Mrs. Chambers' grandfather and grandmother Hicks, together
with her own mother, came in the emigrant train over the Trail. On the way they
picked up to children who were lost. One, a boy whose people had all died of
smallpox, came to them when they were encamped along a creek. He was known as S.
S. Stevens and never knew but what he was an Indian. The other child was a
little girl who knew no name but Polly. When she grew older she married and was
known as Aunt Polly Myers.
When my grandfather, Emeithle Harjo, was twenty-five or
thirty years old, he was removed to the Indian Territory, from Alabama. The boat
that he was to cross the Mississippi in was a dilapidated affair and sank in the
Mississippi River. He swam pretty near all night saving the women and children.
They were all brought here and turned loose like something wild. He had to walk
from here to the Fort Gibson to get the axe and gun that the Government promised
and gave to him. He built his home across the highway from here. There are some
house there but they are not the ones he built, they burned, and rotted down
Chauncey O. Moore, Supervisor
Lawrence D. Hibbs
Interview: S. R. Lewis
Old Timers
Major Ridge, a full blood Cherokee Indian, who married a
white woman and his son, John Ridge, who also married a white woman, came to
what is now Delaware County, Indian Territory, from Georgia in the year of 1835.
John Ridge, the son, had a college education and both men were considered rich
men.
They opened a trading post near the Arkansas State line.
(This store may have been called Ridge's Store.) They employed one, William
Childers, as a clerk in this trading post. Later they gave William Childers
$8,000.00 to go to New Orleans to buy supplies for this store. He made the trip
by way of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers, buying the supplies and returning
to the trading post.
The Ridges, father and son, were signers of the Treaty of
1835, and which, later, was the cause of their deaths.
After the general removal of the Cherokees to Indian
Territory in 1838, the two Ridges (Major and John) were assassinated by their
own tribe, the reason being that because these two men signed the treaty
disposing of the Cherokee country east of the Mississippi River for land in
Indian Territory, the tribe thought they had been betrayed and sold out by their
supposed friends. They were killed in different sections, but on the same day.
Major Ridge was killed somewhere near the Arkansas State line, on the same day a
relative of theirs was killed near Parkhill, which is about six miles south of
Tahlequah.
The wives of the two Ridges, being white women, feared
for their lives after the death of their husbands and they moved to Arkansas,
remaining there until their deaths.
Mann, Richard
RICHARD C. MANN
by
O. C. Davidson
I was born Jan. 20, 1872 in the Going Snake District of
the Cherokee Nation, at Oaks, one of the two oldest towns in the Cherokee
Nation. I am a full blood Cherokee; my mother, Elizabeth Miller came from
Georgia in the Trail of Tears in 1832, when the Indians were driven out of
Georgia at the point of bayonet and brought here like live-stock.
They came here by boats, landed at the mouth of the
Verdigris River. A rock with the date of their landing carved on it still marks
the spot of their landing.
Upon their arrival here the Creek and Cherokee tribes
separated. The Creeks going west of Grand River and the Cherokees settling east
of the Grand River.
Upon coming here the Cherokees were permitted to take
claims at the land they wanted, anywhere east of Grand River. The stipulations
of the treaty were that this land was to be theirs as long as grass grew and the
waters run. But later, the white mans greed for this beautiful and valuable
country became so strong that, they went to work and legislated laws in
Washington where by this country might be surveyed and divided up, allowing each
Indian just so much land as a homestead and certain allotment of surplus other
than their homesteads.
The full blood Indians never did agree to this allotment
system but were forced to accept it.
Payne, Mary
May 10, 1937
Miss Ella Robinson
Research Field Worker
Mrs. Mary Payne
521 South Third
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Life and Experience of a Cherokee Woman
My father was David Israel, a full-blood Cherokee and my
mother was Martha Jane Miller Israel, a quarter Cherokee. They were born in
Georgia. My mother in 1836 and my father in 1837. They were brought to Indian
Territory by their parents over the "Trail of Tears" when the Indians were
driven from their eastern homes by the United States Troops.
