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Indian Health Summit 2009

July 7-9, 2009
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Denver, Colorado

The Health Summit will be a national gathering of Indian Health professionals and administrative leadership, community health advocates and activists, and Tribal leadership.

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Native Communities

Enhancing the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of Native people and communities

Improving health outcomes, the delivery of services, and the experience of care across ages and health conditions in all settings of the Indian Health System

Preventing diabetes and its complications with plenary presentations, panel discussions, and in-depth, interactive workshops

Interactive learning sessions and special events including:

• Plenary session on the Future of the Indian Health System by Director, Robert McSwain
• Highlights from the Special Diabetes Program for Indians Community-Directed and Demonstration Project Grants
• Update on the Director's Health Initiatives: Health
  Promotion/Disease Prevention, Behavioral Health, and Chronic Care (Director's Initiatives website
• Session tracks on Leadership, Traditional Medicine, Telehealth, Self-Management Support, Delivery System Re-Design and Trauma Care
  

www.ihs.gov/publicinfo/healthsummit

Native American & Alaska Native Heritage Day & Month

Celebrating Tribal Nations: America's Great Partners
State Celebrations

The first American Indian Day to be celebrated in a state was declared on the second Saturday in May 1916 by the governor of New York. Several states celebrate the fourth Friday in September. In Illinois, for example, legislators enacted such a day in 1919. Presently, several states have designated Columbus Day as Native American Day, but it continues to be a day we observe without any legal recognition as a national holiday.

Heritage Month
In 1990 President George Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 as "National American Indian Heritage Month." Similar proclamations have been issued each year since 1994.

National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month is celebrated to recognize the intertribal cultures and to educate the public about the heritage, history, art, and traditions of the American Indian and Alaska Native people. The Creation of National American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month A Brief History Source: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs

American Indian Month
November is National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month -- the perfect time to explore Education World's resources on the history and culture of America's original inhabitants.

Activities to Celebrate Native American Heritage
November is National American Indian Heritage Month. This week, Education World offers 12 lessons to help students learn about Native American history and cultures. Included: Activities that involve students in dramatizing folktales, learning new words, preparing traditional foods, and much more!

Blast stereotypes with across-the-curriculum activities for students of all ages. These activities will help teachers present a balanced portrayal of Native Americans today -- their history, their culture, and their issues.

Office of Tribal Self-Governance

www.ihs.gov/PublicAffairs/Heritage/index.cfm

Indian Health Service
801 Thompson Ave.
Suite 120
Rockville, MD 20852
301-443-5035

We Shall Remain on American Experience Links & Info

We Shall Remain on American Experience Events
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/beyond_broadcast/local_events
Find out about We Shall Remain events organized by your local PBS station, community coalition, public library or tribal community college. Don't see an event in your area? Contact your public library. Libraries across the country have received We Shall Remain event kits.

Native American Entrepreneurs

www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/native_american_entrepreneurs_home

Like all entrepreneurs, Native American entrepreneurs have vision, strength of purpose, and a willingness to take on risk. But, Native Americans who start businesses face unique challenges, and their culture has given them a unique perspective on entrepreneurship.

NBR uncovers this uniqueness in "Native American Entrepreneurs," a series airing three, consecutive Mondays in April. The series is designed as a companion piece to "We Shall Remain," the definitive, multi-media history of Native Americans from PBS's American Experience. "We Shall Remain" also premieres April 13, 2009.

ReelNative
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/reel_native
This unique project offers Native Americans a venue to share their stories with a national audience.

New York
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/newyork/maps/index.html

Manhattan's southern tip has changed dramatically since the Dutch West India Company claimed it from Lenape Indians in 1626 for sixty Dutch guilders. Within 20 years of their arrival, the Dutch were working to fill and extend the natural shoreline. British and American residents continued to alter the island's geography in subsequent centuries.See how Lower Manhattan has changed -- from 17th century Dutch fortress to 21st century financial center.

Remember the Alamo:States of Texas

www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/alamo/maps/index.html
Texas's borders enclose over 170 million acres of land -- grassy prairies, harsh deserts, thick woodlands, and 624 miles of seacoast. The region also boasts many types of animals and plants. With these natural advantages, it supported a diverse population of Native Americans.

