Journal of a Cherokee boy

Dark Days
I hate the white people, if I could drive them all out of my land I would. My father seems to forget that at 16 I am a man, and he tells me to hush my voice that I should not hate people, but I do.1

We live by their customs, we move our borders constantly, we give into every disgusting command and insult and still the greedy Americans come for our land. Never are they satisfied. They want more and more forcing my people to squeeze tighter and tighter into a corner from which there seems to be no return. We are a dying tribe.
But not just my people the Cherokee, all of the Indian peoples are fading away consumed and forgotten along with the land and the trees. It makes my head hurt, and my heart angry. 2

Major Ridge thinks that he knows what’s best for our people, he thinks that we should give in once again and move ourselves for the greedy government. I side with Chief John Ross. He says we should stay on the land of our people, that we are humans just like the whites and have every right that they do, including the right to keep our own land. My father agrees with Major Ridge though, he wants to move our family immediately to the territory the government has so generously set out for us. Generous, Ha! It is only the dregs of the land that the whites haven’t found a way to live on yet, and when they do they will come and try to move us again. My Grandfather does not agree with my father he is willing to fight and die for our land. I think my father is a coward.3

Trouble4

The court has decided that the Cherokee are a sovereign nation and cannot be moved, my Grandfather and Chief John are very pleased about this, but my father is uneasy he says President Jackson is not so happy with this arrangement, he thinks there will still be trouble. 5

Later6

There has been trouble, President Jackson sent a representative to Major Ridge last night and they signed a treaty, the sniveling Ridge signed away our land to the greedy president and his greedy white people. I don’t understand why they think we are any different from them, we are people. It is our land, we were here first long before any of their pasty faces ever sailed across the big ocean and landed on our continent, and we helped them, over and over we helped them. We didn’t kill them because of there color, or refuse them aid because the land and food was ours. We helped them. And now they are like a dog gone wild, snatching up anything and everything they can get, disrespecting our customs and our people, disrespecting the land, and like a mad dog they need to be killed, or pushed out of our land. I hate all the white people and I hate Ridge.7

Moving Out.8

Chief John has pled with the government to take back the treaty, he said that it wasn’t the will of the people and that Ridge had no right to speak on behalf of the people. The president refused though and today the soldiers came to move us to the new territory far in the west. We would not have had time to pack but my father knew that they were going to come and had us pack what we needed this morning. Grandfather wanted to stay and fight them, he argued strongly with Chief John but understood that many of our people would die perhaps all of us, and no amount of land is worth that. So we head out but grandfather doesn’t like it, and neither do I. I hate the white people, but I do not have to hate Major Ridge anymore, Chief John sent men to have him killed like the traitor he is. Both he and his son are dead and the rest of his family has already been removed to the new territory. I can no longer find the strength to hate him, I am only sad that I must leave my home forever.9

Walking
I have almost more time to write now that all I have to do is watch over my little sister Sari, and find my mother at meal times. The walking is hard, but we are not a poor family and we are actually related to Chief John, my Grandmothers sister on my mother’s side was his mother. So we have status of a sort, but still we are walking. We have a small wagon but it is needed to hold supplies and to carry the very old people in our clan who cannot walk all that long way. I have tried to convince grandfather to ride but he refuses. The pride in his heart is making him forget the pain in his bones. 10

Camp.
It is a poor camp we make tonight there will never be enough supplies to go around and we must share our own with our people because that’s what a clan does. Someone shot one of the soldiers horses today, the soldier was so angry he shot wildly into us and injured a small boy his family wanted to kill the man but chief John said to let it go, if one of the white men are killed we could all lose our lives. So we ate horse tonight and one white soldier stares murderously at us from the white men’s camp. They hate us as much as we hate them.11

Before Sleep.12

I turn 17 tomorrow. If we still lived at home my mother would have made me kanuchi, as it is the season for hickory nuts. Kanuchi is one of my favorite foods, its mainly made of ground hickory nuts and hominy and its served as a sort of soupy mixture, and I remember the way my mother makes it and she sneaks in a spoon full of sugar for me too even though my father says I am a man and should do without such an addiction as sugar. But there will be no Kanuchi out here on the road we have not brought any of the little balls my grandmother and mother made last week, with us. And there is simply not time. My mother is so worried about what life will be like for us in the Indian territory that I doubt she will remember my turning day anyway. It is not so important to me though, even I am worried.
I am running out of paper to write all these thoughts down, I think that tomarrow I will go look at some trees I saw that I might be able to cut thin slats out of and write on, at least until I can make more paper. My mother originally made me my book of paper she spent many nights shaving sticks into little fine pieces and saving the shavings, she mixed them with water and some of the glue father buys at the store in the white part of town, when all of that is mixed together you simply have to strain it into something flat and let the strained sheet dry out and you have paper. She made it for me, I think, because she is so proud that I can write and she wants me to record some of what life is like now, so that my children and my children’s children will know. I understand what she means, but more and more I just feel like it helps writing my frustrations and little happiness’s out here.
Tomorrow we move on again turning day or no, my grandmother is sick and my mother worries that she will die before we make it to our new home. The soldiers stare at us a lot as if we are some strange attraction sold by a peddler. But the towns we pass through are worse. The people come and stand and stare and say nothing. They just have this hungry look in their eye like they will leap forward at any second and devour us. Grandmother cries constantly now, tears just seeping out of her face from every where at once it seems and leaving her always shimmering in the sunlight.
I hate the white people. 13

