The Wild West 3: Trail of Tears

 One of the most horrific times in history came when treaties and deals with Native Americans were broken. In 1836, US troops rounded up Cherokee tribes with acts of extreme violence and forced them across the country. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, there, this episode contains material that may be uncomfortable
to hear. Please take care while listening. Some of them
lived nomadic lives and followed the seasons and the animals.
Others preferred to stay in one place and work the land,
growing crops like sunflowers, corn, pumpkin, and more. Nomadic or

(00:24):
agricultural indigenous people relied on their hunting skills to provide food.
No part of the animal went unused. As we've always heard,
the meat fed them, and the pelts clothed and sheltered them.
Even the bones could be used both for weapons and tools.
Although cultures sometimes varied, they shared similar rituals. Some followed

(00:45):
leaders instead of rulers, and above all, a sense of
community was stronger than individualism. The people marked the seasons
and celebrated their triumphs and losses together. In their mind,
the land and the animals that roamed it sacred and
life giving. Across North America, some eighteen million indigenous people

(01:05):
lived in harmony with nature, earth and sky, water and animals.
The Native Americans believed that they were at one with
all of it. Others, though, felt that they were above it.
To them, nature was something to conquer. In fourteen ninety two,
Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean. A little over a
century later, Europeans landed on the shores of North America

(01:27):
in droves, bringing their own cultures, and they also brought disease.
You have to remember the native populations had no prior
exposure to things like smallpox, chicken pox, typhoid, leptospirosis, influenza,
or bubonic plague. Those were European illnesses, not global things,
and the results were devastating. Smallpox had one of the

(01:50):
highest mortality rates of them all, and it spread like wildfire.
Half of the entire Cherokee population died from smallpox during
an outbreak in seventeen thirty eight. Twenty years later, half
the Cataba tribes succumbed. European settlers traveled across the country,
and everywhere they went they carried the disease. Some historians
estimate that smallpox killed roughly ninety percent of indigenous tribes

(02:14):
across the continent. Folks back then didn't have a clear
view on how disease worked, though, and so settlers took
the death toll as a sign from the heavens. In
their minds, God himself had chosen them to tame and
inherit the land, and he was clearing the way. Plymouth,
Massachusetts settler William Bradford wrote in horrific detail of the

(02:36):
slow and miserable deaths that God had bestowed on the
Native Americans. Disease rendered them unable to care for themselves
or their families. Entire communities starved or became dehydrated. God,
he wrote, was good. He had provided for the English
by killing others. Please tell me that you can see

(02:56):
the hypocrisy in that. And while these diseases also killed
plenty of settlers, they mostly had immunity from prior exposure
and didn't take long before Europeans quickly learned that spreading
the disease was an effective weapon against the Native Americans,
and if they killed off the indigenous people, they could
take over their land. Correspondence between British Commander and Chief

(03:19):
Sir Jeffrey Amherst and Colonel Henry Bouquet discussed spreading diseases
as a warfare tactic. So when an outbreak of smallpox
hit Fort Pitt in seventeen sixty three, the British gifted
local tribal leaders with blankets from the fort's smallpox ward
in the hopes of infecting them. It all sounds incomprehensible,

(03:41):
and it was. But unfortunately for the indigenous people, the
newcomers had a few more plans. Settlers wanted the land
and all that it offered for their own. Only one
thing stood in their way, the people already living there.
And if disease wouldn't kill off the Native Americans, they
would simply come up with even more sinister methods to

(04:01):
do it. I'm Aaron Mankee, and welcome to the wild West.
When colonists wanted more land for farming, they took it,
often by force. And I need to make this clear.
This isn't biased propaganda. This is documented, historical fact. The

(04:24):
story tells itself, and the story is tragic and dark.
Far too many looked upon the Indigenous people as inconsequential.
They saw their religions and beliefs as inferior to their own,
and when tribes fought back or resisted, that made them
the savages. It didn't matter to many of the settlers
if the Native Americans had fought at their sides. During

(04:46):
the French and Indian War in seventeen fifty four, they
still pushed those tribes off their own land and then
forced them farther and farther west. When the war ended
in seventeen sixty three, King George the Third made a
surprising announcement. Native Americans had a right to keep their
sacred land. No longer could English settlers travel across the