Spanish explorers first set foot in Texas in the 16th century, as Spain and France competed to claim New World lands. After years of colonization by Spanish- and English-speaking settlers, the region's residents fought against imperial forces for the right to claim Texas as their own.

From Native American territory to the 28th state in the U.S.A. -- explore all the states of Texas.

The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad on Native American life
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/index.html
In this interview, Donald Fixico, Thomas Bowlus Distinguished Professor of American Indian History and Director of the Center for Indigenous Nations Studies at the University of Kansas, talks about the West before white settlement, the impact of the railroad on Native American life, and the near-extinction of the American buffalo.

Art of George Catlin at the Smithsonian

George Catlin (26 Jul 1796-23 Dec 1872) was an American painter, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.

Biography
Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Following a brief career as a lawyer, he produced two major collections of paintings of American Indians and published a series of books chronicling his travels among the native peoples of North, Central and South America. Claiming his interest in America’s 'vanishing race' was sparked by a visiting American Indian delegation in Philadelphia, he set out to record the appearance and customs of America’s native people.

Catlin began his journey in 1830 when he accompanied General William Clark on a diplomatic mission up the Mississippi River into Native American territory. St. Louis became Catlin’s base of operations for five trips he took between 1830 and 1836, eventually visiting fifty tribes. Two years later he ascended the Missouri River over 3000 km to Ft Union, where he spent several weeks among indigenous people still relatively untouched by European civilization.

He visited eighteen tribes, including the Pawnee, Omaha, and Ponca in the south and the Mandan, Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine, and Blackfeet to the north. There, at the edge of the frontier, he produced the most vivid and penetrating portraits of his career. Later trips along the Arkansas, Red and Mississippi rivers as well as visits to Florida and the Great Lakes resulted in over 500 paintings and a substantial collection of artifacts.

When Catlin returned east in 1838, he assembled these paintings and numerous artifacts into his Indian Gallery and began delivering public lectures which drew on his personal recollections of life among the American Indians. Catlin traveled with his Indian Gallery to major cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and New York. He hung his paintings “salon style”—side by side and one above another—to great effect.

Visitors identified each painting by the number on the frame as listed in Catlin’s catalogue. Soon afterwards he began a lifelong effort to sell his collection to the U.S. government. The touring Indian Gallery did not attract the paying public Catlin needed to stay financially sound, and Congress rejected his initial petition to purchase the works, so in 1839 Catlin took his collection across the Atlantic for a tour of European capitals.

Catlin the showman and entrepreneur initially attracted crowds to his Indian Gallery in London, Brussels, and Paris. The French critic Charles Baudelaire remarked on Catlin’s paintings, “M. Catlin has captured the proud, free character and noble expression of these splendid fellows in a masterly way.”

Catlin’s dream was to sell his Indian Gallery to the U.S. government so that his life’s work would be preserved intact. His continued attempts to persuade various officials in Washington, D.C. failed. He was forced to sell the original Indian Gallery, now 607 paintings, due to personal debts in 1852.

Industrialist Joseph Harrison took possession of the paintings and artifacts, which he stored in a factory in Philadelphia, as security. Catlin spent the last 20 years of his life trying to re-create his collection. This second collection of paintings is known as the "Cartoon Collection" since the works are based on the outlines he drew of the works from the 1830s.

In 1841 Catlin published 'Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians', in two volumes, with about 300 engravings. Three years later he published 25 plates, entitled 'Catlin’s North American Indian Portfolio', and, in 1848, Eight Years’ Travels and Residence in Europe. From 1852 to 1857 he traveled through South and Central America and later returned for further exploration in the Far West.

The record of these later years is contained in Last Rambles amongst the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes (1868) and My Life among the Indians (ed. by N. G. Humphreys, 1909). In 1872, Catlin traveled to Washington, D.C. at the invitation of Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian. Until his death later that year in Jersey City, New Jersey, Catlin worked in a studio in the Smithsonian “Castle.” Harrison’s widow donated the original Indian Gallery—more than 500 works—to the Smithsonian in 1879.

