Surviving the Trail of Tears

"We walk across the frozen earth. Nothing seems right anymore. The cold seeps through my clothes. I wish I had my blanket. I remember last winter I had a blanket when I was warm. I don't feel like I'll ever be warm again. I remember my father's smile. It seems like so long ago."
- Samuel Cloud (9 years old on the Trail of Tears) as told by his great-great grandson, Michael Rutledge, in his paper “Forgiveness in the Age of Forgetfulness”

Ah-yau-sti: Cherokee mother and wife

Ah-yau-sti paused from her work pounding corn in the Ka No Na (wood beater) and took in the surrounding beauty. Looking up to take in the beautiful view of Enotah (Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s tallest mountain, located near the North Carolina-Georgia border), she reflected on the many generations of her people that had loved, played, and survived on these lands. As she continued to beat the corn into meal, Ah-yau-sti wondered about the rumors of the relocation of her people and worried for the future of her family.

Ah-yau-sti hoped that her husband’s service fighting alongside the U.S. during the Battle of Horseshoe Bend would promote good will with the white men. The Cherokee people were early allies of the United States government, ceding their hunting land, assisting with Seminole negotiations, and fighting under General Andrew Jackson against the Creeks. However, after government agents took note of the wealth of Cherokee natural resources they began pressuring the Tribal Council into surrendering all of their land. When census takers arrived at Ah-yau-sti’s home in 1835 to take a count, known as the Henderson (Trail of Tears) Roll, Ah-yau-sti, her husband Whipoorwill, and their family were counted near the current North Carolina/Georgia border with seven members in the household.

The Treaty of New Echota

One of the primary reasons for U.S. interest in Cherokee lands was the discovery of gold reserves near New Echota. In a haste to claim this rich land, President Jackson unbelievably turned his back on his Cherokee allies, including Whipoorwill, who was injured fighting with the U.S. in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, to authorize the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

Negotiations with the Cherokee delegation regarding removal dragged on without an agreement, resulting in the U.S. signing the Treaty of New Echota with 100 non-Cherokee delegation members who Tribal Chief John Ross described as a “spurious delegation” who “by false and fraudulent representations supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited Delegation of the Cherokee people”.

Forced Removal

Once the treaty was signed, the government made plans for the forced relocation of the Cherokee Nation, from Georgia and North Carolina to their new Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. This perilous journey took several months and required young and old to travel by foot or horse on what would come to be known as the Trail of Tears. In his paper “Forgiveness in the Age of Forgetfulness”, Michael Rutledge retells the story of his grandfather, Samuel Cloud’s, removal from his Cherokee home at the tender age of nine:

"It is Spring. The leaves are on the trees. I am playing with my friends when white men in uniforms ride up to our home. My mother calls me. I can tell by her voice that something is wrong. Some of the men ride off. My mother tells me to gather my things, but the men don't allow us time to get anything. They enter our home and begin knocking over pottery and looking into everything. My mother and I are taken by several men to where their horses are and are held there at gun point. The men who rode off return with my father, Elijah. They have taken his rifle and he is walking toward us."

After removal from their homes, the families were rounded up and set on a forced march. A native of Maine, who was traveling through Southern Kentucky, witnessed the Cherokee people as they struggled toward their new home and described the heartbreaking scene in an article for the New York Observer:

"The forward part of the train we found just pitching their tents for the night, and notwithstanding some thirty or forty waggons [sic] were already stationed, we found the road literally filled with the procession for about three miles in length. The sick and feeble were carried in waggons-about as comfortable for traveling as a New England ox cart with a cove ring over it-a great many ride on horseback and multitudes go on foot-even aged females, apparently nearly ready to drop into the grave, were traveling with heavy burdens attached to the back-on the sometimes frozen ground, and sometimes muddy streets, with no covering for the feet except what nature had given them."
"We learned from the inhabitants on the road where the Indians passed, that they buried fourteen or fifteen at every stopping place, and they make a journey of ten miles per day on an average."

During the journey, an estimated 4,000 people died of hunger, disease, and exposure and were buried in shallow graves along the trail.

Arrival

In 1851 a new census, the Drennan Roll, was taken to determine survivors who had settled in the new territory. This Roll lists 13,905 Cherokees who were paid an average of $93 for their previous Cherokee land. With this Roll, we learn that Ah-yau-sti’s home now contains three family members, Ah-yau-sti (Jennie) and two of her children Ol-sa (Martha), and brother Da-wee-si (Davis). Two other family members, son Stand and daughter Anna are found elsewhere in the Roll.

The bravery and resolve that Ah-yau-sti maintained in order to press on, without her husband Whippoorwill, is truly inspiring. The fate of her husband and the seventh family member mentioned in the Henderson Roll have not been determined. Whippoorwill was absent from the list of settlers claimed by his grandchildren to apply for compensation under the treaties of 1835-36. His inability to make the journey would not be surprising after being shot through the hip while fighting for Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Cherokee Names

In order to prevent endogamy Cherokees used a matriarchal system where tribal/clan identity was passed from mother to child. A child born into one clan was prohibited from marrying fellow clan members but could marry into other clans. Indian names were traditionally given when a child reached puberty and accomplished something noteworthy.

Once settled in the new territory the Cherokee were assigned English names in order to be more easily identifiable in government records. The government also required tribe members to state their blood quanta. This was difficult since the tribe had never recorded blood quanta information or considered such a record important. If a tribe member had a Cherokee mother or was living like a Cherokee they were considered full-blood. If they had a white mother they were considered mixed-blood.

After arrival in Indian Territory, Ah-yau-sti was given the name English name Jennie Powell. Her daughter, Martha, married Charles Sequichie, whose son Ah-tsi (Arch) is pictured at left.

Sources

This story was adapted from “Jennie Powell Sequichie: Surviving the Trail of Tears” originally posted on Tales of our Past.

Drennan Roll. Eastern Cherokees, 1851. Index Images. Fold3. https://www.fold3.com/image/205050272?rec=311469367 : 2019.

Henderson Roll. 1835 Census of Cherokee Indians. Index Images. FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org : 2019.

“History.” Cherokee Nation. https://www.cherokee.org/about-the-nation/history/

“Cherokee Letter Protesting the Treaty of New Echota.” Africans in America. pbs. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3083t.html : 2019. Originally Published. The Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 1, 1807-1839. Norman, OK : University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

Peabody, Jerome. “The Trail of Tears.” Digitized painting. Deviant Art. https://www.deviantart.com/jjpeabody

Rutledge, Michael. “Forgiveness in the Age of Forgetfulness” in America: A Narrative History. W.W. Norton & Company. https://wwnorton.com : 2019.

Vann, David. “Why Native American Ancestors had European Sounding Last Names.” Cherokee By Blood. 1 Dec 2008. http://cherokeeblood.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-native-american-ancestors-had.html : 2019.

Rozema, Vicki. “Voices from the Trail of Tears.” google books. https://books.google.com/books/about/Voices_from_the_Trail_of_Tears.html?id=Aj3FNHcbm3sC : 2019. Originally published as New York Observer, 16 Jan 1839. “Native of Maine, Traveling in the Western Country.”