(05:06):
indigenous territory west of the Appalachian Mountains, and no longer
could they steal the indigenous people's land and take it
for their own. The king acknowledged the tribes who fought
alongside England, and his proclamation sought to end the fraud
and abuse that the indigenous peoples had suffered. Native American
sovereignty was to be protected, he said so. The Crown

(05:29):
actually dedicated troops to protect the border between the colonists
and the Native Americans. Indigenous people gathered by the thousands
in Niagara to celebrate. They vowed to be at peace
with their British neighbors. But the king's declaration angered many
of the colonists. They believed that they had fought for
that land and it was theirs for the taking. As

(05:50):
a result, most settlers simply ignored the proclamation. Once the
revolutionary war was over, there was a new government to
write new laws designed to take Indigenous place, and yes,
while they did acknowledge that the land belonged to the
Native people, they claimed that such uncivilized and savage peoples
were incapable of managing it well. They didn't stop and

(06:12):
remember that the tribes had managed perfectly well for thousands
of years before the first Europeans ever set foot in
North America. So the new United States government granted themselves
the right to supervise Native American land in seventeen eighty six.
They offered reservations granting the Indigenous people who chose to
move there and live on them the ability to govern

(06:33):
the land as an independent nation decline, and while there
would be conflict, greed for more and more land pretty
much guaranteed that even the newest treaties wouldn't last. Americans
kept pushing westward, forcing more Native Americans off their land
as they expanded, and although President James Monroe expressed concern
for the plights of Indigenous people, his administration continued to

(06:56):
remove those living in states north of Ohio, often with
bloody and devastating results. Some pushed back Chief dacumsa of
the Shawnee tribe tried to control the number of settlers
taking over his people's ancestral territory, but military officer William
Henry Harrison forced them north. When the War of eighteen
twelve broke out, Tacumsa and the Shawnee naturally sided with

(07:19):
the British, and they weren't alone, but the American military
played dirty. They would specifically seek out tribes that were
at war with each other and then become allies with
one of the sides to help them decimate the other.
It wasn't about finding allies, though, it was about lowering
the overall Native American population to prevent them from resisting colonization,

(07:40):
and all along the United States continued to make treaties
with Native Americans in an effort to appear peaceful, but
conflicts and the ever present threat of violence between Indigenous
people and settlers remained a regular occurrence. Given their dwindling
populations any increasing number of settlers with ample weapons, some
tribes felt that they had no choice but to accept.

(08:02):
If they rejected these offers, they would be attacked. At
least in acceptance, there was a chance they might find
some safety for their people. Unfortunately, those promises weren't worth much.
The US Senate refused to ratify treaties, leaving most tribes
without a voice or recourse to prevent their removal or eradication.
Seeing no viable way to avoid deadly attacks on their people,

(08:24):
many tribes reluctantly gave in. The Cherokee, however, did not.
The Cherokee language has some similarities to tribes who once
lived in the Great Lakes region. They spoken the Iroquoian
family of languages, indicating that they might have once lived

(08:46):
in northern areas. Harmony and balance with nature were essential
to the Cherokee. To them all, life possessed a great
and intelligent spirit. When they hunted, they asked for the
animal's forgiveness. When they harvested plants, they took only what
they needed, often leaving three of every four plants. They
settled in the hills that make up the modern American

(09:07):
states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina, and
when a few Europeans began settling in that same area,
the Cherokee accepted their new neighbors, but the shift in
power between colonists and the British changed that relationship. The
Cherokee started to notice how the white settlers began treating
other tribes. The destruction and genocide they witnessed prompted them

(09:31):
to try a different approach to their survival. By adopting
more European practices and ingratiating themselves with their new neighbors,
The Cherokee hoped to find peace. Their life and their
land depended on striking a balance between their own heritage
and this new European culture. During the War of eighteen twelve,
they even offered their warriors to fight against the British,

(09:54):
and their assistance proved highly beneficial to General Andrew Jackson's success.
Friendship and and bravery, though wouldn't be enough to save
the Cherokee people. Their new allies would soon betray them.
In eighteen twenty eight, General Andrew Jackson rose to the presidency. Unfortunately,
that same year, settlers discovered gold on Cherokee land in Delanaga, Georgia,

