Name: Sean P. Phelps Instructor: Dana Johnson Course: HISTORY 108 (History of the US Through 1865) Date: 3-19-2017 American Experience - We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears The United States may be glamor of hope and prosperity for many nations still undergoing democratic maturity and development; however, her story is one that combines deadly struggles and an array of governmental decisions that defined the path to freedom of now the world’s most powerful country. One of the ways to understand the history of the United States is through revisiting the Trail of Tears, which is documented in the film. We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears. Notably, the film documentary with five parts in total highlighting the history of Native Americans from the 17th …show more content…
to the 20th Century. Its production brought together the efforts of several writers and directors to narrate the story in a perspective that is easily understandable and in a way, that is rich in information. It premiered on 13th April 2009 and formed part of what is referred to as the “American Experience.” But while the film is rich in history, it is also vital in elucidating reasons behind occurrences of certain events in America and as such critical in instilling useful lessons about the country. Primarily, the main lesson from the film is that the story highlights the birth-pangs of what is today the United States of America. A deep and clear insight into the film gives one an immediate comprehension of the struggles endured by Native Indians coupled by their resilience and self-determination not to give away their land. In fact, I believe the story is an elaboration of heartbreaks to the Indian Cherokees but paradoxically resonates with the hope imminent among present American Indians. For a period spanning 300 years, the film is full of fundamental information necessary for the understanding of the underlying issues first-hand. In fact, it represents the truths captured at the time of their happening. In part 1, for instance, the first settlers arrive in the hugely unsettled lands in North America only to find few native Indians. Whereas some were welcoming, other Indians resisted leading to the killing of at least 700 Indians. But it was not just about the struggle to claim land alone, diseases of the Puritans also dived the two factions. From this part, it is evident that the struggle for land is an issue that remains divisive through generations. Also imminent is that the history of the United States begins from the moment settlers arrived to displace the Indians. Another major incident that is rich in lessons about the existence of the United States today is the part where the Cherokees decide to engage maximum resistance to settlers.
Notably, this is evident in Part 3, and this is undeniably the origin of civilization in the North American country. In my opinion, it is such actions that were used to change the mindset of the natives and hence the birth civilization. In this part, we encounter people who are consistently being convinced to shift from their natural ways of living with nature to embrace more artificial ways of life brought about by the whites. As such, the film gives us an insight into how the meaning of civilization was engraved in society as being the process of erasing other people’s beliefs with the aim of having them conform to new beliefs. In essence, this film has an unprecedented extent of history and their impacts on the present day American society. While it documents the events in ancient America, the stories of many nations are more likely than not to conform to the Trail of Tears. The resistance by the Cherokees and President Andrew Jackson’s orders to evacuate the Cherokees from their ancestral lands represents the decisions that had to be made to ensure America becomes a symbol of success to the whole world. In truth, the film is well documented with credible evidence and storyline to the events that happened over 3 Centuries ago. The film has fundamental developmental timelines that should be part of any historian’s database as the events gave birth to present day civilization and democracy in
America. Works Cited We Shall Remain. “We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears.” YouTube, 2014. Published on16th May, 2014, https://youtu.be/S8o0heHXQF8. Accessed 19
Sarah Vowell's empathetic feelings for the Cherokee is very touching. You definitely sense her high degree of care and interest about this topic. I felt that Vowell's main concerns revolved heavily around the unjust treatment toward the Cherokee, Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy that ultimately led to Trail of Tears, and how modern Americans (in general) thoughtlessly neglect this piece of history. I intend to expand on her concerns, while properly expressing my perspective on these issues, as well.
War is always destructive and devastating for those involved leaving behind a trail of death and barren landscape leading to heartbreak and shattered lives. War has its subjugators and its defeated. One enjoys complete freedom and rights while the other has neither freedom nor rights. Defeated and broken is where the Eastern Woodland Indians found themselves after both the Seven Years' war and the American Revolution. The Europeans in their campaigns to garner control of the land used the native peoples to gain control and ultimately stripped the rightful owners of their land and freedoms. The remainder of this short paper will explore the losses experienced by the Eastern Woodland Indians during these wars and will answer the question of which war was more momentous in the loss experienced.
