Where They Cried

This is for my life long friend, spirit brother, and conscience. Not too long ago, in a letter, he reminded me of a story Grandfather told us when we were kids.

Driven out by greed
17,000 forcibly removed
Ancestral home left behind
Mothers consumed by grief
Elders fearful the journey
They could not make
Elders fearful care of young
Could not come

Prayers offered up
A cry, a plea
Give them strength
A thing to lift spirits
Something to help them along the way

Prayers answered
With every step along the way
From every mother�s tear
Falling to the ground
Sprang a beautiful flower

Seven bright green leaves
Wild Potato
Long Hair
Deer
Red Tailed Hawk
Blue Holly
Paint
Wolf
Adorn each stem

Five white tears
Grieving mothers shed

Yellow gold stamens
For the gold they took

Cherokee Rose
Cherokee Rose








There have been many songs about the Trail Where They Cried (the Trail of Tears). One stands far above all others in spirit and pain. John D. Loudermilk wrote both the words and music, and it was recorded by Paul Revere and the Raiders


Indian Reservation

They took the whole Cherokee nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife
Took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan

Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die

They took the whole Indian nation
Locked us on this reservation
Though I wear a shirt and tie
I�m still part redman deep inside

Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die

But maybe someday when they learn
Cherokee nation will return, will return, will return, will return,
will return


Nv-wa-do-hi-ya-da! Tso-s-da-nv-tli, the Aniyunwiya nation will return�will return.

Author's Note

In 1838, the forced relocation of 17000 Aniyunwiya (Cherokee) from their ancestral homes over 4000 died of hunger, cold, exhaustion, disease and neglect, on the 1200 mile trek.

Reviews

[An Ordinary Woman]

I think I remember that song.

I feel this is a wonderful poem, I would not change anything about it Bob. Messages such as this NEED to be heard today. It is common place for important bits of history/heritages to go untold, what a shame for our younger generation to miss out on such important pieces.

I say excellent writing! Kudos!

[~*loved_one*~]

I am part Cherokee. Every time I read a poem or re-read the history of my people I tear up. Great read. Thanks for making me tear up again. :) loved it!

[Angel's Lady]

My grandmother was half Cherokee. Thank you for sharing this.

[Chillbear Latrigue]

This was a very moving piece. Like, the Holocause, Kosovo and Darfur (which is currently occuring), we should never forget any genocide, nor their ugly symptoms: starvation, disease and death marches. It is the burden of the ancestors of the survivors to make sure that we remember. Thank you for sharing this piece and the small history lesson in the Author's note.

[laceyjane23]

very powerful poem, such a sad part of history, great job on writing it!
laceyjane

[Lily1111]

I am very familiar with this tragedy of human spirit but I still got chills as I read this it was so powerfully written. How cold the hearts of men who could cause such misery for a proud and noble people all in the name of greed. Words are inadequate to properly express my admiration of you for writing such an incrediblly moving poem. We are taught history in school with the idea that we should keep from repeating it. But we have learned nothing. The trail of tears never seems to end, only the people and location change as we saw in the Holocaust and the present "trail of tears" in Darfur as families are forced from their ancestral villages, killed and raped while the world turns its eyes away.........

What in the hell is wrong with humanity?

[Windy]

Such a sad thing. In my opinion a VERY WRONG thing to have done. But as in history many things seem to have been done wrongly to the ones that were here first. Maybe they forgot about the Indians being at the first Thanksgiving....Taking there land, confining them to reservations, they were destroyed soul, mind and body. A good write, true write, even though a very sad one. Good job Shadow Wolf and I must say it's good to know that a grandfathers stories and wisdom is being rememberd by his grandchildren and hopefuly they pass it on as well.

[Sydelle Houston]

Halito (Hello in Chahtah) ShadowWolf, Yakoke (Thank you) for reminding all of the Trail of Tears. All of the Five Civilized Tribes -- Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw & Seminole were uprooted during those increasingly bloody decades. My Choctaw ancestors were first rousted out of Mississippi in 1820, but they took another route and wound up in Arkansas, because they said there wasn't anything to farm in Oklahoma.

This was what I call true genocide. Thanks for the well expressed tribute.

[Wildfleour]

Such powerful visual and written images, my friend.

I have always felt a strong connection with Native Americans. In fact, I wrote my Masters thesis on Native American storytelling.

Your poem tells the sad and tragic story of a great people. Adding the song was fitting too.

[Winter McPherson]

So powerful! Really moved me! Thank you for such a tribute and reminder of this atrocity in U.S. history. We need to repent as a nation for this crime against humanity and realize that we are no better then other countries we have condemned. The picture is so moving.

The people who did this and slaughtered the American Indians actually believed they were doing it in God's name and that it was his will!! "Manifest Destiny" is what they called it. They believed that God had given them this country and it was their God-given right to take it and that the Indians and slaves were merely pagans and savages who had no souls! What a horrifying belief system! One that worked nicely into their greed and pride....

Thank you so much for sharing this with me.

(One of my all time favorite classic rock songs btw)

[Ruby Moon]

"you think the only people who are people, are the people who look and thinks like you"
i think that this sentence is very true of the people who thought of and carried out the relocation
but then again some of those people are only following orders...

i think you shared a message in a beautiful way...
note : that line i qouted is from disney's song "colours of the wind"