(10:16):
and it would be the Cherokee people's demise. They'd be
wrong if they expected President Jackson to be thankful for
their help. In his rise to the presidency, Jackson and
the administration ignored signed treaties American officials, held lotteries and
gave away ancestral land to white prospectors, all without the
Cherokee people's consent, and then the State of Georgia stripped

(10:39):
away the Cherokee people's rights. After June first of eighteen thirty,
the government forbade them to conduct tribal business. The Cherokee
could no longer mine on their own land, and the
state deemed any and all laws pertaining to the Cherokee
nation were null and void, even denying them the right
to testify in American court. John Ross wouldn't let his

(11:00):
people be silenced, nor would he allow the government to
take his people's homeland. Although not fully Cherokee, Ross had
affluents that most Cherokee did not. His father had provided
his children with excellent schooling, hiring a teacher before sending
them to other schools and academies. He never forgot his roots, though,
while he wore American clothing, Ross celebrated his native heritage

(11:23):
and grew up with traditional Cherokee customs thanks to his
mother and grandmother. His father had been a Scottish trader,
and Ross had followed in his footsteps. Owning a trading
post helped Ross become more successful than most men, regardless
of his race. The experience made Ross a good businessman.
He and other Cherokee men who helped the Americans fight

(11:45):
against the British in the War of eighteen twelve had
done so without pay, not out of choice, but because
the military only paid white soldiers. The settlers may have
considered Ross a lesser American, but the Cherokee people welcomed
his mixed heritage. Ross's education, his business experience, and his
familiarity with the tribe earn him a spot as the

(12:07):
tribe's negotiator with the US government. President Jackson's address to
the public in eighteen thirty came as a blow to
the Cherokee. He and his administration made it clear that
they intended to remove Indigenous people from their ancestral land.
Jackson insisted that removing Native Americans was an act of
generosity and kindness because it would prevent further conflicts with settlers.

(12:30):
The president stated that the government would be generous enough
to give the Cherokee people large amounts of territory, not
where they already lived, though, but elsewhere. He also added
that their removal would finally give the Indigenous people happiness
and suggested that perhaps they might also give up their
savage habits and become more Christian. Jefferson even claimed that

(12:52):
he envied the Cherokee that away from white civilization, they'd
be permitted to purchase land. Ultimately, it didn't matter that
the Chairoerocke already had large amounts of land and were
perfectly happy living there before it was stolen from them.
Of course, Ross had heard enough. He traveled to Washington,
hoping to stop the government from stealing the land his

(13:13):
people rightfully owned. What happened next, though, has left a
permanent stain on American history. John Ross thought about how
to handle the situation. What he hadn't considered was opposition
from a former ally, Major Ridge. Together they had shared

(13:35):
a lot of history, working together to build a stronger
bond between settlers and the Cherokee nation. But now Ridge
had begun urging the Cherokee to pack up and leave.
To him, getting something for the tribe was better than
getting nothing. But it wasn't the path forward that Ross
had envisioned for his people. Other politicians chimed in, of course,

(13:57):
all wanting the same thing, the removal of the chaerity Muskogee, Seminole, Choctaws,
and other tribes from the land that the white settlers wanted,
and in the spring of eighteen thirty, Congress announced that
this theft was necessary and that staying would be detrimental
to their well being. Officials claimed that removal was a

(14:17):
good thing instead of what it really was, a not
so thinly veiled threat. One New York representative even claimed
that he was in full support of the bill, offering
refuge to Native Americans leaving of their own free will.
The Cherokee and other tribes, of course, had no choice
or free will. Compatriot David Crockett voiced his opinion that

(14:39):
the removal was unjust and wicked, but when he staunchly
opposed the bill, his colleagues warned him that supporting the
Native Americans would ruin him and his career. Ross also
arrived to speak his own mind. In his Washington speech
to officials, He stated that if all men were created equal,
then his people and other tribes should have an equal voice.

