A Trail Of Tears: A Crime Against Native Americans

I felt this was the beginning of the end. This wasn’t the country I was so eager and ready to fight for! I was willing to die for the sake of this country but after the sickening events that have just taken place before me, all that has changed, I feel betrayed. Some time ago, President Jackson proclaimed a new policy that would force the relocation of American tribal people from their homes. I took this quite personally because although I was not Native American by blood, they had become my second family over the years.

I grew into manhood fishing and roaming through the forest hunting the deer and wild boars. I loved the thrill of it all, often spending weeks at a time in the solitary wilderness with no companions but my rifle, hunting knife, and a small bag I carried with me everywhere during all of my adventures. I met and became familiar with many of the Cherokee Indians, hunting with them by day and sleeping around their campfires by night. I learned to speak their language and they taught me many things my absent father never did. I had heard many rumors about them around the village, that they were savages and lethal, however, they were as human as me or anyone else. All grown now, I was a young man in the prime of life and a soldier in the federal troops. The Cherokee Indians had not come to terms with the reality of what was going on. Feeling that removal from their lands wasn’t an option, the overwhelming majority of individuals stayed. When the deadline to leave passed, we were sent to the Cherokee people, letting them take nothing but the clothes on their backs. I was disgusted with myself. I was now part of this brutal execution. We were ordered to arrest and drag the helpless Cherokees from their homes.

In the chill of winter, I saw them loaded like cattle into wagons and started towards the west. I can never forget the sadness and solemnity of that morning. The chief of the tribe led in prayer and when the wagons started rolling, many of the children rose to their feet and waved their little hands good-bye to their mountain homes, not knowing they were leaving them forever. Many of them didn’t have blankets and were driven from home barefooted. It’s as if we weren’t even giving them a chance of survival. The sufferings of the Cherokee were awful. The path of the exiles was a path of death. They slept within the wagons and on the ground with no fire in the freezing temperatures. I saw as several as twenty die in a single night due to unwell treatment, pneumonia, cold, and exposure. Among this number was a pregnant mother. I had seen her before, walking with her two children. She would always be carrying one or the other, switching them out if the other got tired.

This beautiful, brave woman gave her only blanket to her cold, hungry, and scared children. Her screams pierced through the dark bleak night as her baby was born only to be stillborn! She then developed pneumonia and died in the still hours of the winter night. From her children came the most hysterical crying, the screaming sobs only interrupted by their need to draw breath. It was a primal sound, one we're programmed to not ignore. It was a cry so raw that even the eyes of the strangers around us were suddenly wet with tears. It was truly heartbreaking. The next morning, it was as if nothing took place the night before. We continued the long journey to the west with the Cherokees and I did all I could do to alleviate their pain and suffering. I would hear what was left of the mothers telling their kids, “ Be patient, we are almost there. . ” It felt like the day would never come when we would arrive but it finally did! Everyone was so happy and were crying; this time not tears of sadness but of joy. I will never forget all the many people we lost on the way. This march of a hundred miles had become a trail of tears!