The nearly complete surviving set of Catlin’s first Indian Gallery painted in the 1830s is now part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection. Some 700 sketches are in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

The accuracy of some of Catlin's observations has been questioned. He claimed to be the first white man to see the Minnesota pipestone quarries, and pipestone was named catlinite. Catlin exaggerated various features of the site, and his boastful account of his visit aroused his critics, who disputed his claim of being the first white man to investigate the quarry. Previous recorded white visitors include the Groselliers and Radisson, Father Louis Hennepin, Baron LaHonton and others. Lewis and Clark noted the pipestone quarry in their journals in 1805. Fur trader Philander Prescott had written another account of the area in 1831.

Family
Many historians and descendants believe George Catlin had two families; his acknowledged family on the east coast of the United States, but also a family farther west, started with a Native American woman.

Two other artists of the Old West related to George Catlin by family bloodlines are Frederic Remington and Earl W. Bascom.

Sources
Vaughn, William (2000). Encyclopedia of Artists. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 0-19-521572-9.

Brian Dippe, Christopher Mulvey, Joan Carpenter Troccoli, Therese Thau Heyman (2002). George Catlin and His Indian Gallery. Smithsonian American Art Museum and W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-05217-6.

Steven Conn (2004). History's Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century and University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-11494-5.

References
SAAM: George Catlin and His Indian Gallery

Pipestone County History - National Register of Historic Places Pipestone, Minnesota Travel Itinerary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Catlin

We Shall Remain on American Experience

Check your local PBS Listings but on the West Coast American Experience is generally on at 9 pm.

We Shall Remain is a groundbreaking mini-series and provacative multi-media project that enables Native History as an essential part of American History.

Five 90 minute documentaries spanning three hundred years of pivotal moments in U.S. History from the Native American perspective.

Earthquake Italy

For the latest Earthquake News, Response & Recovery in Italy check out the CDC Disasters Website
http://emergency.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/

Cherokee Nation Organizations

www.cherokee.org

Organizations
Cherokee Nation Owned Businesses

Cherokee Nation Businesses
Cherokee Nation Businesses is the parent company of a diversified portfolio of businesses owned by the Cherokee Nation.

Cherokee Nation Industries
Cherokee Nation Industries operates as a government contractor in the aerospace and defense sector of manufacturing and distribution industries, and has more recently diversified into the telecommunications and services industries.

Cherokee Nation Enterprises
Cherokee Nation Enterprises is the gaming and hospitality arm of the Cherokee Nation. CNE owns and operates Cherokee Casino Resort, six Cherokee Casinos, Cherokee Casino Will Rogers Downs, three hotels, two golf courses and many other retail operations in northeast Oklahoma.

Cherokee CRC
Cherokee CRC is a tribally owned company that provides professional environmental solutions for both the government and private sectors.


Cherokee Services Group
Cherokee Services Group is a general management consulting firm that focuses on the operational needs of medium to large size companies, governmental organizations and American Indian tribes.

Cherokee Gift Shop
Cherokee Nation Gift Shop

Associations

Cherokee Home Health
Cherokee Nation Home Health Services, Inc. is a tribally incorporated not-for-profit home health care agency that is Medicare and Medicaid certified to provide state licensed home health care to all eligible client

Sequoyah Schools
Sequoyah Schools is a regionally and state accredited private school system that provides grades 7-12 and has become the school of choice for more than 400 Native American students every year.
Cherokee Nation Tourism

Talking Leaves Job Corps
Job Corps is a voluntary program for young people who are motivated to learn the skills and work ethic they need to start and sustain their careers.

Cherokee Nation Tourism
Cherokee Nation Cultural Tourism program is designed to promote the Cherokee people's cultural identity thereby nurturing respect for, knowledge of, and economic opportunities for the Cherokee people.

Cherokee Phoenix
The Cherokee Phoenix is an independently operated tribal newspaper covering Cherokee Nation news, events and issues.

Cherokee Heritage Center
The Cherokee Heritage Center offers other interpretive programs and features as well, such as educational workshops and special events, which support their goal for the preservation and promulgation of the Cherokee culture .

