The history of this Cherokee removal of 1838, as gleaned by the author
from the lips of actors in the tragedy, may well exceed in weight
of grief and pathos any other passage in American history. Even the
much-sung exile of the Acadians falls far behind it in its sum of
death and misery. Under Scott's orders the troops were disposed at
various points throughout the Cherokee country, where stockade forts
were erected for gathering in and holding the Indians preparatory to
removal (43). From these, squads of troops were sent to search out
with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away in the coves or
by the sides of mountain streams, to seize and bring in as prisoners
all the occupants, however or wherever they might be found. Families
at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway
and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles
of trail that led to the stockade. Men were seized in their fields or
going along the road, women were taken from their wheels and children
from their play. In many cases, on turning for one last look as they
crossed the ridge, they saw their homes in flames, fired by the
lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot
and pillage. So keen were these outlaws on the scent that in some
instances they were driving off the cattle and other stock of the
Indians almost before the soldiers had fairly started their owners in
the other direction. Systematic hunts were made by the same men for
Indian graves, to rob them of the silver pendants and other valuables
deposited with the dead. A Georgia volunteer, afterward a colonel in
the Confederate service, said: "I fought through the civil war and
have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the
Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew."
To prevent escape the soldiers had been ordered to approach and
surround each house, so far as possible, so as to come upon the
occupants without warning. One old patriarch, when thus surprised,
calmly called his children and grandchildren around him, and,
kneeling down, bid them pray with him in their own language, while the
astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising he led the way
into exile. A woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door
and called up the chickens to be fed for the last time, after which,
taking her infant on her back and her two other children by the hand,
she followed her husband with the soldiers.
All were not thus submissive. One old man named Tsali, "Charley,"
was seized with his wife, his brother, his three sons and their
families. Exasperated at the brutality accorded his wife, who,
being unable to travel fast, was prodded with bayonets to hasten
her steps, he urged the other men to join with him in a dash for
liberty. As he spoke in Cherokee the soldiers, although they heard,
understood nothing until each warrior suddenly sprang upon the one
nearest and endeavored to wrench his gun from him. The attack was so
sudden and unexpected that one soldier was killed and the rest fled,
while the Indians escaped to the mountains. Hundreds of others,
some of them from the various stockades, managed also to escape
to the mountains from time to time, where those who did not die of
starvation subsisted on roots and wild berries until the hunt was
over. Finding it impracticable to secure these fugitives, General Scott
finally tendered them a proposition, through (Colonel) W. H. Thomas,
their most trusted friend, that if they would surrender Charley and
his party for punishment, the rest would be allowed to remain until
their case could be adjusted by the government. On hearing of the
proposition, Charley voluntarily came in with his sons, offering
himself as a sacrifice for his people. By command of General Scott,
Charley, his brother, and the two elder sons were shot near the mouth
of Tuckasegee, a detachment of Cherokee prisoners being compelled
to do the shooting in order to impress upon the Indians the fact
of their utter helplessness. From those fugitives thus permitted to
remain originated the present eastern band of Cherokee. [329]
When nearly seventeen thousand Cherokee had thus been gathered
into the various stockades the work of removal began. Early in
June several parties, aggregating about five thousand persons, were
brought down by the troops to the old agency, on Hiwassee, at the
present Calhoun, Tennessee, and to Ross's landing (now Chattanooga),
and Gunter's landing (now Guntersville, Alabama), lower down on the
Tennessee, where they were put upon steamers and transported down
the Tennessee and Ohio to the farther side of the Mississippi, when
the journey was continued by land to Indian Territory. This removal,
in the hottest part of the year, was attended with so great sickness
and mortality that, by resolution of the Cherokee national council,
Ross and the other chiefs submitted to General Scott a proposition
that the Cherokee be allowed to remove themselves in the fall,
after the sickly season had ended. This was granted on condition
that all should have started by the 20th of October, excepting the
sick and aged who might not be able to move so rapidly. Accordingly,
officers were appointed by the Cherokee council to take charge of the
emigration; the Indians being organized into detachments averaging
one thousand each, with two leaders in charge of each detachment,
and a sufficient number of wagons and horses for the purpose. In this
way the remainder, enrolled at about 13,000 (including negro slaves),
started on the long march overland late in the fall (44).
