Mr. Dreamer, Sam and Kate passed through the door from Moore's Creek Battlefield and now find themselves on the Trail of
Tears. Mr. Dreamer explains.) There were many Native Americans and they looked weary and old beyond their years. The rag tag band was scattered in front of the children, broken into small groups. Several had campfires going
to ward off the cold.
"What are they doing, Mr. Dreamer?" Kate asked.
"This is a stockade, kids, a temporary camp. These people are being relocated, taken from their ancestral homelands and forced to move. They
don't want to go."
"Then why are they going? Why don't they just refuse?" Sam asked.
"That's easier said than done, Sam. This is the year 1838 and not everyone has the right to vote. In fact, some people have no
rights at all. Native Americans have very little voice in their future.
"These people were first interred here, then forced to march to what is being called "Indian Territory" in Oklahoma. North Carolina Cherokees aren't
the only Native Americans who were treated this way. Almost all of the Cherokee Nation in the southeastern portion of this country – including Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia – were driven from their lands," Mr. Dreamer said.
Kate watched as one of the men gathered small game animals together. The men had killed the game during the day's walk.
"Ew. What are they doing with those dead squirrels?" She wrinkled her nose.
"They're
going to eat them, my dear young lady. There weren't any hamburger stands back in the 1800s," Mr. Dreamer said.
"I'd rather starve than eat a dead squirrel," Kate said.
"If you'd been on that march, you might truly
have starved. Those squirrels and the other game the men killed had to feed a lot of people. They were given very little to eat – just some grains," he said. "When they reach the last leg of their journey west, many will die from
hunger and exposure."
"That's terrible! Why would anyone chase them off their lands?" Sam asked as a Native American woman began to clean the squirrels to prepare them for cooking. Mr. Dreamer explained the Cherokees were
being relocated because of a treaty signed by some of the Cherokee leaders in 1835. However, the Cherokee's Chief, John Ross, did not sign the treaty.
"But the treaty was enforced anyway because white men wanted their lands
and that was the easiest way to get them," he said.
"But that's stealing!" Kate said.
Mr. Dreamer nodded. "Yes, it is, Kate." He then explained that only one group of Cherokees were unaffected and they lived in the mountains
of North Carolina.
"Their descendants live there still," he added. As for those who were forced to go on the march, many died before they reached Oklahoma.
"The Cherokee Nation was decimated. Of the 16,000 Cherokees who
made the journey, one-fourth of them died. That's 4,000 people. Let's put this in perspective, kids: How many students are in your class at school?"
"About 25, I guess," Sam said. Kate nodded in agreement.
"If all the kids in
your class were Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, then at least six of them would die before you reached the end. Every fourth person."
"Oh, that's so sad. Why did so many people die, Mr. Dreamer?" Kate asked.
"Some
were stranded on this side of the Mississippi during the winter. It was a terribly cold one and extremely harsh. The very old and the sick found the going difficult. Those who died were buried right where they fell, on the side of
the trail," he said.
"But that's not right," Sam said. "How did the government get away with it?"
Mr. Dreamer shrugged his shoulders. "The man who was president at the time – Andrew Jackson – was determined to
enforce the treaty. But it wasn't just him – there were others who also favored it. A few Cherokees refused to go, turning renegade and hiding out in the mountains. Their descendants still live on the reservation in those
mountains," he said.
Sam and Kate watched as a group of children were playing. The boys had a target affixed to a tree and were practicing shooting their bows and arrows at it. They were remarkably good at it.
Several women were pounding corn to make meal for bread, while smaller children played quietly nearby. Kate felt terribly sad, knowing that some of the people she was seeing wouldn't make it to their new home.
"I can't understand how anybody could be so mean," she said.
"It's hard to believe, but Native Americans were looked upon as barely human by some people. Now we've grown to treasure their culture, their beauty and
their reverence for nature. For them, the coming of the colonists was the beginning of the end of their way of life," Mr. Dreamer said.