(15:01):
But Congress made their answer to Ross's question of equality
crystal clear when they passed the Indian Removal Act on
May twenty sixth of eighteen thirty in Georgia, white settlers celebrated.
The Cherokee and others, however, were left in tears. Although
the politicians had dismissed his arguments and please, John Ross

(15:22):
continued to advocate for his people. Instead, Congress went back
on their word from previous treaties, and they also refused
to pay the Cherokee Nation for the land they intended
to take. So Ross took the Cherokee people's plight to
the Supreme Court and at persistence, almost paid off. On
March third of eighteen thirty two, the Court's ruled that

(15:43):
according to the prior treaties, Georgia had no authority regarding
Cherokee land. As you might expect, the Georgians, who were
looking to take over the valuable territory were outraged. Ross's
former ally, Major Ridge, continued to work behind his back.
He began treating to gushiations with the Jackson administration without
approval from the Cherokee Nation. In fact, when it was

(16:05):
all said and done, not one tribal official had been
allowed to sign Ridge's treaty. Six years later, in eighteen
thirty eight, over fifteen thousand Cherokee petitioned the document by then,
many settlers had begun to sympathize with their Native American neighbors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson appealed to the administration, urging them to
prevent an outrage against the Cherokee people. Many empathetic settlers

(16:30):
recalled how one of the Cherokee, a man named Junalusca,
had saved Andrew Jackson's life during the War of eighteen twelve.
They reminded Jackson of how he had declared his friendship
toward that Cherokee for and I quote as long as
the sun shines and the grass grows. Instead, Jackson sent
General John E. Wool to recruit thousands of volunteers to

(16:51):
forcibly remove the Cherokee, But during Wull's time with the tribe,
he realized the government had misled the American people regarding
the treaty. Wool began to fear the worst. He would
be forced to remove the people that he had come
to care about from their own homes by gunpoints if necessary.
When he expressed his concerns for the Cherokee people, Wool

(17:12):
was promptly relieved of his post. The annihilation of the
Cherokee people came in eighteen thirty eight. US troops stormed
into homes during the evening meal, shoving bayonets at anyone
who defied them. Troops took anything of value they could carry,
and those who resisted were beaten. Soldiers herded the Cherokee people,

(17:33):
children at play and adults at work in the fields,
and forced them like cattle into holding camps. If anyone
tried to flee, the troops shot and killed them. Civilians
followed the example of the soldiers, too, ransacking homes and
taking whatever the soldiers might have missed. They stole their
horses in livestock and then went into the fields with shovels,

(17:53):
digging up Native American graves to rob the dead of valuables,
and those holding camps were filthy. Dysentery spread among the prisoners.
Soldiers assaulted the women, starving, malnourished, and severely dehydrated. Those
who survived in tournament were forced to march westward in
June of eighteen thirty eight. Those who were transported by

(18:13):
trains fared no better either, as they were overcrowded, allowing
disease to spread quickly. The summer heat quickly became unbearable,
and the Cherokee people begged the troops to wait until
fall to continue the trek westward. The soldiers granted the request,
although they continued to keep them in squalid conditions and
interment camps. That fall, they walked through torrential rains and

(18:36):
mud for nearly four months. There would be no stopping
this time, and when winter came, the young and old
alike were forced to continue on foot, despite the bitter
cold and harsh blizzards. Every time they stopped there were burials.
Clean water and food were in short supply. One Cherokee
man lost a member of his family every day for

(18:56):
five days straight, first his mother, then his father, finally
his brothers and sisters. The Cherokee had once stood proud,
Now along the trail to Oklahoma, they walked in a
silence that was only broken by the whales of suffering women, children,
and men. The government cared so little about the welfare
of the indigenous people they were displacing that they didn't

(19:19):
even count how many had died. Sadly, mortality was highest
among the elderly and the children. According to one missionary
doctor who traveled with them, twenty percent of those who
set out that previous June never made it to Oklahoma.

