Lest We Forget

 

We find their beautiful spear heads and points as well as fragments of stone tools in our fields, just as we find remnants of those who supplanted them.

There is no record of permanent Cherokee settlements in our county, but we were certainly a part of their hunting ground. The big bottom field at the lower part of our farm is where most of these artifacts came from and the presence in one small area of numerous half-finished points and flakes of flint leads us to believe that this field between two streams must have been a summer encampment and this one area must have been where a flint knapper worked.

The Indian Removal, also called The Long Walk or, more poetically still, The Trail of Tears is a part of our history that the current regime would prefer we forget.]

Briefly, the story is this. White settlers wanted Native American land and in 1838 the Indian Removal Act meant that all Native Americans in the southeastern US were driven from their land, houses and orchards destroyed. They were rounded up, impounded in stockades, and forcibly marched west to Oklahoma. 1,200 miles they traveled -- a six month journey. Men, women, and children, the very old and the very young were forced along the Trail of Tears--most walking -- in the bitter winter weather. One in four of the some 17,000 Native Americans died on the march.

There were some Cherokees who avoided the removal by hiding and some who came back later. Eventually, the Cherokees were 'given' land here in the North Carolina mountains -- a tiny fraction of what had been theirs. This is the Qualla Boundary -- Cherokee, NC, a few hours drive from our farm.

The Trail of Tears is our country's shame. As is slavery. As are the current ICE concentration camps. We should never forget but should endeavor to do better by our fellow man.