Those who thus emigrated under the management of their own officers
assembled at Rattlesnake springs, about two miles south of Hiwassee
river, near the present Charleston, Tennessee, where a final council
was held, in which it was decided to continue their old constitution
and laws in their new home. Then, in October, 1838, the long procession
of exiles was set in motion. A very few went by the river route;
the rest, nearly all of the 13,000, went overland. Crossing to the
north side of the Hiwassee at a ferry above Gunstocker creek, they
proceeded down along the river, the sick, the old people, and the
smaller children, with the blankets, cooking pots, and other belongings
in wagons, the rest on foot or on horses. The number of wagons was 645.
It was like the march of an army, regiment after regiment, the
wagons in the center, the officers along the line and the horsemen on
the flanks and at the rear. Tennessee river was crossed at Tuckers
(?) ferry, a short distance above Jollys island, at the mouth of
Hiwassee. Thence the route lay south of Pikeville, through McMinnville
and on to Nashville, where the Cumberland was crossed. Then they
went on to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the noted chief White-path,
in charge of a detachment, sickened and died. His people buried him
by the roadside, with a box over the grave and poles with streamers
around it, that the others coming on behind might note the spot and
remember him. Somewhere also along that march of death--for the exiles
died by tens and twenties every day of the journey--the devoted wife
of John Ross sank down, leaving him to go on with the bitter pain of
bereavement added to heartbreak at the ruin of his nation. The Ohio
was crossed at a ferry near the mouth of the Cumberland, and the army
passed on through southern Illinois until the great Mississippi was
reached opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It was now the middle
of winter, with the river running full of ice, so that several
detachments were obliged to wait some time on the eastern bank for
the channel to become clear. In talking with old men and women at
Tahlequah the author found that the lapse of over half a century
had not sufficed to wipe out the memory of the miseries of that halt
beside the frozen river, with hundreds of sick and dying penned up
in wagons or stretched upon the ground, with only a blanket overhead
to keep out the January blast. The crossing was made at last in two
divisions, at Cape Girardeau and at Green's ferry, a short distance
below, whence the march was on through Missouri to Indian Territory,
the later detachments making a northerly circuit by Springfield,
because those who had gone before had killed off all the game along the
direct route. At last their destination was reached. They had started
in October, 1838, and it was now March, 1839, the journey having
occupied nearly six months of the hardest part of the year. [330]
It is difficult to arrive at any accurate statement of the number
of Cherokee who died as the result of the Removal. According to the
official figures those who removed under the direction of Ross lost
over 1,600 on the journey. [331] The proportionate mortality among
those previously removed under military supervision was probably
greater, as it was their suffering that led to the proposition of the
Cherokee national officers to take charge of the emigration. Hundreds
died in the stockades and the waiting camps, chiefly by reason of the
rations furnished, which were of flour and other provisions to which
they were unaccustomed and which they did not know how to prepare
properly. Hundreds of others died soon after their arrival in Indian
territory, from sickness and exposure on the journey. Altogether it
is asserted, probably with reason, that over 4,000 Cherokee died as
the direct result of the removal.
On their arrival in Indian Territory the emigrants at once set
about building houses and planting crops, the government having
agreed under the treaty to furnish them with rations for one
year after arrival. They were welcomed by their kindred, the
"Arkansas Cherokee"--hereafter to be known for distinction as the
"Old Settlers"--who held the country under previous treaties in 1828
and 1833. These, however, being already regularly organized under a
government and chiefs of their own, were by no means disposed to be
swallowed by the governmental authority of the newcomers. Jealousies
developed in which the minority or treaty party of the emigrants,
headed by Ridge, took sides with the Old Settlers against the Ross or
national party, which outnumbered both the others nearly three to one.
While these differences were at their height the Nation was thrown
into a fever of excitement by the news that Major Ridge, his son John
Ridge, and Elias Boudinot--all leaders of the treaty party--had been
killed by adherents of the national party, immediately after the
close of a general council, which had adjourned after nearly two
weeks of debate without having been able to bring about harmonious
action. Major Ridge was waylaid and shot close to the Arkansas line,
his son was taken from bed and cut to pieces with hatchets, while
Boudinot was treacherously killed at his home at Park Hill, Indian
territory, all three being killed upon the same day, June 22, 1839.
