expanding American nation and the supposed protection of the natives themselves, despite the successful transition by many of them to the Western cultural practices of the United States. The U.S. government determined that the Indians residing in southeastern states must move to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Amidst much debate, intra-tribal division, bitterness, and even wars with both themselves and the United States, the Five Civilized Tribes reluctantly signed treaties agreeing to abandon their ancient homelands and move westward. They received financial remuneration for their losses, travel, and future needs; free land at their destination; and the promise of perpetual ownership and sovereignty.

My name is not important, but the deeds I saw and the people who accomplished them are. From the time the whites settled in America in the early 1600s, the destiny of us American Indians was linked to theirs. We Cherokee and other tribes fought against them in the Yamasee War and the American Revolution. We fought with them against the British in the War of 1812. We traded with them, many of our women married their men, and we warily co-existed with them, we in our areas, they in theirs.

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