BROKEN DREAMS OF THE CHEROKEE - THE TRAIL OF TEARS
There were so many tears and so many fears on the Trail of Tears.
Why did they have to die? When I think about it, I have to cry.
My Ancestors are in the sky, riding their horses on clouds of fire, as they fly.
At night, I hear them talking to me, now I see the Spirit of the Cherokee.
When they are gone, they are gone so long, but Cherokee stand still and watch.
The Great Spirit starts bringing our people back, tall, proud and strong. The dreams did not die, oh Mighty Cherokee! Watch and see! Our people will be back - PROUD, TALL AND FREE!
Author Unknown
A STORY FROM THE TRAIL OF TEARS
The following is the birthday story of Private John G. Burnett, Captain Abraham McClellan's Company, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry, CHEROKEE INDIAN REMOVAL - 1838-39 - A TRUE STORY.
"This is my birthday, December 11, 1890. I am 18 years old today. I was born at King Iron Works in Sullivan County, Tennessee, on December 11, 1810. I grew into manhood fishing in Beaver Creek and roaming through the forest hunting the deer, the wild boar, and the timber wolf. Often I spent weeks at a time in solitary wildness with no companions, but my rifle, hunting knife, and a small hatchet that I carried in my belt in all my wilderness wanderings.
On these long hunting trips, I met and became acquainted with many of the Cherokee Indians, hunting with them by day and sleeping around their campfires by night. I learned to speak their language and they taught me the acts of trailing and building traps and snares. On one of my long hunts, in the fall of 1829, I found a young Cherokee who had been shot by a roving band of hunters and who had eluded his pursuers and concealed himself under a shelving rock. Weak from loss of blood, the poor creature was unable to walk and almost famished from lack of water. I carried him to a spring, bathed and bandaged the bullet wound, built a shelter out of bark peeled from a dead chestnut tree, nursed and protected him, feeding him on chestnuts and roasted deer meat. When he was able to travel, I accompanied him to the home of his people, and remained so long that I was given up for lost. By this time, I had become an expert rifleman, a fairly good archer, and a good trapper, and spent mos of my time in the forest in quest of game.
The removal of the Cherokee Indians from their ligr-long homes in the year of 1818, found me a young man in the prime of life, and a Private in the American Army. Being acquainted with many of the Indians and able to fluently speak their language, I was sent as an interpreter into the Smokey Mountains country in May 1838 and witnessesd the execution of the most brutal order in the history of American warfare. I saw the helpless Cherokee arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning, I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into 645 wagons and started toward the west.
One can never forget the sadness and solemnity of that morning. Chief John Ross led in prayer, and when the bugle sounded and the wagons started rolling, many of the children rose to their feet and waved their little hands goodbye to their mountain homes, knowing they were leaving them forever. Many of these helpless people did not have blankets and many of them had been driven from home barefooted."
Applet by Evening Rain 2003
Revised February 27, 2003
 Send This Page On To A Friend |