The Trail of Tears examined through Poetry, Art and Prose
compiled and edited by Michael R. Burch
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
―Stanley Kunitz, from "The Layers"
In 1830 President Andrew Jackson ― a white supremacist who loathed Indians ― encouraged Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act, claiming the measure would "separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions" and "retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the government and through the influences of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community." Apparently Stonewall Jackson actually thought brutalizing innocent women and children would make them more "interesting," more "civilized" and more "Christian." (Or perhaps he was just a bigot lying through his teeth.)
The same year Georgia Governor George Gilmer said, "Treaties are expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people are induced . . . to yield up what civilized people have the right to possess." By "civilized" he apparently meant people willing to dispossess and kill women and children in order to derive economic benefits for themselves.
These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans
whose names are bright verbs and impounded dark nouns,
whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh . . .
and I hear, as if from a great distance,
the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming
the nature of my mutation.
―Michael R. Burch, from "Mongrel Dreams"
After Jackson was re-elected with an overwhelming majority in 1832, he strenuously pursued his policy of removing Native Americans, even refusing to accept a Supreme Court ruling which invalidated Georgia's planned annexation of Cherokee land. But in the double-dealing logic of the white supremacists, they had to make the illegal resettlement of the Indians appear to be "legal." So a small group of Cherokees were persuaded to sign the "Treaty of New Echota," which swapped Cherokee land for land in the Oklahoma territory. The Cherokee ringleaders of this infamous plot were later assassinated as traitors.
I know the truth – give up all other truths!
No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle.
Look – it is evening, look , it is nearly night:
What do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals?
The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,
the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet.
And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we
who never let each other sleep above it.
―Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet, translated by Elaine Feinstein
In the summer of 1838, the United States Army rounded up around 16,000 Cherokees, then confined them for months to disease-infested camps where they were treated abysmally by "civilized Christians."
A Cherokee official named Major Ridge protested to Jackson, "The lowest classes of the white people are flogging the Cherokees with cowhides, hickories, and clubs. We are not safe in our houses ― our people are assailed day and night by the rabble . . . This barbarous treatment is not confined to men, but the women are stripped also and whipped without law or mercy . . . We shall carry off nothing but the scars on our backs."
No desire to open my mouth
What should I sing of...?
I, who am hated by life.
No difference to sing or not to sing.
Why should I talk of sweetness,
When I feel bitterness?
Oh, the oppressor's feast
Knocked my mouth.
I have no companion in life
Who can I be sweet for?
―Nadia Anjuman, Afghani poet, translated by Mahnaz Badihian
General John E. Wool confirmed Ridge's statements, saying, "The whole scene since I have been in this country has been nothing but a heart-rendering one . . . The white men . . . like vultures are watching, ready to pounce upon their prey and strip them of everything they have. Wool also confirmed that the Cherokees were "almost universally opposed to the treaty."
Oh my heart, you know it is spring
And time to celebrate.
What should I do with a trapped wing,
Which does not let me fly?
I have been silent too long,
But I never forget the melody,
Since every moment I whisper
The songs from my heart,
Reminding myself of
The day I will break this cage,
Fly from this solitude
And sing like a melancholic.
―Nadia Anjuman, Afghani poet, translated by Mahnaz Badihian
In October 1838 the Cherokees began to walk the "Trail of Tears." Most of them made the thousand mile journey west to Oklahoma on foot. An estimated 4,000 people, or a quarter of the tribe, died en route. The soldiers "escorting" the Cherokees at bayonet point refused permission for the dead to be buried, threatening to shoot anyone who disobeyed. So the living were forced to carry the corpses of the dead until camp was made for the night.
On the Trail of Tears,
O, my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?
So laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.
When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodland we loved
for the hoe and the rake.
It is better to die
than to live out a lie
in so narrow a sty.