Turning Day14

I am 17 years old, there was no kanuchi as I expected but my wonderful mother has not forgotten my birthday. She made corn cakes and found somewhere some honey too which she faithfully put on my cake despite the angry looks of my father. I shared my honey with Sari and I tried to give some to Grandfather but he wouldn’t have any instead he went to find Chief Ross. Later he came back with carved flute pipe of sorts which he had been saving for such a day that I thought I deserved it. I asked him if he though I deserved it now and he said yes I did, but more than that the camp could use some music at such terrible times as these. Grandmother is only getting sicker and my mother has taken to having Sari and herself sleep with her so they can keep her warm. I hope she gets better. Grandfather is very worried for her.
I met a little boy today who has just joined our party with his uncle. He is quiet and has a sad expression always on his face. His uncle asked me to watch him for a while as he confrenced with Chief John. He told me the boys name is Samuel, and that both his parents are dead. The party they came from has much fewer supplies and many of them have already died. I cannot imagine having less supplies than we have, as it is I know my parents are skipping meals so that Grandmother and Sari have enough food. Samuel is 9 which is close to Sari’s age so I will see if she can cheer him up at all.
The boy who the soldier shot 2 days ago died today, his wound was infected and he left the world in a burning fever.
I hate the white people.15

Bad days16

Grandmother died today.
I hate the white people.17

Samuel Talks18

Grandmother passed away in her sleep the other day, I was to angry to write about it. If we had been able to stay she would not have had to go through all this stress of moving and walking and cold nights and not enough food. I thought about killing another of the soldiers horses today to guarantee food for tonight but just as I had made up my mind a strange thing happened. Samuel was with me, he is like my shadow now following me silently even when I tried to leave him with mother and Sari. He hadn’t spoken a single word since his mother died I was told and I was about to go shoot a tired looking horse when his hand shot out and he whispered “ there’s a deer” and there was in a little copse of trees not 500 feet away a big buck and 3 doe’s scrounged at the bases of the trees for roots and leaves. Without pausing to wonder at he boys sudden talkativeness I shot the buck and drew again and got one of the doe’s before the other 2 realized their companions were dead and ran off. I didn’t have to tell Samuel what to do next he ran off and got my mother and grandfather to help me haul the carcasses to the wagon for preparation at camp. The march stopped for no one. We draw close to camp again, there is a rumor that the soldiers will take one of my deer for their own meal. I hate the white people. 19

Camp 20

It is very cold and there is not much wood to make fires, my Grandfather has been this far before and realized we would be camping in an area of sparse trees so he has had many of the camp children gathering branches and logs and stacking them in the various wagons our party has and also carrying whatever couldn’t be fit into the crowded wagons. So we have some wood now, we are camping near a small sized town. I have heard a family of white people are going to accompany us part of the way from here. They wanted safe conduct to some of the land the government is selling them. And so they are tagging on with us. They are free and do as they wish and we are prisoners I do not understand this logic. There was good food tonight. Some of the soldiers tried to take one of the deer, but we fiercely guarded it and they were so offended and apparently hungry themselves that they killed one of their own horses and used parts of it for food. We are staying at this camp for 3 days. The Soldier men want to partake in some of the pleasures of the town I think. I hate white people. 21

Leaving Camp22

Samuel talks to me now, he’s not talkative with me, but he wont speak at all with anyone else. He speaks to me when he has something to say. And again today he provided some useful information. As we were packing up camp to move on he told me he saw the family that is to join us. There is the father and the mother a little boy about 3 years old and a girl he said 15 or 16. I shake my head there will be trouble with the soldiers. They haven’t been with their own people for far to long, already we are leaving because the towns leader has asked us to move on, not because of our tainting presence, but because the soldiers raped 2 girls in the town and caused more than one brawl. The anxious sheriff told them to move us out of here before some angry fathers forget that its against the law to assault a military person. Samuel told me of the girl and I just had to laugh a sad cruel laugh, there would definitely be trouble. I hate white people. 23