They were too young
to know of the tragedies and sorrows of that terrible event. My aunt, who was 15
years old at the time, told me of the awful suffering along the journey. Almost
everyone had to walk as the conveyance they had were inadequate for transporting
what few possessions they had and their meager supply of food. Only the old
people and little children were allowed to ride. They died by the hundreds and
were buried by the roadside. As they were not allowed to remove any of their
household goods, they arrived at their destination with nothing with which to
start housekeeping
Pennington, Josephine
October 12, 1937
D. W. Wilson
Investigator
Interview with Mrs. Josephine Pennington
Hulbert, Oklahoma
The scene of this story as given by Mrs. Pennington
starts far back in the dawn of Cherokee history. It deals with her forefathers
before wrongs were done to these proud Cherokee back in Tennessee and Georgia;
with their weary journey westward over the Trail of Tears. The Cherokees' first
constitution according to the Cherokee laws; the Cherokees' first Principal
Chief, John Ross; stirring events of the Civil War; the coming of the wild bands
of painted Indians from other parts of the United States brought by the
Government into the Indian Territory to occupy a part of the Cherokee lands that
they were compelled by the Government to sell for this purpose.
Progress is to be noted in Mrs. Pennington's recital, for
they builded schools and churches, towns and cities, from savagery among the
wild Indians to our present great state we have today.
Every individual has back of him things of which they are
justly proud and Mrs. Pennington is proud to know that she is a direct
descendant of the principal characters of the Cherokees.
After the Ridges made this treaty and those who favored
it moved west. Chief Ross and his band of 12,000 still refused to move and they
met abuse and troubles indescribable and finally the United States Soldiers were
sent to move Chief Ross and his people.
The Migration
After the soldiers appeared, they began to build
stockades to house the Cherokees until they could get them moving. All over the
Cherokee country they went, bringing in all of them, old and young, male and
female and their babes, the sick, the lame and the halt. They hunted them down
like hunting wild beasts and when they found them, they drove them under threats
and blows like cattle to these stockades. These stockades were over crowded,
disease broke out among them and many of them died with dysentery. Poor food and
poor water, no doctors and no medicine.
In due time parties were started west, under the charge
of soldiers. These parties were driven through like cattle. The sick and weak
walked until they fell exhausted and then were loaded in wagons or left behind
to die. When streams were to be crossed if not too deep all were compelled to
wade. The water often times was to the chins of the men and women, and the
little children were carried high over their heads. If the water was over their
heads they would build rafts and cross on them.
Chief Ross and the Council begged the Government to let
them take over the moving after a few parties had been moved by the soldiers and
this was agreed upon. They began to establish camps and their health got better.
It was only a short time until Chief Ross had worked out the details for the
removal and he moved his people in groups through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri,
Arkansas, and then into the Indian Territory. This journey was called the "Trail
of Tears".
Unlike the moving by the army, arrangements were made
whereby the old, sick and afflicted and the babies rode on the wagons hauling
provisions and household goods. The others walked or rode horseback. These
wagons hauling provisions were Government property.
Even with these arrangements many died on account of cold
and hunger enroute and were buried in unmarked graves.
One of those who died on the Trail of Tears was Jim Ross
Jr., the son of Jim Ross who was the son of Chief John Ross as aforementioned.
Jim Ross Jr. was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere
near the present town of Aurora, Missouri.
Those who survived the hardships of the long trek,
finally came to meet the Cherokees west. After they arrived here all that they
possessed were a saw, an axe, a very little bedding and a big-eyed hoe and a
small amount of corn, enough possibly to plant an acre of ground.
Having located in the Ozarks of the eastern part of the
Indian Territory, many of them dug caves or dugouts in the hillsides in which to
live until with their axe and saw, they built a little log cabin. They lived on
wild fruits and berries. They made themselves bows and arrows to kill their
game.
Some were a little more fortunate for they had a horse
and with a deer tongue of wood and the big-eyed hoe they planted their corn in
little clearings.
Chief John Ross and his family settled and builded their
first home near the west bank of the Illinois.
Vann, E. F.
