[Spoken Cherokee] Run, it's after us.
[Spoken Cherokee] Come back!
[Spoken Cherokee] Hurry, it's going to get you.
[Spoken Cherokee] Hurry!
[Spoken Cherokee] What's the hurry?
[Spoken Cherokee] He said there was a panther in the woods.
[Spoken Cherokee] No panther is out there.
[Spoken Cherokee] And if he was, all you have to do
[Spoken Cherokee] is growl like a bear and he will run away.
[Spoken Cherokee] Go ahead! Growl.
[Spoken Cherokee] Louder
[growl]
[Spoken Cherokee] Panther will run away for sure.
[Spoken Cherokee] Maybe your name should be Growling Bear.
[Spoken Cherokee] Did you hurt yourself?
[Spoken Cherokee] It was some small thorns.
[Spoken Cherokee] Let us put some medicine on it.
[Spoken Cherokee] Better?
1828. In the southeast United States
the Cherokee people had settled into a stable life.
They lived in cabins, farmed
and spun cotton. They built schools and churches.
They embraced many aspects of European life
while living by their traditional ways.
At one time the land of the Cherokee people spanned what is now
eight states in the southern Appalachians.
but from 1721 to 1819 the Cherokees relinquished much of their territory
to the burgeoning United States
reducing the size of the Cherokee Nation by over ninety percent.
During the 1700s, the Cherokees endured devastating smallpox epidemics,
and wars with the colonists.
After the turn of the century, the Cherokee began to rebuild and transform themselves.
They would establish a formal government with a police force
and a court system. In 1827,
the Cherokees wrote a constitution, and the next year they held a national election.
Unlike any other North American tribe,
the Cherokee people created their own written alphabet
invented by a man named Sequoyah. It was so ingenious in its design
Cherokees could learn it quickly. The Cherokee people also published the first
Indian newspaper, printed in English and Cherokee.
The Cherokees lived prosperous
and productive lives, but their neighbors in Georgia
craved more land for their expanding population.
They viewed the Cherokee Nation its government and people
as a direct threat.
Georgia did not have the legal right to move the Cherokees themselves
but that would change in 1828 with the election of
Andrew Jackson as President of the United States.
Regarding the Cherokees he said
"Established in the midst of a superior
race, they must disappear."
Months after Jackson was elected
the Georgia Legislature passed a series of laws taking away
the civil rights of Cherokees within their borders.
Cherokees could not testify in court.
They could not meet in Council. Their government was deemed illegal.
The editor of the Cherokee newspaper, Elias Boudinot expressed their outrage.
"Here is the secret, full license to our oppressors
in every avenue of justice closed to us.
Yes, this is the bitter cup prepared for us."
The Cherokee people had little time to react
before another troubling incident occurred.
Gold had been discovered on Cherokee land.
[Spoken Cherokee] What are they doing?
[Spoken Cherokee] The are looking for gold. We need to stay quiet.
[Multiple people] "That's mine. I'm the one who found it."
Word spread quickly,
and people from all over the country flooded into Cherokee land.
If hunger for land or the fear of
Cherokee sovereignty were not enough to rouse every day Georgians against the
Cherokee Nation, the lust for gold was.
Within months, 4,000 white intruders
were digging and panning for gold.
Georgia then moved into Cherokee country with their own militia
the Georgia Guard. They arrested Cherokees
who dared to mine gold on Cherokee land.
Then in 1829, southern Congressmen
introduced the Indian Removal Act into Congress.
The bill called for the removal of all five southern tribes
the Cherokees, the Choctaws, the Creeks
the Chickasaws, and the Seminoles to territories west of the Mississippi.
Citizen groups from all over the United States
sent hundreds of petitions to Congress condemning the bill
as immoral and destructive.
[Spoken Cherokee] What is wrong?
[Spoken Cherokee] Are soldiers really coming?
[Spoken Cherokee] Who told you that?
[Spoken Cherokee] Some boys said that soldiers
[Spoken Cherokee] were going to take us away.
[Spoken Cherokee] They can not do that.