Many Americans know the journey of Christopher Columbus and Daniel Boone, but a smaller percentage of the population knows about other journeys their fellow Americans have taken. Our job at PBS is to “create content that educates, informs, and inspires (PBS mission statement).” By including different or lesser known journeys for our new series, we can inform and ignite a curiosity for American history that is not often talked about. Two journeys that should be included in this project is the plight of the Native Americans during the 19th century. These forced migrations are not frequently talked about for various different reasons, such as the history behind them or their controversy, but it is our job to present these without biases to inform our viewers.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
Sloan, Kitty. "Trail of Tears." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture . N.p., 11 Aug. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .
Democracy can be traced back before the coming of Christ. Throughout Greece during the sixth century democracy was in its earliest stages and as the millenniums would pass the power of government by the people would show distinct alterations. This is evident when analyzing The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears by Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green. These authors illustrate how the U.S government adjusts policies from that of assimilating the Native American Indians to that of removing them from their homelands and forcibly causing the Cherokee nation to relocate themselves west of the Mississippi. In further depth Perdue and Green portray though vivid description how the government would show disloyalty and how that caused division between the tribal members of the Cherokee people. This endeavor of travel and animosity of the Indians would become known as the Trail of Tears.
Brill, Marlene Targ. The Trail of Tears: The Cherokee Journey From Home. Brookfield, CN: Millbrook Press, 1995.
The trail of tears was a hideous harsh horrible time that the Native Americans will not forget the 1830s about 100,000 Native Americans peacefully lived on 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of akers. They have been on this land generations before the wight men arrived. There was gold found in Gorga and the land was for ital. They used huge cotton plantations because the people would get rich off of them. In 1830 Andrew Jackson privily sinned the removal act. Te removal act gave the Government the power to trade the land for the land that the Native Americans were on. The Native Americans did not want to move, but the precedent sent troops to force the removal. Solders who looted there homes traveled 15,000 Cherokees, and gunpoint marched over 12,000
The United States government's relationship with the Native American population has been a rocky one for over 250 years. One instance of this relationship would be what is infamously known as, the Trail of Tears, a phrase describing a journey in which the Native Americans took after giving up their land from forced removal. As a part of then-President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, this policy has been put into place to control the natives that were attempting to reside peacefully in their stolen homeland. In the viewpoint of the Choctaw and Cherokee natives, removal had almost ultimately altered the culture and the traditional lifestyle of these people.
At the beginning of the 1830s there was nearly 125,000 native Americans that lived on “millions of acres of the land of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida”.(history.com) These lands had been occupied and cultivated by their ancestors for generations before. Then because of The Trail of Tears was an “800-mile forced journey marked by the cruelty of soldiers”. (Tindall P.434) and by the end of the forced relocations very few Native Americans remained anywhere in the southwest. “working on behave of the white settlers federal government forced them to leave their lands and walk miles to an “Indian territory””.(history.com) .This all happened because of the Indian Removal act of 1930, which authorized the relocation of the eastern Indians to the west of the Mississippi river. The Cherokee Indians tried to fight the relocation and even with the Supreme Court’s support Andrew Jackson still forced them to leave their land. By the 1840s there wasn't many Cherokee Indians that still remained in the southwest.
Unconcerned about the legitimacy of their actions, European colonisers took lands unjustifiably from indigenous people and put original inhabitants who had lived on the land for centuries in misery. The United States also shared similarities in dealing with native people like its distant friends in Europe. Besides the cession of vast lands, the federal government of the United States showed no pity, nor repentance for the poor Cherokee people. Theda Perdue, the author of “Cherokee Women and Trail of Tears,” unfolds the scroll of history of Cherokee nation’s resistance against the United States by analyzing the character of women in the society, criticizes that American government traumatized Cherokee nation and devastated the social order of
“And in that battle, Junaluska had drove his tomahawk through the skull of a Creek warrior, when the Creek had Jackson at his mercy.” (Burnett) This shows that President Jackson has had trouble with indians, and that’s why he placed the Indian Removal act. President Jackson also disobeyed the supreme court case Worcester vs. Georgia.
Ellis, Jerry. Walking the Trail: One Man's Journey along the Cherokee Trail of Tears. New
Perdue, Theda, and Michael Green. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. New York: Penguin Books, 2007. Print.
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.