The agent's report to the Secretary of War, two days later, says of
the affair:
The murder of Boudinot was treacherous and cruel. He was assisting
some workmen in building a new house. Three men called upon him
and asked for medicine. He went off with them in the direction
of Wooster's, the missionary, who keeps medicine, about three
hundred yards from Boudinot's. When they got about half way
two of the men seized Boudinot and the other stabbed him,
after which the three cut him to pieces with their knives and
tomahawks. This murder taking place within two miles of the
residence of John Ross, his friends were apprehensive it might
be charged to his connivance; and at this moment I am writing
there are six hundred armed Cherokee around the dwelling of Ross,
assembled for his protection. The murderers of the two Ridges
and Boudinot are certainly of the late Cherokee emigrants, and,
of course, adherents of Ross, but I can not yet believe that
Ross has encouraged the outrage. He is a man of too much good
sense to embroil his nation at this critical time; and besides,
his character, since I have known him, which is now twenty-five
years, has been pacific.... Boudinot's wife is a white woman, a
native of New Jersey, as I understand. He has six children. The
wife of John Ridge, jr., is a white woman, but from whence, or
what family left, I am not informed. Boudinot was in moderate
circumstances. The Ridges, both father and son, were rich.... [332]
While all the evidence shows that Ross was in no way a party to the
affair, there can be no question that the men were killed in accordance
with the law of the Nation--three times formulated, and still in
existence--which made it treason, punishable with death, to cede away
lands except by act of the general council of the Nation. It was for
violating a similar law among the Creeks that the chief, McIntosh,
lost his life in 1825, and a party led by Major Ridge himself had
killed Doublehead years before on suspicion of accepting a bribe for
his part in a treaty.
On hearing of the death of the Ridges and Boudinot several other
signers of the repudiated treaty, among whom were John Bell,
Archilla Smith, and James Starr, fled for safety to the protection
of the garrison at Fort Gibson. Boudinot's brother, Stand Watie,
vowed vengeance against Ross, who was urged to flee, but refused,
declaring his entire innocence. His friends rallied to his support,
stationing a guard around his house until the first excitement had
subsided. About three weeks afterward the national council passed
decrees declaring that the men killed and their principal confederates
had rendered themselves outlaws by their own conduct, extending
amnesty on certain stringent conditions to their confederates, and
declaring the slayers guiltless of murder and fully restored to the
confidence and favor of the community. This was followed in August
by another council decree declaring the New Echota treaty void and
reasserting the title of the Cherokee to their old country, and
three weeks later another decree summoned the signers of the treaty
to appear and answer for their conduct under penalty of outlawry. At
this point the United States interfered by threatening to arrest Ross
as accessory to the killing of the Ridges. [333] In the meantime the
national party and the Old Settlers had been coming together, and a
few of the latter who had sided with the Ridge faction and endeavored
to perpetuate a division in the Nation were denounced in a council of
the Old Settlers, which declared that "in identifying themselves with
those individuals known as the Ridge party, who by their conduct had
rendered themselves odious to the Cherokee people, they have acted in
opposition to the known sentiments and feelings of that portion of this
Nation known as Old Settlers, frequently and variously and publicly
expressed." The offending chiefs were at the same time deposed from
all authority. Among the names of over two hundred signers attached
that of "George Guess" (Sequoya) comes second as vice-president. [334]
On July 12, 1839, a general convention of the eastern and western
Cherokee, held at the Illinois camp ground, Indian territory, passed
an act of union, by which the two were declared "one body politic,
under the style and title of the Cherokee Nation." On behalf of
the eastern Cherokee the instrument bears the signature of John
Ross, principal chief, George Lowrey, president of the council,
and Going-snake (I'nadû-na'i), speaker of the council, with thirteen
others. For the western Cherokee it was signed by John Looney, acting
principal chief, George Guess (Sequoya), president of the council, and
fifteen others. On September 6, 1839, a convention composed chiefly of
eastern Cherokee assembled at Tahlequah, Indian territory--then first
officially adopted as the national capital--adopted a new constitution,
which was accepted by a convention of the Old Settlers at Fort Gibson,
Indian Territory, on June 26, 1840, an act which completed the reunion
of the Nation. [335]