Michael Janke

Or … how ’bout y’all start heading west. To Oklahoma. On foot.

We’re back on the road, this time heading generally southeast, a first for us. We’ve been west many times, but to the east/souteast only once – the Everglades. We’ve never set foot in the Carolinas, the Virginias or Alabama, for example.

Part of our route followed the general path of the Trail of Tears. One of our stops was at David Crockett State Park, which has a portion of the Trail and a bit of signage covering some of its history. This of course set me down a rabbit-hole, learning of the Trail of Tears and its history.

It goes something like this:

In what certainly is the only instance of abhorrent treatment of Native Americans by civilized European Americans, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced tens of thousands of Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole Americans to leave their ancestral lands in the Southeast and move to what’s now Oklahoma. The white man’s destiny was manifest, the red man’s destiny was ethnic cleansing Oklahoma.

Most of them walked, often in winter. They were moved for their own good, of course. Because it was best for them.

That the land they had lived on for generations was good for growing cotton, or that gold had been discovered in Georgia and had been lotteried off to whites, or that the then-President (Jackson) simply hated Native Americans didn’t factor into the decision at all. Nope – not at all.

Those that didn’t move fast enough were prodded along at gunpoint, and those who tried to wait for better weather were ‘interned’ in what today would be called a refugee camp. That thousands died along the way was apparently not a concern for Presidents Jackson & Van Buren and the leaders of the various States – who coincidently stood to gain land and wealth by the removal of natives. Money talks, Natives walk.

Here at David Crockett State Park there is a small museum where Crockett’s role in attempting to prevent the removal of the Native Americans was highlighted. Good for him. Too bad he made the mistake of hanging around with that bunch of illegal aliens and assorted losers who thought they could hold off a couple thousand of Santa Anna’s troops at the Alamo.

For us, the path leads further south and east.

Destination TBD.