March 20, 1938
D. T. Wilson
Journalist
An interview with Mr. E. F. Vann; Muskogee, Oklahoma
I am the son of Turnip and Martha Vann and I was born in
the Flint District of the Cherokee Nation of the Indian Territory, June 20,
1870. The present location of my birthplace would be in Adair County near the
present town of Stilwell. I am a full blood Cherokee Indian and am now the day
jailer at the Muskogee County jail in Muskogee.
My father was born in North Carolina about 1825, and my
mother's name was Martha Hood before her marriage and she was born in Georgia,
September 14, 1835. My father is now dead and is buried some few miles south of
Stilwell. My mother is also dead and is buried in McIntosh County, near
Chocotah.
In 1890 I married a white woman of the name of Alice
McTheney who was born in Crawford County, Arkansas, June 6, 1874.
My father and grandfather moved to Georgia before the
removal of the Cherokees to the Indian Territory from North Carolina and my
mother's parents lived in Georgia. There has been much told to me by my parents
and grandparents as to the way in which the Cherokees were treated and were
driven from their homes in Georgia, all of which history has recorded; however I
feel that I should say my parents were of two different clans or factions. My
mother's parents were favorable to the Treaty or the Ridge Party and on account
of a treaty made with the United States Government, my mother's people were
moved west by the Government, by steamboat and wagons and settled in Western
Arkansas, north of the present town of Fort Smith, in 1835. Mother was but a
baby two years old at this time. These Cherokees were called emigrants or the
Western Cherokees.
My father's people would not abide by the treaty and were
known as members of the Anti-treaty or Ross Party who refused to leave their
homes back in Georgia, because the land was fertile and had many improvements
and furthermore because their loved ones were buried there. In all, the members
of the Ross or Anti-treaty party were satisfied and content in Georgia and did
not care to take up new homes in a country of which they knew nothing. All the
story of their sufferings in Georgia and across the Trail of Tears has already
been written. My father while only thirteen years old came on the Trail of Tears
with his parents and while on this trail, he lost one of his brothers. Father's
people settled in the Flint District where I was born. It was in 1838 that this
removal occurred and it was only a few years until my mother's people who had
settled in Arkansas were again compelled to move into the confines of the Indian
Territory. They settled in the Flint District where Father and Mother grew up
and were married.
I have heard my grandparents and parents say, that after
the troublesome times of enforced migration and settlement in their new lands in
Indian Territory, there followed at last a period of peace and prosperity among
the Cherokees. The younger Indians such as Father and Mother became reconciled
to the change but my grandfather never did.
Walker, Henry J.
Interview with Henry J. Walker
Welch, Oklahoma, Star Route
James R. Carseloway, Field Worker
My name is Henry J. Walker, and I live at Welch,
Oklahoma, Star Route. I live on the farm my father settled on, when the Kansas
line was re-established, located on Big Cabin Creek.
My father's name was George Washington Walker. My
mother's name was Mary Jane (Harlow) Walker.
My grandfather was Timothy Migs Walker, and my
grandmother was Elizabeth Neely (Adair) Walker.
My father was born in Tennessee in 1823 and came to the
Indian Territory when a boy 12 years old with his parents, brothers and sisters,
along with the eastern emigrants, from Georgia about 1838.
Men and Boys Walked
My father told me that all the men and boys walked all
the way from Georgia, and the women and children were allowed to ride in the ox
wagons. It was a long hard journey and many took sick and died on the road. It
took so long to make the trip, longer than the government had figured, that
about all the money the Cherokees were given to live on after they arrived was
used up on the way.
My father said each head of a family was given $100.00 in
money to live on until they could get started up in their new homes, and that
the soldiers in charge of the movement were given feed and food enough to carry
them through. It ran out long before the journey's end was reached and the
government officers had to borrow from the Indians to buy food and feed to
continue the trip. By the time the Territory was reached about all the Indians
money was used up, many of their families were reduced by death, and they were
here without a thing to live on.
My father said the Government men in charge of the "Trail
of Tears" promised to turn in their claims and pay back the money they borrowed
from the Cherokees on the way over here, but they never did. I am told that the
Cherokees now have in a claim against the government for this money with 5 per
cent interest from 1838.