[Spoken Cherokee] Do not worry.
In May of 1830
the Indian Removal Act passed in the House by only five votes.
Days later President Jackson signed it into law.
The bill stated that the United States would not violate
any prior treaty of any tribe.
Chief John Ross and Cherokee leaders took steps to uphold their
guaranteed rights. The Cherokee would now fight removal
by taking their case to the Supreme Court the United States.
It was a landmark case that was to define
Indian sovereignty for centuries to come.
Worcester versus the State of Georgia.
In March of 1832
Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the majority opinion.
"The Cherokee Nation is a distinct community
occupying its own territories with boundaries accurately described
in which the laws of Georgia can have no force."
[Spoken Cherokee] "...and which the citizens of Georgia
[Spoken Cherokee] have not the right to enter!"
The decision was unequivocal.
Georgia had no jurisdiction over the land
or the government of the Cherokee Nation.
But in Washington, Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court's decision
and continue to advocate removal.
Jackson had told a Georgia Congressman, "Build the fire under them.
When it gets hot enough, they'll move.
Seven months after the Supreme Court ruled that
Cherokees were clear owners of their land,
Georgia held a lottery. The prize
Cherokee land. Thousands signed up.
In Cherokee country,
lucky lottery winners were soon collecting their winnings
and moving Cherokees out of their homes.
If Cherokees did not go voluntarily,
the Georgia militia used force.
[Shouting] Get outta here.
Many Cherokee families found themselves homeless
in their own country.
Eager to move the Cherokees out,
Georgia citizens intensified their harassment.
Cherokee leaders sent a letter to the Federal Government pleading for protection.
"The lowest classes of white people are flogging
the Cherokees with cowhides, hickories, and clubs.
We are not safe in our house."
Cherokees faced a crisis that pushed them to a breaking point.
some Cherokee leaders saw their nation crumbling under
the oppressive laws of Georgia
and in a desperate effort to get the best deal possible,
negotiated a Removal Treaty.
At New Echota in December 1835 this small group with of Cherokees
signed a treaty. In their eyes they did it to save their nation
but with ninety percent of Cherokees strongly opposed to removal
they did it in violation of Cherokee Nation law.
When the New Echota Treaty was sent to the Senate for ratification
the Cherokee people took action.
A petition was signed by almost 90 percent
of the Cherokee people.
Hundreds of pages were sewn together.
[Spoken Cherokee] My little Growling Bear. What are you doing?
[Spoken Cherokee] Grandpa. This is a petition.
[Spoken Cherokee] Almost everyone's name is here.
[Spoken Cherokee] A petition?
[Spoken Cherokee] Against the treaty.
[Spoken Cherokee] You taught me. If we growl loud enough . . .
[Growl]
[Spoken Cherokee] I remember.
[Spoken Cherokee] I will help you with this.
The petition was taken to Congress by Cherokee Chief John Ross.
[Spoken Cherokee] Those papers we wrote three months ago,
[Spoken Cherokee] they did not pass them.
[Spoken Cherokee] They denied us.
[Spoken Cherokee] Really?
[Spoken Cherokee] The petitions were not honored.
[Spoken Cherokee] I guess we were not that important to them.
The Cherokee Nation had won their case in the Supreme Court.
They had shown the Federal Government
that the majority of their people did not want to move,
but it was not enough. The Senate
ratified the New Echota treaty. Now the Cherokees would be forced to leave.
Two years later, in May 1838
6,000 federal and state militia troops
entered Cherokee country.
[music]
On the 26th May, the roundup began
[music]
[Spoken Cherokee] Don't cry. It's going to turn out fine.
Soldiers captured men, women, and children
and marched them from their homes.
Cherokees were held at nearby forts
and then forced into large prison camps near river docks.
Within weeks 16,000 Cherokees had been taken captive.
[music and crowd noise]
Lieutenant John Phelps assisted in the round up.
"I could not but think that some fearful retribution would come upon us.
The scenes seemed to me like a distempered dream
or something worthy of the dark ages
than present reality."
Cherokees were to be transported west on barges
but after two detachments had left,
drought rendered the river level too low.
