Trail of Tears Survivor Accounts
The trail of tears is a true tale that explains the hard livelihood of the Cherokees, native Indians in the northern parts of America. In particular, during the great resistance, it was the shocking figure of sixteen thousand warriors who were brutally murdered that upset me . According to Burnett’s story, the Cherokees did not cater to the young warriors who were hurt during the resistance such as the young Cherokee who hid from hunters while wounded from bullet shots. The history of American warfare shows how the external hunters overcame the Cherokees in power due to the lack of assistance and unity among the Cherokees. Cold and harsh conditions that followed the recruited adolescents into the hunter’s wagons were witnessed by Burnett. The brutal nature that the hunters made the Cherokees endure during the whole journey such as bull whipping of the old Cherokee to push the wagons and journey bulk was an obscene character felled upon the Cherokees .
I would definitely feel oppressed and agitated, not to mention enraged. This is because I personally feel that language is a negligible factor that can give another tribe enough ground to push me and my family out of my own land. The authority and civilization factor that enabled colonialism to take the upper hand in almost all nations could not be avoided by the natives. If the persons forcing me out of my home have life threatening factors, I would then have no other choice but to leave the premises.
It would definitely be very saddening for me to come to terms that I have been displaced in my own land and have nowhere to go. Feelings of despair and anger would consume me as I try to search for the nearest and best means of catering to my most crucial needs at the moment. I would look for the nearest persons who can aid me and come together and formulate means which we can claim back my property.
As a loyal soldier and participant in the exploration, I would personally follow the orders handed down by the superiors and escort the natives from their land. However, the use of harsh means such as the bull whipping and stressing the weak and old to perform hard tasks would be avoided. According to the Trail of tears account, the militants responsible for the dragging out of the Cherokees did not however offer second chances to the natives. Signs of brutal pressures towards the natives have been laid out in the account during the process of displacement of the Cherokees.
As a person with much authority, President Andrew Jackson should have given orders that could provide security to the Cherokees through the Washington DC post. Military forces from the home country could have also prevented the hunters from discriminating and displacing the Cherokees from their land under Jackson’s orders. The young Cherokee who offered to save the life of one of the President’s explorers could have at least poured out some sympathy towards the cruelty laid upon the Cherokees .
Even though British and American lawmaking policy had been approaching local Americans westward, the passageway of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 discussed in this editorial brings about this rule to a head. Within the book, Perdue and Green draw from letters, martial records, doctoral records, and journal extracts that provide imminent into what really happened throughout this period. Through these main sources, the editors go after the feuding within the Cherokee defenses about whether to recognize the white man’s challenges, and if so, how it ought to be implemented.
Root sources which the editors obtained their information regarding the government take on the removal of the Cherokees from their native land were “pessimistic”. Some of the officials from the Washington post who advised the president argued of the representation of the future generations where they would obtain economical and social resources . Existing property within the Cherokee homeland was a mere factor that drew the hunters into the land in the first place, therefore, the government was persuaded and they ultimately searched for the displacement of the Cherokees for labor and land.
According to Rozema Vickie, she brought forth the considerate colorless missionaries insistent of the Cherokees to be allowed to live in their homeland, and we are explained how a number of these similar missionaries contracted with the testing of their belief. As they escorted the Indians on their westward trip, the author shows the conditions that the Cherokee people endured as they journeyed on what they termed as “the Trail Where They Cried.” Rozema continues to even follow the perplexity that came up when the fresh arrivals in the West welcomed assimilation into a society previously established by those who had moved abroad 20 to 30 years in advance .
During the nineteenth century, the removal of generally the Indians from their native land called for the statement of authoritative laws into the system. For instance, the missionaries who pleaded for the remaining of the Indians their land were passed into law after the blood shed in the resistance battle . Currently, human rights entail the liberty and privilege of all human beings to exist and co-exist in legally obtained premises without difficulty or disturbance.
Reference
Mulligan, E, 1970, Accounts of the “Cherokee trail of tears”, New York: St. Louis Post- Dispatch.
Burnett, J., 1996, Cherokee messenger, Boston: Power source.
Andrew, J., 2001, Indian Removal, Washington DC: The west film Project.
Rozema, V., 2003, Voices from the Trail of Tears, Chicago: John F. Blair, Publisher.