Elder Care
Cherokee Nation Comprehensive Care Agency's PACE Mission is to enhance the quality of life and autonomy for frail older adults, while enabling the frail older adult to live in his or her home and in the community for as long as it is medically and socially feasible.
Cherokee Nation Washington Office
The Cherokee Nation Washington Office (CNWO) opened in 2001 to serve as the Cherokee Nation's Government Relations Office in D.C. Our office acts as the liaison between Cherokee Nation tribal citizens and the United States Congress, U.S. Agencies and Administrative Offices, National Organizations and other Tribal Governments.

Crazykid's Cherokee Indian Art

www.crazykidsart.com

Native American Cherokee Indian choker, Bone choker, Hairpipe choker, Hair pipe choker, Native American Jewelry, Wolf Pewter pendant, Leaf, Quija, Ouija, Spirit Board

Check out his craft...he's very good!

Yep, this is me!

My son Matt practicing with his band.


My son Matt the poser!

My family in Photos

Jaren my youngest son


Jaren



Jaren in Pirate Halloween Costume(not at Halloween tho)




My older son Matt & Jaren in
Homer, AK visiting relatives.

The Trail of Tears and the Five Civilized Tribes

The Trail of Tears was the relocation and movement of Native Americans in the United States from their homelands to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States. The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831.

Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations, and many died, including, for example, 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee.

Thousands of enslaved and free African-Americans (as slaves accompanying their Native American slaveowners and as former runaway slaves that were assisted by, assimilated by, or married to members of the tribes) accompanied the removed nations on the Trail of Tears.

In 1831, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, and Seminole (sometimes collectively referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes) were living as autonomous nations in what would be called the American Deep South. The process of cultural transformation (proposed by George Washington and Henry Knox) was gaining momentum, especially among the Cherokee and Choctaw.

Andrew Jackson was the first U.S. President to implement removal of the Native Americans with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In 1831 the Choctaw were the first to be removed, and they became the model for all other removals. After the Choctaw, the Seminole were removed in 1832, the Creek in 1834, then the Chickasaw in 1837, and finally the Cherokee in 1838.

Choctaw Voluntary Removal
In 1832 a young twenty-two year old Harkins wrote the Farewell Letter to the American People. The Choctaw Nation was in what are now the U.S. states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. After a series of treaties starting in 1801, the Choctaw Nation was reduced to 11,000,000 acres.

The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek ceded the remaining country to the United States and was ratified in early 1831. The removals were only agreed to after a provision in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek allowed some Choctaw to remain. George W. Harkins would write to the American people before the removals were to commence.

“ It is with considerable diffidence that I attempt to address the American people, knowing and feeling sensibly my incompetency; and believing that your highly and well improved minds would not be well entertained by the address of a Choctaw. But having determined to emigrate west of the Mississippi river this fall, I have thought proper in bidding you farewell to make a few remarks expressive of my views, and the feelings that actuate me on the subject of our removal ... We as Choctaws rather chose to suffer and be free, than live under the degrading influence of laws, which our voice could not be heard in their formation." George W. Harkins.

Secretary of War Lewis Cass appointed George Gaines to manage the removals. Gaines decided to remove Choctaws in three phases starting in 1831 and ending in 1833. The first was to begin on November 1, 1831 with groups meeting at Memphis and Vicksburg.

A harsh winter would batter the emigrants with flash floods, sleet, and snow. Initially the Choctaws were to be transported by wagon but floods halted them. With food running out, the residents of Vicksburg and Memphis were concerned. Five steamboats (the Walter Scott, the Brandywine, the Reindeer, the Talma, and the Cleopatra) would ferry Choctaws to their river-based destinations.

The Memphis Group traveled up the Arkansas for about 60 miles to The Arkansas Post. There the temperature stayed below freezing for almost a week with the rivers clogged with ice, so there would be no travel for weeks. Food rationing consisted of a handful of boiled corn, one turnip, and two cups of heated water per day.

Forty government wagons were sent to Arkansas Post to transport them to Little Rock. When they reached Little Rock, Choctaw Chief (thought to be Thomas Harkins or Nitikechi) quoted to the Arkansas Gazette that the removal was a "trail of tears and death." The Vicksburg Group was led by an incompetent guide and was lost in the Lake Providence swamps.