(19:39):
Although they had been forcibly relocated over one thousand miles
from their home, those who survived were determined to rebuild.
In August of eighteen thirty nine, the Cherokee elected Ross
as their principal chief. He served his people faithfully for
another twenty seven years. Life moved forward as best it could.
The Cherokee people constructed new new schools, new homes, and

(20:01):
even built a courthouse. But despite their new life, they
never forgot the land of their ancestors. And as hard
as it is to hear, the Cherokee weren't the only
people group to suffer on the Trail of Tears. In
eighteen forty, the government forced tens of thousands of other
Native Americans off of their ancestral lands and move them
out to Oklahoma. This time, of course, they promised to

(20:23):
honor their treaty. This time, they said, all the tribes
living there would do so forever undisturbed. But just as before,
the indigenous people had no choice in the matter. They
could fight and suffer greatly, or give in and suffer
just slightly less. John Ross never stopped petitioning Washington, DC
to pay the Cherokee for the land the government had stolen.

(20:46):
Even when his health began to fail in eighteen sixty six,
he continued to advocate for his people. He passed away
on August first of that year, unsuccessful. Naturally, America continued
to push westward. Eighteen oh seven that land in Oklahoma,
the land that had been promised to the Native Americans
as theirs forever undisturbed, was reduced to make room for

(21:08):
more settlers. Some Cherokee did manage to stay behind on
their original land, though those living in small areas in
North Carolina, for example, There the mountains and hills weren't
useful to cotton farmers and were overlooked or written off
Further south. A few Seminole tribes also managed to evade
the removal efforts, and some smaller groups within the Chickasaw

(21:30):
and Choctaw nations stayed behind, but overall those that remained
were definitely in the minority. All told, its estimated that
approximately one hundred thousand Native Americans were forced from their
land and relocated to Oklahoma, opening up a land grab
for white settlers. In the winter of eighteen thirty one,
the US Army threatened the Choctaw tribes with force if

(21:52):
they weren't willing to surrender their homeland. When they resisted,
soldiers swept in and removed them at gunpoint and in chains.
The Choctaw people were made to walk the Trail of
Tears all the way to Oklahoma, and just like the
Cherokee and others, they too receive barbaric treatment. The US
government provided for their soldiers, of course, but not the Choctaw.

(22:15):
They had to get food and water wherever they could
along the way, and five years later, in eighteen thirty six,
three thousand, five hundred of the fifteen thousand Creek people
who were driven from their lands did not survive the
journey to Oklahoma. The government also removed several tribes along
the East Coast as a result. The historic Trail of
Tiers covers over five thousand miles and spans several routes

(22:39):
and nine states, and is now overseen by the National
Park Service. Today, there are three bands of Cherokee tribes nationwide,
the Eastern Band located in western North Carolina, the United
Kitawa Band in Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Nation and Telequah, Oklahoma.
For the most part, though the lives of Native Americans
and the trail of tears have largely been forgotten, which

(23:01):
is tragic because the situation is just as dire today,
from education and employment to other basic human needs. Native
peoples exist in what is called an asterisk nation, an
abandoned population of human lives deemed to be invisible. The

(23:23):
story of those who are forced to walk the trail
of tears is a difficult one to hear, and I
want to thank you for taking the time to revisit
it with me today. A lot of history has the
power to make us feel uncomfortable, but the solution is
never to cover it up or avoid it. Shadows might
be a guarantee given human nature's tendency toward evil, but shadows,

(23:44):
as we all know, don't do so well when dragged
out into the light. Sadly, there are plenty more shadows
where that one came from, and we've pulled together one
last story to demonstrate that stick around through this brief
sponsored break, and my teammate Ali Stead will tell tell
you all about it.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Hardship was far from over for Native Americans. It was
a perfect sunny day in late September eighteen seventy one.
In fact, William Cody and a group of affluent New
Yorkers standing on top of a grassy mound, rifles at
the ready, thought the day was perfect for a hunt.
Cody's reputation as an expert marksman and hunter preceded him.