On the 3rd detachment
soldiers marched over a thousand Cherokees 200 miles downstream
to waiting barges.
It was hot! Before the detachment reached the west
146 Cherokees had died.
At the prison camps, the heat and the drought postpone the march.
At Fort Cass and Ross's Landing in Tennessee
the camps grew to hold as many as 4,000 Cherokees each.
Cherokees had no access to their medicine or traditional food.
Diseases broke out.
The Cherokee Missionary Daniel Butrick
visited the camps and offered assistance.
"Half the infants six-months to a year,
and all the aged over 60 have been killed directly
and one-fourth of the remainder. There seems to be no place
nor means nor time for the recovery
of any who are now sick."
[crying]
Determine Cherokees refused to surrender their lives,
their nation, and their spirit to the impending doom.
At the Fort Cass prison camp, the Cherokee council met.
They passed a resolution affirming their nation.
[Spoken Cherokee] …the inherent sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation
[Spoken Cherokee] together with the Constitution,
[Spoken Cherokee] are hereby in full force.
Chief John Ross then made a daring request to General Winfield Scott.
He asked that the Cherokees be allowed to manage their own removal.
Scott agreed. In late summer
the first if 13 detachments departed the prison camps
under the management of the Cherokee Nation.
The last detachment left in December
Wagons carried the sick and elderly.
The weather turned bitter cold.
It was to be the harshest winter in years.
[wind, coughing, and sobbing]
[music]
[singing in Cherokee]
The trail wound along dusty roads,
over hills, through the bitter cold of winter
and discouraging relentless rain and wind across Tennessee,
Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas.
In March 1839,
the last detachment arrived in the new territory.
Although the march was over the hardships continued.
Setting up life in a strange land
took its toll, and many more Cherokees died during the first year.
Most had marched over 800 miles.
These routes, one by water, carried twelve to thirteen thousand Cherokees.
Conservative estimates indicate that at least
2,000 Cherokees died as a result removal.
Yet, if their culture was to survive
they had no choice but to start again.
So, in 1838 the Cherokee people began the slow process
of reconstructing their entire society.
For many other Indian tribes the Trail of Tears reflects their story.
An estimated 70,000 Indians, including many other tribes
all over the United States, were forced from their homelands.
Each endured devastating hardships.
To ensure that this tragedy and the events along this trail are not forgotten
the United States Congress in 1987 passed
a bill to establish the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
The National Park Service
administers the protection, interpretation,
and preservation of the trail.
With several thousand miles of land and water routes
visitors can learn more about the Trail of Tears
at a wide variety of sites.
Places like Blythe Ferry, Tennessee.
From August to November 1838
more than 9,000 Cherokees and Creeks paid
to cross the Tennessee River on a small ferry here.
Village Creek, Arkansas where thousands of weary feet cut a deep trail
through the earth.
Pea Ridge, Arkansas near the end of a long and devastating journey,
exhausted Cherokees gathered strength to cover the final miles.
These are just a few sites that have been protected
as a reminder of the grim realities of the Trail of Tears.
Over the years, the Cherokee Nation and its people have rebuilt and transformed.
Today they are one of the largest Indian populations in the United States.
The Cherokee Nation has regained
many of its sovereign rights and is one of the largest employers
in eastern Oklahoma.
Throughout it all, Cherokees have remained connected to their traditional values.
Here one will not hear the anguished voice of a forgotten and broken people.
Instead one might hear the pride
for people who faced overwhelming adversity and persevered.
In the mountains of North Carolina
is the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians comprised in part
of descendants have those Cherokees who escaped the roundup
and hid in the mountains.
Today, as with their western relatives,
they have flourished while retaining their culture.
The story of the Trail of Tears reveals one of the darkest chapters
of American history.
It uncovers events of devastating oppression,
injustice, and cruelty, but this story also brings to light
acts of humanity and courage. It reveals an enduring spirit of people
that transcends race and today,
if we explore this story and keep it alive,
it will not only serve as a stern caution.
It may also inspire.
[Music]