“ In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The Indians were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the Chactas were leaving their country. "To be free," he answered, could never get any other reason out of him. We ... watch the expulsion...of one of the most celebrated and ancient American peoples.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.

Nearly 17,000 Choctaws made the move to what would be called Indian Territory and then later Oklahoma About 2,500–6,000 died along the trail of tears. Approximately 5,000–6,000 Choctaws remained in Mississippi in 1831 after the initial removal efforts. The Choctaws who chose to remain in newly formed Mississippi were subject to legal conflict, harassment, and intimidation.

The Choctaws "have had our habitations torn down and burned, our fences destroyed, cattle turned into our fields and we ourselves have been scourged, manacled, fettered and otherwise personally abused, until by such treatment some of our best men have died." The Choctaws in Mississippi were later be formed as The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and the removed Choctaws be called the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Seminole Resistance
The US acquired Florida from Spain via The Adams-Onís Treaty and took possession in 1821. In 1832 the Seminoles were called to a meeting at Payne's Landing on the Ocklawaha River. The treaty negotiated called for the Seminoles to move west, if the land were found to be suitable. They were to be settled on the Creek Reservation and become part of the Creek tribe.

The Seminole Indians who originated from the Creek were considered deserters by the Creek, and the Seminole did not wish to move west to where they were certain that they would meet death for leaving the main band Creek Indians. The delegation of seven chiefs who were to inspect the new reservation did not leave Florida until October 1832. After touring the area for several months and conferring with the Creeks who had already been settled there, the seven chiefs signed on March 28, 1833 a statement that the new land was acceptable.

Upon their return to Florida, however, most of the chiefs renounced the statement, claiming that they had not signed it, or that they had been forced to sign it, and in any case, that they did not have the power to decide for all the tribes and bands that resided on the reservation. The villages in the area of the Apalachicola River were more easily persuaded, however, and went west in 1834.

On December 28, 1835 a group of Seminoles and escaped slaves ambushed a U.S. Army company attempting to forcibly remove the Seminole. Out of 110 army troops only 3 survived, and with that The Second Seminole War had begun.

As the realization that the Seminoles would resist relocation sank in, Florida began preparing for war. The St. Augustine Militia asked the War Department for the loan of 500 muskets. Five hundred volunteers were mobilized under Brig. Gen. Richard K. Call. Indian war parties raided farms and settlements, and families fled to forts, large towns, or out of the territory altogether.

A war party led by Osceola captured a Florida militia supply train, killing eight of its guards and wounding six others. Most of the goods taken were recovered by the militia in another fight a few days later. Sugar plantations along the Atlantic coast south of St. Augustine were destroyed, with many of the slaves on the plantations joining the Seminoles.

Other warchiefs such as Halleck Tustenuggee, Jumper, and Black Seminoles Abraham and John Horse continued the Seminole resistance against the army. The war ended, after a full decade of fighting, in 1842. The U.S. Government is estimated to have spent about $20,000,000 on the war, at the time an astronomical sum. Many Indians were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi; others retreated into the Everglades. In the end, the government gave up trying to subjugate the Seminole in their Everglades redoubts and left fewer than 100 Seminoles in peace.

Creek Dissolution
After The War of 1812, some Muscogee(Creek) leaders such as William McIntosh signed treaties that ceded more land to Georgia. The 1814 signing of The Treaty of Fort Jackson signaled the end for the Creek Nation and for all Indians in the South.

Friendly Creek leaders, like Selocta and Big Warrior, addressed Sharp Knife (the Indian nickname for Andrew Jackson) and reminded him that they keep the peace. Nevertheless, Jackson retorted that they did not "cut (Tecumseh's) throat" when they had the chance, so they must now cede Creek lands. Jackson also ignored Article 9 of the Treaty of Ghent that restored sovereignty to Indians and their nations.

“ Jackson opened this first peace session by faintly acknowledging the help of the friendly Creeks. That done, he turned to the Red Sticks and admonished them for listening to evil counsel. For their crime, he said, the entire Creek Nation must pay. He demanded the equivalent of all expenses incurred by the United States in prosecuting the war, which by his calculation came to 23,000,000 acres of land. ” Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson

Selocta (or Shelocta) was a Muscogee(Creek) chief who appealed to Andrew Jackson to reduce the demands for Creek lands at the signing of The Treaty of Fort Jackson.

