OPINION

Bike ride remembered Tennessee's role in Trail of Tears

Albert Bender
  • Opinion: Among the goals is to develop the leadership skills of young Cherokee people.
  • Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, historian, author and grant writer, lives in Antioch.

In June youth from both the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians biked through Middle Tennessee commemorating the 1838 Trail of Tears.

The bike ride memorializes the Trail of Tears that was the result of the fraudulent, illegal Treaty of New Echota that was signed by a dissident faction of Cherokees who had no authority to negotiate on behalf of the Nation. Though politically prominent, they held no positions in the Cherokee government. They violated tribal law by acting without the consent of the National Council. The main leaders of this faction were Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot. They were later executed as provided by Cherokee law at that time.

A few signs mark the location of the Trail of Tears near the former town of Jefferson on Sept. 29, 2016.

The U.S. government approved the infamous, illegal treaty and used it as the “legal” basis for the removal. In the months prior to the beginning of the removal, federal officials and neighboring whites indicated in written correspondence that they expected armed resistance from the Cherokee people to any attempt at forcible removal, similar to the Seminoles in Florida. This was not surprising in light of the fact that the Cherokee Nation under the great war chief Dragging Canoe was the center of Native resistance in the Southeast in the latter part of the 18th Century. In fact, what was surprising to southern whites was that Cherokees did not engage in armed resistance.

However, Principal Chief John Ross continually admonished Cherokees to engage only in nonviolent resistance. Once this became apparent the soldiers and the white rabble who followed on their heels set upon the hapless Cherokees with a vengeance, often mockingly shouting “Remember the Chickamaugas,” in remembrance of the time when Cherokee warriors, referred to as Chickamaugas  by many settlers, had been the scourge of the white frontier little more than a generation earlier.

More than 16,000 Cherokees of all ages, men and women, were rounded up by 7,000 soldiers — 4,000 federal troops and 3,000 volunteers, and imprisoned in stockades. Today these holding forts would be called concentration camps.

The soldiers began driving the people from their homes to the camps in May 1838. According to some historians Tennessee had more internment camps than any other state.

As a result of inadequate provision of food and government enforcement of unsanitary conditions, disease swept through the camps like a wildfire.

It is estimated that more than 2,500 Cherokees died in what were fetid holding pens. Another 1,500 died on the way west. Some authorities set the figure of deaths near 8,000 counting those who died of starvation and disease after reaching Oklahoma. It is said that no one under 6 or over 60 survived. Most Cherokees arrived in Oklahoma in March of 1839.

Albert Bender of Nashville is a Cherokee activist, journalist and author of the recently published "Native American Wisdom." Email him at albertbender07@yahoo.com.

This year’s Remember the Removal Bike Ride began with 12 cyclists from the Cherokee Nation and eight cyclists from the Eastern Band starting from New Echota, Georgia, the last Cherokee capital before Removal. On June 2, the group gathered in North Carolina at the Kituwah Mound, the Mother Town of all Cherokees, for an official send-off.

The bike ride encompassed three weeks and 950 miles. It covered seven states before arriving in the Cherokee capital of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The Cherokee young people making the ride ranged in age from 16 to 24 and typically covered 60-70 miles a day.

Among the goals of the bike ride is to develop the leadership skills of the young people to benefit the Cherokee people. The bike ride is sponsored by the Cherokee Nation each year and this year’s commemorative tour was celebrated, as always, with a homecoming event. The bike riders arrived in Tahlequah on June 22, at the Cherokee Nation courthouse square.

The bike ride is another stellar reflection of the unconquerable spirit of the Cherokee Nation.

Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, historian, author and grant writer, lives in Antioch.