More Walking, 24

I find myself in an odd position, the white family who has joined us turns out to be a mission family and very sympathetic to our cause. The father has come around to all the families and offered to share the supplies he is bringing with him to his new mission settlement. His daughters name is Rebecca and she is 16, her mother and her have attached themselves to my mother who is busy with taking care of the sick people. Both white women work very hard and ungrudgingly to help those who are sick. Since our party left 6 people have died and we are not even half way there. Grandfather is sick with a coughing sickness, if he dies I wont be able to bear it.
Sari watches the little white boy while the women work and Samuel and I tend to ourselves, walking on the edge of the march watching for game or anything edible or even useful to add to our supplies. The nights are colder and colder it helps sometimes to stuff grass into our clothes at night. Game is scarcer and scarcer, I am afraid we will starve. It is a horrible thought to think of little Sari or mother starving to death, or even of brave Samuel. I cant let it happen. I hate the white soldiers. 25

Bad Trouble.26

One of the soldiers is dead, I almost killed him, but it was Samuel in the end who ended the mans life.
It was near the noon meal and Samuel and I were patrolling as usual along the edges of the walking crowds looking for food. The party was crossing a small stream and we were trailing along behind following a rabbit we thought we had seen. When Samuels sharp eyes saw a bad thing in progress. Rebecca was at the creek filling buckets of water to replenish the camps supply or for the special needs of my mother or some errand. She was filling a bucket when a young soldier came up and started talking to her, she shook her head and tried to grab her buckets and go back to the camp he pushed her to the ground and that’s when Samuel and I made our move, I didn’t know that Samuel was even moving with me, and really I didn’t know why I moved I hated white people and these where to white people having there own problems. Rebecca was white why should I care. None of these thoughts registered in my mind I just ran and before I knew it I was on the man pulling him off of the screaming white girl no one could hear us of course we were to far from the camp. I beat him back and off of her, I chased him all the way into the water he could only have been a couple years older than me and he wasn’t fuelled by the intense hatred and anger that was consuming my mind. I strangled him under the water and finally let him go when I realized what was happening. I jumped back, and stared at him terror suddenly filling the place of my anger. Rebecca had run back to camp by now leaving her buckets and I was alone with a half drowned white man, a white soldier. They would kill me for assault. Just as I was thinking this Samuel streaked out of the surrounding undergrowth and pounced on the prone white man. He held a huge rock in his hands and he jumped on the mans chest his little knees on either side of his head and brought the rock down squarely in the dazed mans face as hard as he could crushing his skull and he did it again and again until I pulled him off the corpse. I gagged at the bloody gore and brains spilling into the water. And I held Samuel until he stopped struggling against me. Then I just sat on the ground and hugged him to me as he cried a months worth of tears into my shoulder. Finally after about 30 minutes we washed our faces and hands and filled the abandoned buckets up river from the corpse. We arrived at camp late but with water and 2 rabbits.
I hate soldiers.27


More Bad News28

We expected and uproar when we go to camp but there was none. They hadn’t noticed the missing soldier or our own long absence. But other things were bad. My father was dead, it was an accident the soldiers had seen a rabbit and shot at it as it ran through camp they missed and shot my father, he died instantly. Without ever seeing the land he had so eagerly left our home for. My mother was devastated and my grandfather sullen, Sari cried and cried and Samuel went and sat with her along with Thomas the 3 year old white child, he cried because Sari cried and it scared him. The soldiers didn’t even go looking for there missing man until late that night. When they finally found him in the creek they were to tired to be very angry and they said it looked like he had slipped and had his head crushed under a wagon wheel or a horse hoof. They didn’t say anything else about it. Samuel and I exchanged sick looks. Rebecca looked around ashamedly as if it had been her fault. She hadn’t said anything to her parents. Well that was her business. Before I went to sleep she found me and sheepishly thanked me for saving her, I told her that it was something anyone would have done but she shook her head sadly and I knew what she meant no other Indian would have saved her probably. They would have looked the other way. I told her not to worry about it anymore. Her eyes got all teary and for a weird second I thought how pretty she looked in the moonlight then I shook my head and she left and Samuel came to sleep near me, he had nightmares that night and for many nights afterward, he would wake in his sleep and stare at the moon with tears running down his cheeks. I know because I was awake crying too.
I don’t hate white people, and I don’t hate soldiers. I don’t hate anyone, I just want to be free, to be able to live and be treated like I am a free man. I can only hope for the future.29