My grandfather, Timothy Walker, was a full blood Cherokee
and settled with his family near Tahlequah in 1868, where he lived until his
death several years later.
My father, George W. Walker, was almost a full blood
Cherokee, and spoke languages fluently.
Waterkiller, Ellis
Interview with Mr. Ellis Waterkiller
Mr. Waterkiller was born in the Cookson Hills of Eastern
Oklahoma, near White Oak School, in Cherokee County, Oklahoma and now lives six
miles east of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, near the present Perkins School in Muskogee
County, Oklahoma, on highway #62.
He is a full blood Cherokee Indian and 73 years old.
All of his known relatives were buried in the Cookson
Hills of eastern Oklahoma, near the White Oak School. No markers mark their
graves.
Father - Waterkiller - Born North Carolina (year unknown)
Died 1870.
Mother - Nancy Parsons Waterkiller, born Cookson Hills
1873 and died 1890.
Grandfather - (First name unknown) last name, Parsons.
Born North Carolina, (date unknown) Died 1840.
Grandmother - Sallie Parsons, born North Carolina (date
unknown) Died 1885.
Migration
Don't know much about Father's people. Grandma (Parsons)
tell me lot, like I tell you.
Grandpa and Grandma leave North Carolina, in old country,
come Georgia, that old country too, stay there year. . . . 1837, soldiers drive
um West. . . . Grandpa and Grandma no want come. Soldiers say go or kill you.
Stick bayonet in you. They get things one night, skillet, pot, dishes, clothes,
bedclothes too. . . . got dish grandma bring. I eat beans out em, I boy. It was
an old piece of pottery, highly polished. Bowl was fashioned with handles,
handles broken off, but designs on it were beautiful. See bowl, is over hundred
years old. Next day soldiers drive um out. Easy first day. Make soldiers feel
good. Every day worse. Just drive um like cattle. Grandma say she walk, grandpa
walk too or soldiers run bayonets through um. They walk, wade creeks to chin,
lots mud some places. Cross rivers in canoes. Soldiers save canoes, sometimes
hollow logs, made um boats, go cross river. Yuh, soldiers have wagons. Feed um
two times some days, sometimes feed um one time. Soldiers eat all time, take
care horses better than my grandma-grandpa. Yuh-they bring skillet some things
grandma had. Yuh - lots die, lots sick, lots die, two week walk, they die, bury
em where they die, any place. Yuh - clothes bad, tore em, dirty too, clothes all
gone when get here. Throw lot way on road, no good.
They get here, lots timber, land no good in hills, all
right in valley Yuh - Grandma hate white man. Give all land, good land, in old
country meaning North Carolina and Georgia. . . . white man say "Trail Tears",
she say: "Trail Death". . . . grandpa die next year, mother born. (meaning his
grandmother died one year after the birth of his mother.)
Life and Customs after Migration
Grandma say, her and grandpa come in hills. Soldiers say
live, work, die.
Soldiers give em, ax, saw, big eye hoe, flint makin firs,
corn, cotton, beans, mellon seed. Some soldiers give em nothin. (He had in his
mind that some of the emigrants received nothing after their arrival, but was
promised they would get theirs later). My folks lucky. Others never get nothin.
.......
Watts, Elizabeth
April 27, 1937
Mrs. Elizabeth Watts
A Biographic Sketch
Route #2, Box 168, Muskogee, Oklahoma
By L. D. Wilson, Field Worker
Indian-Pioneer History
Source of Information received from a personal interview.
Mrs. Watt's maiden name was Elizabeth Miller. She was
born in 1859, in the Canadian District of the Cherokee Nation and is a
full-blood Cherokee Indian. Her first marriage was to a Mr. Whitewater, now
deceased, and in 1894, she was married to Mr. Watts. Each marriage was
consummated under the Cherokee Laws.
