We your prisoners wish to speak to you—We wish to speak humbly for we cannot help ourselves. We have been made prisoners by your men but we did not fight against you. We have never done you any harm. For we ask you to hear us. We have been told we are to be sent off by boat immediately. Sir (,) will you listen to your prisoners. We are Indians. Our wives and children are Indians and some people do not pity Indians. But if we are Indians we have hearts that feel. We do not want to see our wives and children die. We do not want to die ourselves and leave them widows and orphans. We are in trouble and our hearts are very heavy. The darkness of night is before us. We have no hope unless you will help us. We do not ask you to let us go free from being your prisoners unless it should please yourself. But we ask that you will not send us down the river at this time of the year. If you do we shall die, and our wives will die and our children will die. We want you to keep us in this country till the sickly time is over so that when we get to the West that we may be able to work to make boards to cover our families…. (Excerpt from a humble petition from the Cherokee prisoners at and near Ross’s Landing, June11, 1838.) This document represented the voices of a depressed, terrified, bewildered group of people, pleading to the American captors for their very existence. They were soon to realize the magnitude of the journey ahead of them that would eventually be described as the Trail of Tears!
This historical documentation depicts the plight of the Cherokee people as they struggled to retain their dignity and quality of life from the sixteenth century to the present. Women are highlighted in these persuasive declarations which appear in the form of letters, diary passages, newspaper articles and oral histories, to name a few. When the Europeans and Americans observed the Cherokee women, they claimed that they were abused, living a life of drudgery. That was far from the truth. Cherokee women were farmers, allowed to own property and were a powerful force both politically and economically within their culture. Labeling them as uncivilized afforded the onlookers an opportunity to destabilize this society, taking their lands for personal gain. Thus began decades of oppression and degradation.
“Be of good mind,” is an expression that Cherokee elders have maintained for a long time. Essentially it means that one is to think positively regardless of the situation. It is this attitude that enabled these Native Americans to be sustained. They learned that education was the key to their preservation and many took advantage of the seminaries that were erected for this purpose. Isabel Cobb became the first female physician in 1893 and paved the way to success for others like Joyce Dugan, who became Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in 1995. The voices of these women, and many like them, made it known that the path of tears, along with a strong mystical heritage, became the stepping stones to a greater life.