(24:30):
Their vantage point on the top of the hill gave
them an advantage over the grazing bison, which they considered
no more threatening than furry, lumbering cows. In the distance,
six bison came into view. Cody knew the wind behind
them would alert the beasts, but the fact did little
to worry him. The men had the quickest horses around,

(24:52):
not to mention the best guns. All were supplied by
the US Army. While it might seem odd that the
US Army would front horn, horses and weapons for what
were essentially rich city slickers looking to shoot bison on
a trophy hunting expedition, it really wasn't, you see. It
wasn't about the bison at all. It was about the
Native Americans whose very lives depended on these animals. Troops

(25:16):
were told to kill the bison, every last one of them,
because dead bison were dead Native Americans. At one time,
tens of millions of the great beasts roamed the land.
Standing at nearly six feet at the shoulder and weighing
up to two thousand, four hundred pounds, Bison were made

(25:38):
for survival. They can run at speeds of up to
thirty five miles an hour. They protect their young, and
during winters, their broad shoulders and strong necks can easily
push snow aside to forage for food. And for the record,
it is bison, not buffalo. Buffalo never roamed to the
American West. Bison and buffalo are members of the same

(25:59):
family bow, but they are distinctly different animals. For the Cheyenne, Lakota, Cree,
and other Native American tribes, bison were everything. They provided food,
and their hides could be used for shelters. The animals
were never killed for sport, and Native Americans only hunted

(26:19):
what they needed. They used every part of the bison.
To the indigenous people, bison were life givers. When they thrived,
the indigenous people thrived, and to Generals William T. Sherman
and Philip Sheridan, that was the problem back East during
the Civil War, they'd implemented scorched earth. When it came

(26:41):
to the Native Americans, they intended to take it a
step further. Gold had brought settlers from the east in
large numbers. In fact, white settlers now outnumbered the indigenous
people nearly three to one, and indigenous tribes were obstacles
in conquering the west, finding gold, and settling on native
land to farm. During the winter of eighteen sixty eight

(27:05):
to eighteen sixty nine, Sheridan relentlessly destroyed the Cheyenne people's food, shelter,
and live stock. He showed no mercy, killing the warriors
and leaving the women and children to the whims of
his soldiers. During an attack in November of eighteen sixty eight,
nearly seven hundred men under the command of George Armstrong

(27:25):
Custer were ordered to kill the men and their horses,
torched the village, and bring back the women and children.
During the Washita massacre, troops used women and children as
human shields, and as terrible as that was, it wasn't
even the worst part. Custer's men killed many of the
survivors without a hint of remorse or mercy. The chief

(27:47):
and his wife tried to flee, and soldiers shot them
in the back while Custer, Sherman, and Sheridan continued their
mission of genocide, Cody continued to slaughter the bison. Loads
of hunters packed into cars heading west for sport hunts.
Railroads advertised hunting by rail men aimed out the windows

(28:09):
and shot the bison as the trains passed by the herds.
Trains moved onwards, leaving dead or fatally injured bison to
rot on the prairies, and the men on board they
congratulated each other on the annihilation, perhaps of both the
bison and the Native Americans. Hunter Orlando Brown boasted he'd

(28:30):
brought down six thousand of the bison himself. Thankfully, the
Texas legislature stepped in to protect the bison from extinction,
though Sheridan opposed protective legislation, stating his men had done
more to settle the vexed Indian question and had been
instrumental in destroying Native Americans' commissary. Hunters continued their attempts

(28:54):
to completely exterminate the American bison, photographing themselves on a
mountain of bison's skulls. Bison numbers dwindled to three hundred
or maybe a thousand at the most, and Native Americans
were forced into treaties that were unfavorable and onto reservations.
With the establishment of Yellowstone Park in eighteen seventy two,

(29:17):
the park set out to protect the land and the
animals living there. Today, through those protections, bison numbers have
reached nearly two hundred thousand, and in twenty sixteen, the
bison joined the bald Eagle as a national symbol. There's
still work to be done to prepare what was nearly destroyed.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Grim and Maud Presents the wild West was executive produced
by me Aaron Manky and hosted by Aaron Mankey and
Alexandra Steed. Writing for this season was provided by Michelle Mudo,
with research by Alexandra Steed, Sam Alberty, Cassandra de Alba,
and Harry Marx. Fact Checking was performed by Jamie Vargas,
with sensitivity reading by Stacy Parshal Jensen. Production assistance was

(29:59):
provided by Josh Thain, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
To learn more about this and other shows from Grim
and Mild and iHeartRadio, visit Grimandmild dot com.