Eventually, the Creek Confederacy enacted a law that made further land cessions a capital offense. Nevertheless, on February 12, 1825, McIntosh and other chiefs signed The Treaty of Indian Springs, which gave up most of the remaining Creek lands in Georgia. After the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, McIntosh was assassinated on May 13, 1825 by Creeks led by Menawa.

The Creek National Council, led by Opothle Yohola, protested to the United States that The Treaty of Indian Springs was fraudulent. President John Quincy Adams was sympathetic, and eventually the treaty was nullified in a new agreement, The Treaty of Washington (1826).

Writes historian R. Douglas Hurt: "The Creeks had accomplished what no Indian nation had ever done or would do again -achieve the annulment of a ratified treaty."

However, Governor Troup of Georgia ignored the new treaty and began to forcibly remove the Indians under the terms of the earlier treaty. At first, President Adams attempted to intervene with federal troops, but Troup called out the militia, and Adams, fearful of a civil war, conceded. As he explained to his intimates, "The Indians are not worth going to war over."

Although the Creeks had been forced from Georgia, with many Lower Creeks moving to the Indian Territory, there were still about 20,000 Upper Creeks living in Alabama. However, the state moved to abolish tribal governments and extend state laws over the Creeks.

Opothle Yohola appealed to the administration of President Andrew Jackson for protection from Alabama; when none was forthcoming, The Treaty of Cusseta was signed on March 24, 1832 which divided up Creek lands into individual allotments.

Creeks could either sell their allotments and received funds to remove to the west, or stay in Alabama and submit to state laws. Land speculators and squatters began to defraud Creeks out of their allotments, and violence broke out, leading to the so-called "Creek War of 1836." Secretary of War Lewis Cass dispatched General Winfield Scott to end the violence by forcibly removing the Creeks to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

Chickasaw Monetary Removal
Unlike other tribes who exchanged land grants, the Chickasaw received financial compensation from the United States for their lands east of the Mississippi River. In 1836 the Chickasaws had reached an agreement that purchased land from the previously removed Choctaws after a bitter five-year debate.

They paid the Choctaws $530,000 for the western most part Choctaw land. The first group of Chickasaws moved in 1837 was led by John M. Millard. The Chickasaws gathered at Memphis, Tennessee on July 4, 1837 with all of their assets-belongings, livestock, and slaves. Once across the Mississippi River they followed routes previously established by Choctaws and Creeks. Once in Indian Territory the Chickasaws merged with the Choctaw Nation. After several decades of mistrust, they regained nationhood.

Cherokee Forced Relocation
In 1838, the Cherokee Nation was removed from their lands in the Southeastern United States to the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 4,000 Cherokees.

In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Isunyi—“the Trail Where They Cried”. The Cherokee Trail of Tears resulted from the enforcement of The Treaty of New Echota, an agreement signed under the provisions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which exchanged Native American land in the East for lands west of the Mississippi River, but which was never accepted by the elected tribal leadership or a majority of the Cherokee people.

Tensions between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation were brought to a crisis by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1829, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the first gold rush in U.S. history. Hopeful gold speculators began trespassing on Cherokee lands, and pressure began to mount on the Georgia government to fulfill the promises of The Compact of 1802.

When Georgia moved to extend state laws over Cherokee tribal lands in 1830, the matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Marshall court ruled that the Cherokees were not a sovereign and independent nation, and therefore refused to hear the case. However, in Worcester v. State of Georgia (1832), the Court ruled that Georgia could not impose laws in Cherokee territory, since only the national government — not state governments — had authority in Indian affairs. “ John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it! ”---Andrew Jackson

Jackson probably never said this, but he was fully committed to the policy. He had no desire to use the power of the national government to protect the Cherokees from Georgia, since he was already entangled with states’ rights issues in what became known as the nullification crisis. With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. Congress had given Jackson authority to negotiate removal treaties, exchanging Indian land in the East for land west of the Mississippi River. Jackson used the dispute with Georgia to put pressure on the Cherokees to sign a removal treaty.