Her mother was Mrs. Nancy Tony - Miller and she was born
on the East bank of the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, in 1837. Her
grandparents were enroute from Georgia on the "Trail of Tears". They camped at
the river several weeks waiting for the river to recede. Disease broke out among
them and many died, but Nancy was born and she, at least replaced one of those
who died.
Mrs. Miller died in 1876, and is buried in Goose-Neck
Band neighborhood, east of Muskogee, Oklahoma.
Her father, Wilson Miller, was born in the Cherokee
Nation. Was an orphan. He was reared by Uncle Joe Robertson, who was the father
of Miss Alice Robertson, late Congress-woman from Oklahoma. His home was with
the Robertson's at the old Tallahassee Mission, in the Creek Nation at the
present town of Tallahassee, Oklahoma. He knew little of his parents, and
likewise, Mrs. Watts knew nothing of her grand-parents on her father's side. He
is buried three miles south of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Grandparents on Mrs. Watts' mother's side were named
Richard and Nellie Tony and they came to the Indian Territory in 1837, due to
the removal of all Cherokees west of the Mississippi River.
The Removal as told to Mrs. Watts by her Grandparents
The Cherokees owned a large acreage in Georgia. After
Jefferson was elected President by the United States, he had agents to come to
the different Tribes to induce them to come west. Their inducement was much more
land than they had there. They had lived there in Georgia for years and years.
They had good land, that was left, for already the white people had encroached
and taken much of their land. Naturally, most of them did not want to leave and
go out into the wilderness and start life anew. To do so, was like spending a
nickel these days for a grab bag, or like the saying, "Buying a cat in a sack".
They did not willingly want to do this. Time passed. The War of 1812 came, and
removal was delayed. A new President, Madison, was elected and he traded land in
Arkansas, north of Fort Smith, for their land and agreed to move them and give
them supplies, guns, clothing, ammunition, and utensils. A few of them agreed
and came. The most of them still refused. This greatly separated the Cherokees.
Those that came to Arkansas, had trouble there. The Government then moved them
to what we call the Strip Country.
Those left in Georgia began building larger homes, put in
larger crops, planted orchards, and advanced by leaps and bounds. It was during
this period the Cherokees adopted the Sequoyah alphabet in Georgia. Sequoyah
also came west to the ones in the Strip country and taught it there.
The white people used all means to get the Indians out of
Georgia. Claimed they were barbarians, and they, the Cherokees, made new laws,
just like the ones we had here in the Nation. John Ross was elected Chief of all
the Tribes of Cherokees. Ross did all he could to get to stay there, but the
Georgia white man passed laws and more laws, and law or no law, they destroyed
the Indian's fences, and crops, and killed their cattle, burned their homes and
made life a torment to them.
The Cherokees began to think of joining the West
Cherokees. They simply could endure no longer. Like everything, it took a
leader, and Major Ridge, his son, John Ridge, and two nephews, Elias Boudinot
and Stan Natie became leaders. Of course, John Ross was the Chief and they all
got to squabbling. Ross did not want to move his people, but by some hook or
crook, Boudinot and Ridge signed a treaty to move, and claimed it was the will
of the majority, but it was not, and the Government united a little while and
sent Gen. Scott and two or three thousand soldiers. The soldiers gathered them
up, all up, and put them in camps. They hunted them and run them down until they
got all of them. Even before they were loaded in wagons, many of them got sick
and died. They were all grief stricken. They lost all on earth they had. White
men even robbed their dead's graves to get their jewelry and other little
trinkets.
They saw to stay was impossible and the Cherokees told
Gen. Scott they would go without further trouble and the long journey started.
They did not all come at once. First one batch and then another. The sick, old,
and babies rode on the grub and household wagons. The rest rode a horse, if they
had one. Most of them walked. Many of them died along the way. They buried them
where they died, in unmarked graves. It was a bitter dose and lingered in the
mind of Mrs. Watts Grand-parents and parents until death took them. The road
they traveled, History calls the "Trail of Tears". This trail was more than
tears. It was death, sorrow, hunger, exposure, and humiliation to a civilized
people as were the Cherokees. Today, our greatest politicians, lawyers, doctors,
and many of worthy mention are Cherokees. Holding high places, in spite of all
the humiliation brought on their forefathers.
