The Cherokee called it Nunahi-Duna-Hilu-I, the trail where they cried.
As always, I tried to be as accurate as possible when writing Only One Way Home. White Dove’s experiences at Golconda represent many actual circumstances that the Cherokee endured during their time in southern Illinois. I suspect some readers will think I exaggerated their suffering, but if anything, I downplayed it to prevent the story from becoming too painful to read. Naturally, with the Trail of Tears topic, the story is sad, but there are also moments of shining joy and hope, so don’t think it’s too depressing to read.
During the “Indian Removal,” of 1838, some Cherokee, like my great, great grandmother Mary Ann Jones’ family, hid from the soldiers that came to round them up that summer. But 16,000 other Cherokee were forced from their Georgia and North Carolina homes and herded to military stockades where they were confined until they could be sent to Oklahoma.
That summer was brutally hot. An eyewitness describes the suffering they endured just getting to the stockades:
Reverend Daniel Butrick, whom I fictionalize in Only One Way Home, accompanied the Cherokee and kept a detailed journal of events. His descriptions of the “Removal” are harrowing:
May 26 – “As the soldiers advanced towards a house, two little children fled in fright to the woods. The woman pleaded for permission to seek them, or wait until they came in……..but all entreaties were in vain….it was not till a day or two later after that, she would get permission for one of her friends to go back after the lost children.”
“A man, deaf and dumb, being surprised at the approach of armed men, attempted to make his escape, and because he did not hear and obey the command of his pursuers, was shot dead on the spot.”
“Women absent from their families on visits, or for other purposes, were seized, and men, far from their wives and children, were not allowed to return, and also children being forced from home, were dragged off among strangers.”
“And, it is said that the white inhabitants around, stood with open arms to seize whatever property they could put their hands on.”
“Those taken to the fort at New Echota, were confined day and night in the open air, with but little clothing to cover them, when lying on the naked ground.”
May 31 – “Astoundingly, a little before sunset, a company of about 200 Cherokees were driven into our lane. The day had been rainy, and of course all men, women and children were dripping wet with no change of clothing, and scarcely a blanket fit to cover them. As some of the women, taken from their houses, had on their poorest dress, this of course was the amount of clothing for a journey of about 800 miles.”
June 11 – “The weather being extremely warm and dry, many of the Cherokees are sick, especially at Calhoun, where we understand that from four to ten die in a day.”
July 18 – At Cassville, it is said, some poor Cherokees were enticed to drink, and when drunk, one of the women was taken out into the public street, and her clothes pulled up, and tied over her head, and thus she was left to the gaze of the multitudes passing by.”
July 23 – (Regarding Property sold by agents) “It is very evident that a mere trifle of what was left was ever given to owners. Thus, a horse said to be worth $100 sold for $12. Twenty or thirty ducks sold for twenty five cents, and these cents go to pay the cost.”
The stockades into which the Cherokee were herded were 200 by 500 feet with sixteen foot high walls. No provision for shelter or sanitation had been made as the government didn’t expect the Indians to be there long. But the journey to Oklahoma was delayed because of the heat and a drought that had dried up most of the water sources along the route they would take there. The Cherokee leaders asked for and received permission to delay leaving until the fall. So thousands of Cherokee languished in the stockades waiting for cooler weather and rain. Disease hit the vulnerable occupants, wiping out many before they could even begin traveling what survivors later called Nunahi-Duna-Hilu-I, the trail where they cried.
But eventually, detachments of about 1000 began to leave at intervals of 2-3 days. The government had intended that they would go by flatboats down the Ohio River to Cairo, Illinois where they would go up the Mississippi River until they reached disembarkation ports and then travel overland the rest of the way to Oklahoma. And about 5000 of them, including Principal Chief John Ross, did follow this itinerary and arrived safe and sound in Oklahoma.
But many Cherokee, leery of traveling by water, insisted on going overland. It was a four-month journey of 1200 miles and much more difficult than the water route. Approximately five thousand Cherokee rode horses. Some rode in forty oxen-drawn wagons, but those were mostly for supplies. Eight thousand walked the whole way.
They had left their homes the scorching heat of summer, but the first detachment of Cherokee reached Golconda, Illinois, the approximate halfway point of the journey, on December 3, 1838, during an unusually cold winter. To get from Kentucky to Golconda, they crossed the Ohio River via Berry’s Ferry, where they were charged $1 each, over eight times the going rate. Later, when they got to the western side of Illinois, a man name Willard charged them each another toll to use the turnpike he had constructed specifically to cash in on the Cherokee traffic.
(The Cherokee paid these exorbitant fees from the $100 each head of household had been given to provide for their families until they could get set up in Oklahoma. The government sent food and feed for the people and livestock for the trip, but it ran out before they reached Oklahoma. The agents escorting them were forced to borrow money from the Cherokee to buy more provisions. They were never paid back.)
The time spent in Illinois between the great Ohio and Mississippi rivers was the worst part of the whole trip:
The days and weeks spent in crossing southern Illinois were the most brutal for the Cherokee Nation. Many landowners would not allow the Cherokee to camp on their land or cut firewood for warmth and hot food. Only adding to the Cherokee’s misery, the Mississippi was frozen solid far out from the river bank and in the center were blocks of ice as big as houses. As the water flowed, the huge ice blocks crashed down the current, rear on edge and crash down with mighty shocks. This fearful noise went on day and night for a month as the Cherokee watched the mighty Mississippi in awed wonder as they waited to cross into Missouri.
(I describe this phenomenon as happening on the Ohio River because I wanted to keep the setting of Only One Way Home at Golconda, but it actually happened on the Mississippi River.)