Nevertheless, the treaty, passed by Congress by a single vote, and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson, was imposed by his successor President Martin Van Buren who allowed Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama an armed force of 7,000 made up of militia, regular army, and volunteers under General Winfield Scott to round up about 13,000 Cherokees into concentration camps at the U.S. Indian Agency near Cleveland, Tennessee before being sent to the West.

Most of the deaths occurred from disease, starvation and cold in these camps. Their homes were burned and their property destroyed and plundered. Farms belonging to the Cherokees for generations were won by white settlers in a lottery. After the initial roundup, the U.S. military still oversaw the emigration until they met the forced destination.

Private John G. Burnett later wrote "Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter."

“ I fought through the War Between the States and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew. ” ....Georgia soldier who participated in the removal.

In the winter of 1838 the Cherokee began the thousand mile march with scant clothing and most on foot without shoes or moccasins. The march began in Red Clay, Tennessee, the location of the last Eastern capital of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee were given used blankets from a hospital in Tennessee where an epidemic of small pox had broken out. Because of the diseases, the Indians were not allowed to go into any towns or villages along the way; many times this meant traveling much farther to go around them.

After crossing Tennessee and Kentucky, they they arrived in Southern Illinois at Golconda about the 3rd of December, 1838. Here the starving Indians were charged a dollar a head to cross the river on "Berry's Ferry" which typically charged twelve cents. They were not allowed passage until the ferry had serviced all others wishing to cross and were forced to take shelter under “Mantle Rock,” a shelter bluff on the Kentucky side, until “Berry had nothing better to do”.

Many died huddled together at Mantle Rock waiting to cross. Several Cherokee were murdered by locals. The killers filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government through the courthouse in Vienna, suing the government for $35 a head to bury the murdered Cherokee..

On December 26, Martin Davis, Commissary Agent for Moses Daniel's detachment wrote:

"There is the coldest weather in Illinois I ever experienced anywhere. The streams are all frozen over something like eight or twelve inches thick. We are compelled to cut through the ice to get water for ourselves and animals. It snows here every two or three days at the fartherest. We are now camped in Missippi swamp four miles from the river, and there is no possible chance of crossing the river for the numerous quantity of ice that comes floating down the river every day. We have only traveled sixty-five miles on the last month, including the time spent at this place, which has been about three weeks. It is unknown when we shall cross the river...."

Removed Cherokees initially settled near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The political turmoil resulting from the Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears led to the assassinations of Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot; of the leaders of the Treaty Party, only Stand Watie escaped his assassins. The population of the Cherokee Nation eventually rebounded, and today the Cherokees are the largest American Indian group in the United States.

There were some exceptions to removal. Perhaps 100 Cherokees evaded the U.S. soldiers and lived off the land in Georgia and other states. Those Cherokees who lived on private, individually owned lands (rather than communally owned tribal land) were not subject to removal.

In North Carolina, about 400 Cherokees, known as the Oconaluftee Cherokee, lived on land in the Great Smoky Mountains owned by a white man named William Holland Thomas (who had been adopted by Cherokees as a boy), and were thus not subject to removal.

Added to this were some 200 Cherokee from the Nantahala area allowed to stay after assisting the U.S. Army hunt down and capture the family of the old prophet Tsali (Tsali faced a firing squad). These North Carolina Cherokees became the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation.

African-Americans
Enslaved and free African-Americans(as slaves accompanying their Native American slaveowners and as former runaway slaves that were assisted by, assimilated by, or married to members of the tribes) accompanied the Native American nations on the Trail of Tears.

Immediately following Trail of Tears, the status of the surviving enslaved and free African-Americans varied. Upon reaching Indian Territory after the forced removal, the Chickasaw established large farms in which they used Black slaves as laborers.

The Chickasaw Nation recognized the abolition of slavery in 1866; however, Black freedmen weren't granted citizenship by the Chickasaws until the 1890s. Former slaves of the Choctaw Nation were called the Choctaw Freedmen; the Choctaw Freedmen were granted citizenship in the Choctaw Nation in 1885. Source: Wikipedia.