Yes, they reached their Western friends and started all
over again.
Lands promised, money promised, never materialized only
with a paltry sum, too small to recall, for what they parted with and the
treatment received
Whitmire, Eliza
February 14, 1938
Interview with Eliza Whitmire (Ex-slave woman), Estella,
Oklahoma
Giving her experience on the removal of the Cherokees
from Georgia and other experience of Pre-War Days.
My name is Eliza Whitmire. I live on a farm, near
Estella. Where I settled shortly after the Civil War and where I have lived ever
since. I was born in slavery in the state of Georgia, my parents having belonged
to a Cherokee Indian of the name of George Sanders, who owned a large plantation
in the old Cherokee Nation in Georgia. He also owned a large number of slaves
but I was to young to remember how many he owned.
I do not know the exact date of my birth, although my
mother told me I was about five years old when President Andrew Jackson ordered
General Scott to proceed to the Cherokee country, in Georgia with two thousand
troops and remove the Cherokees by force to the Indian Territory. This bunch of
Indians were called the Eastern Emigrants. The Old Settler Cherokees had moved
themselves in 1835 when the order was first given to the Cherokees to move out.
The Trail of Tears
The weeks that followed General Scott's order to remove
the Cherokees were filled horror and suffering for the unfortunate Cherokees and
their slaves. The women and children were driven from their homes, sometimes
with blows and close on the heels of the retreating Indians came greedy whites
to pillage the Indians' homes, drive off their cattle, horses and hogs, and they
even rifled the graves for any jewelry, or other ornaments that might have been
buried with the dead.
Divided into Detachments
The Cherokees, after being driven from their homes, were
divided into detachments of nearly equal size and late in October 1838, the
first detachment started, the others following one by one. The aged, sick and
the young children rode in the wagons, which carried the provisions and bedding,
while others went on foot. The trip was made in the dead of winter and many died
from exposure from sleet and snow, and all who lived to make this trip, or had
parents who made it, will long remember it as a bitter memory.
Woodall, Bettie
September 20, 1937
James R. Carselowey
Interviewer
An Interview with Bettie Perdue Woodall
Welch, Oklahoma
Old Indian Days
My name is Elizabeth Perdue Woodall, but I have always
been called "Bettie". I was born near Westville, Indian Territory, December 6,
1851. My father's name was James Perdue, a half-breed Cherokee Indian. My mother,
Dollie Thornton Perdue, was a white woman. Both were born in Georgia. They were
married in 1838, and came immediately with the eastern emigrants over the Trail
of Tears to their new home west of the Mississippi, settling in Going Snake
District, in the new Cherokee Nation.
The Trail of Tears.
Some histories say that on the Trail of Tears all the
women and children were allowed to ride; but my mother told me that not a single
woman rode unless she was sick and not able to walk. My mother walked every step
of the way over here.
The Government furnished green coffee in the grain for
the Indians along the route. Many of them had never seen coffee and did not know
how to make it. Some of them put the coffee in a pot with meat and were trying
to cook it like beans when my mother came along and some Indian woman said, "Ask
her, She white woman." My mother said she just had to laugh the way they were
trying to cook that coffee. She took some of the green coffee, roasted it in a
pan over their fire, put the parched grains in a cloth and pounded it up, and
made them a pot of coffee. They all liked it and said she was a smart white
woman.
She also showed them how to cook their rice. It seems
they all thought everything had to be cooked with meat, but in this way the
young white woman became very popular and much loved by her newly made friends.
My mother told me about many of the hardships and
privations she and the rest of the women suffered while on their way from
Georgia. Some of them were almost unbelievable, yet I know they are true, for my
mother would have had no motive in telling it if it had not been so.
On one occasion she told of an officer in charge of one
of the wagons, who killed a little baby because it cried all the time. It was
only four days old and the mother was forced to walk and carry it, and because
it cried all of the time and the young mother could not quiet it, the officer
took it away from her and dashed its little head against a tree and killed it.
VR Image by Richard Thornton