How many Cherokee perished in Illinois, I do not know, but total loss of life along the trail is estimated at 4,000. The dead were buried in unmarked graves except in Union County, Illinois, where a man named George Hileman allowed the Cherokee to camp on his land, cut wood, and bury their dead. Later, in 1850, he dedicated a portion of his land for a church that became known as Camp Ground Cumberland Presbyterian Church. A stone marker commemorates the site of the Cherokee cemetery. It is the only such graveyard to be found along the Trail.
George Hileman’s compassion was a rarity on the trail. Reverend Daniel Butrick describes other incidents more typical:
July 26 – “They were not allowed to stop or rest on account of sickness. They were driven on as long as they could walk, and then thrown into wagons. When some were perceived to be in the agonies of death, the wagon master ordered them to drive on!”…..”When it was known that one was dead, the lifeless body was left to the care of some stranger.”
August 20 – “ We also learned that when the last company was taken over the river at Ross’s Landing, a woman, in the pains of childbirth, stood and walked as long as possible, and then fell on the bank of the river. A soldier coming up, stabbed her with his bayonet, which, together with other pains, soon caused her death.”
Descendants of the Cherokee were interviewed in 1937 for a publication called Stories from the Trail. (http://www.ualr.edu/sequoyah/uploads/2011/11/Family%20Stories%20from%20the%20Trail%20of%20Tears.htm) Their stories confirm Butrick’s account. Nannie Buchanan Pierce describes her grandmother’s ordeal ninety-nine years before when she was a girl of sixteen:
Aggie Silk was my grandmother and she has told me of the many hardships of the trip to this country. Many had chills and fever from the exposure, change of country and they didn’t have too much to eat. When they would get too sick to walk or ride, they were put in the wagons and taken along until they died. The Indian doctors couldn’t find the herbs they were used to and didn’t know the ones they did find, so they couldn’t doctor them as they would have at home. Some rode in wagons, some rode horses and some had to walk.
Katie Rackleff is also quoted in Stories from the Trail:
The hardships were many all along the trail, rough country, bad roads and all kinds of weather. A seeming endless march of weary, struggling mass of humanity, driven from a country they knew and loved as their home, deprived of most of their individual possessions, to the wilderness of a new country. A procession miles in length of wagons, two-wheel carts, vehicles of every description drawn by horses, mules and ox teams, long troops of pedestrians of all ages and conditions, mothers walking and carrying their babes on their back. Many walking and driving their small herds of cattle and other stock.
After a few days out on the trail you could see them scattered along the roadside falling out of line of march from exhaustion and illness, and so the long journey from east of the Mississippi to the Indian Territory was made after several months of hardships and sorrow and the cost of many lives of the Cherokees. I have read of the “Trail of Tears ” by different writers but none portray the horrors of it all in detail as grandmother related to us when we could persuade her to talk of it, as she would often tell us it was too horrible to talk about and it only brought back sad memories.
Henry J. Walker had this to say when he was interviewed for Stories from the Trail:
My mother, said to be the last survivor of those who came over the Trail of Tears, was about ten years old when they left Georgia.
They came in rude wagons drawn by oxen, each family furnishing its own transportation or at least my grandfather did and he loaded his wagon with provisions for his family for the trip. This left little room as he had a wife and six children of whom my mother was next to the youngest. They were compelled to have a little bedding. They left Georgia in the summer and did not reach this state till the next summer…
In those days there were no roads and few trails and very few bridges. Progress of travelers was slow and often times they would have to wait many days for the streams to run down before they could cross. Each family did its own cooking on the road. People then had no matches and they started a fire by rubbing two flint rocks together and catching the spark on a piece of dry spunk held directly underneath the rocks. Sometimes, they would have to rake away the snow and clear a place to build the fire. Travelers carried dry wood in the wagons to build their fires. The wagons were so heavily loaded and had traveled so many days that when they came to a hill the persons in the wagons would have to get out and walk up the hill. They did not ride much of the time but walked a good deal, not only to rest themselves but to save their teams.
Often, teams would give out and could go no farther and then those who were with that wagon would be divided up among the other wagons and hurried along. One day mother saw a team of oxen fall dead, hitched to their wagon. The party she was with were in a severe snowstorm on the way which caused much suffering. Many died from exposure on the trip and mother said that she thought that a third of those who started died on the way, although all of her family lived to reach the new country. Those who came over the Trail of Tears would not stop for sickness and would stop only long enough to dig a rude grave when any one died and then the bereaved family was forced to move right along.
Mother said that their food lasted them till they reached the Indian Territory but towards the last of the trip that they had little to eat and had to plan to make it last. It was indeed a pitiful band that finally reached the new home promised them for they had been a year on the road, food had become scarce, their clothes which were homemade were wearing out, many had died on the trail, some had lost their teams and wagons and had been placed with other families and there were small children in the band who had lost their parents.
Of course, Professor Merrideth Randall and her friends Abby and John are horrified by what they observe when “time-surfing” back to Golconda. But as John says,
“We need to remember our history, no matter how painful.”
Merrideth got a paper towel from the counter and wiped her face. “Yes, we all need to have someone remind us from time to time that it is an evil world we live in. We can go about our normal activities every day thinking life is pretty good, while across the state, or even across town, others are experiencing catastrophic loss. The so-called Indian Removal was nothing less than ethnic cleansing.”
Abby left John’s embrace and pulled Merrideth into a hug. “Oh, kiddo, you sound so despairing.”
Tears welled up in Merrideth’s eyes, and she turned away, embarrassed by her loss of control.
Abby continued to hold her. “Yes, there is evil in this world. But we can’t forget that there is good here, too. Just think what Matthias Frailey did to help those people.”
I like to believe there actually were people like Matthias Frailey along that trail who did what they could to help the Cherokee.It would be so nice of you to share!