Notes and References

Len Green. "Choctaw Removal was really a "Trail of Tears"". Bishinik, mboucher, University of Minnesota. http://www.tc.umn.edu/~mboucher/mikebouchweb/choctaw/trtears.htm

Nancy C., Curtis. Black Heritage Sites. United States: ALA Editions. p. 543. ISBN 0838906435. http://books.google.com/books?id=Rk7NPRm_nB0C.

Perdue, Theda. "Chapter 2 "Both White and Red"". Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South. The University of Georgia Press. p. 51. ISBN 082032731X.

Harkins, George (1831). "1831 - December - George W. Harkins to the American People" http://anpa.ualr.edu/trailOfTears/letters/1831DecemberGeorgeWHarkinstotheAmericanPeople.htm.

Chris Watson. "The Choctaw Trail of Tears"
http://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/studies/trailoftears.htm

de Tocqueville, Alexis (1835-1840). "Tocqueville and Beaumont on Race"
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/race/indian.html

Satz, Ronald. "The Mississippi Choctaw: From the Removal Treaty of the Federal Agency". in Samuel J. Wells and Roseanna Tuby. After Removal: The Choctaw in Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi. p. 7. ISBN 0878052895.

Baird, David. "The Choctaws Meet the Americans, 1783 to 1843". The Choctaw People. United States: Indian Tribal Series. p. 36. Library of Congress 73-80708.

Walter, Williams. "Three Efforts at Development among the Choctaws of Mississippi". Southeastern Indians: Since the Removal Era. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Missall. Pp. 83-85 & 93-94.

Covington, James W. 1993. The Seminoles of Florida. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1196-5. Pp. 145-6

Remini, Robert. "The Creek War: Victory". Andrew Jackson. History Book Club.
p. 226, 228, 231. ISBN 0965063106.

Oklahoma State University Library. "INDIAN AFFAIRS: LAWS AND TREATIES. Vol. 2, Treaties". Digital.library.okstate.edu
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/cre0214.htm

Hurt, R. Douglas (2002). The Indian Frontier, 1763-1846 (Histories of the American Frontier)
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. p. 148. ISBN 0826319661.

Oklahoma State University Library. "INDIAN AFFAIRS: LAWS AND TREATIES. Vol. 2, Treaties". Digital.library.okstate.edu
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/cre0341.htm

Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma:
www.cherokee.org/Culture/CulInfo/TOT/58/Default.aspx

Remini, Andrew Jackson, p. 257, Prucha, Great Father, p. 212.
Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees By James Mooney, P. 130

Birthday Story of Private John G. Burnett, Captain Abraham McClellan’s Company, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry, Cherokee Indian Removal, 1838-39", Cherokee Nation official site
http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/CulInfo/TOT/128/Default.aspx

Remini, Robert. "Invasion". The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. Grove Press.
p. 170. ISBN 080213680X.

Illinois General Assembly - HJR0142
Adams, Mattie Lorraine. Family Tree of Daniel and Rachel Davis. Duluth, Georgia: Claxton Printing Company, 1973.

"Top 25 American Indian Tribes for the United States: 1990 and 1980".
U.S. Bureau of the Census. August 1995
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/race/indian/ailang1.txt

"African American Lives 2 . Profiles . Don Cheadle". PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/profiles/cheadle.html

"The Choctaw Freedmen of Oklahoma"
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/8-chocfreed.htm

"1885 Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Admitted To Citizenship"
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/admt.htm

Appeal of the Cherokee Nation Anderson, William L., ed. Cherokee Removal: Before and After. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1991.

Carter, Samuel. Cherokee Sunset: A Nation Betrayed. New York: Doubleday, 1976. ISBN 0-385-06735-6.

Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. ISBN 0-385-23953-X.

Foreman, Grant. Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932, 11th printing 1989. ISBN 0-8061-1172-0.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Volume I. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8032-3668-9.

Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars. New York: Viking, 2001. ISBN 0-670-91025-2.

Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. ISBN 0-8090-1552-8 (paperback); ISBN 0-8090-6631-9 (hardback).

Documents
Cherokee Indian Removal Debate U.S. Senate, April 15-17, 1830
Winfield Scott's Address to the Cherokee Nation, May 10, 1838
Gen. Winfield Scott's Order to U.S. Troops

Documentary
The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy (2006) -directed by Chip Richie; na by James Earl Jones