Documentary Review: We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears

This show was hard to watch, but good to watch.  The Cherokee as a people did everything they could to appease the White Easterners.  Many accepted Christianity.  The Cherokee were one of the Civilized Tribes.  Some had Black slaves.  Many lived in fancy American style houses.  They had been granted their land, their reservation if you will.  However, many of their neighbors coveted the land.  However, when Andrew Jackson came into power as president, he came with a mandate from his constituents to remove the Indians to the West.  He was true to this campaign promise.  David Crocket and others opposed him in congress, but this opposition was not successful, and congress passed a bill in 1830 and President Jackson sign the Indian Relocation Act, authorizing him to remove the Indians. 
After passage of this act, the State of Georgia divvied up the Indian territory, and made it available to citizens of Georgia.  They began to push the Native Americans aside, and some were killed.  This issue went to the Supreme Court.  The court ruled that as the Cherokee were an independent nation, the state had no jurisdiction and they could not be removed without a new treaty.  Chief Justice John Marshall said, "The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States."
However, President Jackson chose not to enforce the ruling of the Supreme Court.  He made it clear he would not interfere with the State of Georgia, and in fact encouraged them to keep the "heat on."  This continued pressure split the nation.  John Ridge and his son and Elias Boudinot argued that removal was inevitable and they should negotiate with the government for compensation for their lands.  John Ross, the tribal chair at this time (John Ridge had been) followed the wishes of his constituents and refused to negotiate a treaty for giving away their lands.  Ridge, his son and Boudinot signed a treaty document ceding their lands for lands in Indian territory, $3 million dollars, and a guarantee of assistance in moving.  This was known as the Treaty of Echota.  It passed the Senate by only one vote.  They left, with about 2000 others before the required date, and were helped to move and reestablish themselves.  
John Ross held out hope of a change in heart.  They gathered a petition signed by almost every remaining Cherokee, about 15,000 signatures.  However it was not to be presented to Congress.  Other matters took precedence, and when the day came for removal, military and locl militia forced Indians out of their homes with just the clothes on their backs.  The rounded them into cattle corrals.  
Some would stay for some time in these corrals, facing the weather as the first group to travel hit illness.  The rest wanted to wait for the passing of the sick season.  They finally began their journey in the Fall.  However the weather caught them.  This season was exceedingly cold, with considerable amounts of snow.  Because of the weather they were delayed, and consequently their food ran out.  Of the 16,000 being forced to travel, a quarter would pass away.  All would suffer hardship, hunger and fatigue.
Cherokee law had been passed stating that if you sold Cherokee land your life was forfeit.  This payment was extracted from Ross sr. and JR as well as Boudinot.
I think it is important to watch this movie even though seeing the suffering is hard.  As a country, we treated the native Americans very harshly.  At one point a commentator said these acts were akin to genocide.  

Native American Biographies: Lynn Riggs, Cherokee Playwright

Lynn Riggs is the best known of Native American playwrights.  He wrote several plays, but the one that had the most influence is Green Grow the Lilacs.  This play was musicalized by Rodgers and Hammerstein into Oklahoma.

Native American Biographies: Nancy Ward: Cherokee "Pocahontas of the Cherokee"

Nancy Ward is unusual in that she was a female chief.  She married King Fisher, who was killed fighting the Creek.  She took her place and fought so valiantly that she was declared "most Honored Woman.  She was also quite becoming, and received the name Wild Rose because of her cheeks.  She married an English trader.  She always sued for peace with White encroachers.  During the Revolutionary War she did not waver in this conviction.  It was decided the Cherokee would attack the Whites and force them back over the Appalachians.  Ward warned the Whites by releasing three prisoners.  She thus prevented much loss of life.  

Native American Biography: Jesse Chisholm: Cherokee

Jesse Chisholm is most noted for a trail which bears his name, Chisholm Trail.  He was a Cherokee who had migrated west before the Trail of Tears.  He traded with the Plains Indians and learned over fourteen languages.  He was a noted  interpreter.  He was part of some of the initial expeditions and approaches by the U.S. Government to the Plains Indians.  He also ran a series of trading posts.  He established a trail connecting his trading posts in the Wichita, Kansas area.   When this trail started to be used by cattlemen driving cattle from Texas to Kansas, it became known as the Chisholm Trail.

American Indian Biography: Cher - Half Breed [Official Music Video]

Cher is a performer of world renown.  She has sung since she was a child, and then became a serious actor.  Her mother was of Cherokee and French descent, and consequently her song, "Half-breed."  As a younger man, I remember watching the Sonny and Cher show.  Sonny Bono, and Cher were a husband and wife team, that had been performing together for many years before they were part of the variety show.  Sonny and Cher's first big hit was "I Got You Babe" which was always their trade mark.
However after eleven years of marriage, they divorced, but remained friends.  With their separation their singing group also broke up as did the variety show.  Sonny Bono went into politics.  Cher continued as a performing artist, but also became a movie star with "The Witches of Eastwick," "Moonstruck" and "Mask."  She won an Oscar for Moonstruck.  She also became heavily involved in humanitarian causes including the International Carniofacial Foundation which was the theme of the movie "Mask."
Sonny Bono turned to politics.  He became a congressman.  He died in a skiing accident.  Cher appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and presented a short biographical picture of her life.

Native American Biography: John Lynch Adair, Cherokee

John Adair is of Cherokee and Irish descent.  When he was ten years old, his people were removed from their native lands and moved to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.  John Adair was important in the new community as he provided leadership.  When he was older, he penned the Cherokee Constitution which came out of a convention for that purpose.  After declaring that the East and West Cherokee were now unified, the constitution continues, "We, the people of the Cherokee Nation, in National Convention assembled, in order to establish justice, insure tranquility, promote the common welfare, and to secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of freedom—acknowledging with humility and gratitude, the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, in permitting us so to do, and imploring His aid and guidance in its accomplishment—do ordain and establish the Constitution for the government of the Cherokee Nation.'
The constitution was published when Adair was already older, 1893.  Adair passed away in 1896.  The Constitution would remain in effect until the statehood of Oklahoma in 1907.

Documentary Review: The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy

The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy, Rich Heape Films, Presented by Wes Studi, Narrated by James Earl Jones (2006)
The trail of tears is one of the darkest episodes in American history.  It involved the forced removal of Native American people in the East, to Indian country in Arkansas and Oklahoma.  For the Cherokee this was the forced removal of 14,000 Cherokee.  They had been given to years to move, due to a treaty negotiated between a minority of the Cherokee, and the U.S.  Before the removal, many Cherokee had already passed away during the round up.  Many were kept in a stockade, in less than optimal conditions.  Of those who made the trip, thirteen different groups, taking many different routes from Georgia and Tennessee to the West, 4000 would die on the trip.  Those who most passed away were old people and children,  One commentator mentioned that the arrived in Oklahoma without past and without future.  However they survived.
This movie made effective use of historical reenactment, of the trail, conditions in the stockade, and political conditions.  It tells the story of three murders, of those who signed and negotiated the treaty.  It also tells the story of John Ross, who worked tirelessly to avoid the removal, but his efforts were in vain in the end.