Staying at the Cherokee Indian Reservation

Last week, we returned after a long absence, to the Cherokee Indian Reservation in Cherokee, NC. We took a leisurely drive up the north Georgia mountains on a sunny and dry morning and arrived in Cherokee, NC., the Qualla Boundary for the Eastern Band of Cherokees. (click on the pictures to enlarge them.)


When I was a child in Paris, I played in the “cité” which was a type of enclosed and paved yard with sidewalks surrounded by joined apartment buildings. My friend Nadia and I played very often with her brother Serge, who thought he was an American “cowboy”. I was the Indian girl who he chased constantly and wanted to kill. Once he almost did, with a metal bar thrown on my head (we had to pay a quick visit to the Emergency.) I liked being the Indian girl escaping Serge’s mean assaults. I called myself a MicMac Indian, a name I thought I invented, but found out last year while in Newfoundland that there is a First Nation in Canada called the Mik’Maq. When my father took me to watch cowboy movies I always rooted for my heroes, who were those who escaped the cowboys.

Entrance to the Cité Condorcet

In history class, American History was part of World History for us and I don’t remember really studying about the American’s indigenous people, so I did not know much about the Cherokee. Their brochure says: “Nestled among the oak, fir and flowered valleys – half shrouded in the blue mist that is the namesake of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains – is a culture whose history reaches back in an unbroken chain to a time when even the great pyramids of Egypt had yet to rise out of the African sands. They were a thoughtful people who established democracy and equality many centuries before Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. This great people were the Cherokee – Ani-kituhwa-gi as they called themselves – and they reigned supreme…” . Most scientists believe that the first Indians came to the Americas from Asia at least 15,000 years ago. Other scientists think the Indians could have arrived as early as 35,000 years ago. The Cherokee’s is indeed a long and tragic story and more detailed information can be found on the pages authored by Lee Sultzman, First Nations historian here.

To sum up, the Cherokee, prior to European invasions, lived in a vast territory that included parts of what is now Georgia, Alabama , North and South Carolina, southwest Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Alabama.



The De Soto expedition in 1540 brought European epidemics which killed a great number of the population. Later on the Cherokees traded with the Europeans and dressed like them. One Cherokee genius named Sequoyah devised a Cherokee alphabet and when in 1821 this alphabet was adopted, the Cherokee were the first tribe in the USA able to read and write in their own language. They created a newspaper and developed a Cherokee Nation Constitution and Supreme Court.

Sequoyah

The Cherokee made many treaties with the white population so they could help them, learn from them, in peace, but the settlers were more interested in the Cherokee's land than in being friends with them. In 1829 Georgia tried to evict the Cherokee from over 9 million acres of treaty land because gold was found there. The Cherokee went to the Supreme Court which ruled twice in their favor. President Andrew Jackson (who had been saved in battle by a Cherokee) ungratefully supported the force removal of the Cherokee to the west by the 1838 deadline. He said that the Supreme Court had made its decision, now let it enforce it and refused to honor the Court’s verdict. Some were against the “Indian Removal Act” as Tennessee Congressman David Crockett, but they were a small minority.


"Many proposals have been made to us to adopt your laws, your religion, your manners and your customs. We would be better pleased with beholding the good effects of these doctrines in your own practices, than with hearing you talk about them". ~Principal Cherokee Chief Old Tassel

Later on Federal Troops placed 15,000 Cherokee in hastily built stockades (like concentration camps) where many perished. They were then forced, in winter, to march to Indian Territories (parceled land off in Oklahoma). More than 4,000 Cherokees died from hunger, exposure and disease during their 1,200 mile (approx. 2000 kms) forced march. There were only 645 wagons to hold all 15,000 Cherokee. Many whites attacked and robbed them during their journey but the army did not protect them. A large number were left on the road, unburied. They called it “The Trail Where They Cried.” The State of Georgia gave the beautiful Cherokee land to the greedy settlers by a system of lottery.

Trail of Tears painting by Robert Lindneux (1871-1970) courtesy Woolaroc Museum.

"We are now about to take our leave and kind farewell to our native land, the country that the Great Spirit gave our Fathers, we are on the eve of leaving that country that gave us birth...it is with sorrow we are forced by the white man to quit the scenes of our childhood... we bid farewell to it and all we hold dear."

~Charles Hicks, Tsalagi (Cherokee) Vice Chief on the Trail of Tears, August 4, 1838

The descendants of those who were forced to march west are now part of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Several hundred Cherokee escaped removal and hid in the North Carolina hills. The US army hunted them but gave up by 1842. In 1848 Congress agreed to recognize them provided North Carolina would do likewise. Now there are about 10,000 Cherokee living on the Reservation in Cherokee, NC, and they are called the Eastern Band of Cherokee of the Qualla Boundary.

Vintage postcard of Cherokee Indian Reservation circa early 1940’s

This has been a brief summary of what happened to the Cherokee Nation since the first European contact. Reading all this I was incredulous at the amount of violence the Cherokee and other Native American tribes suffered at the hands of the good Christian forefathers of this country. In the year 1500 there were millions of indigenous people on American soil, but by 1890 80% had been killed. It this is not called genocide, I don’t know what is. The fact that the world watched and did nothing to stop this massacre is outrageous. But then, this is usually the case as the world watched the Armenian genocide and lately the Rwandan and Darfur genocides with little intervention. Some tribes were totally annihilated but the Cherokee survived. The land of the Eastern Band is adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

Trout stream near the Qualla boundary.

The Blue Ridge Parkway starts (or ends) in Cherokee, N.C.

Blue Ridge highway descending toward the Cherokee Reservation (1940 postcard)

We traveled a bit along the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at the numerous overlooks, like in the picture below.


Raven Fork View - Milepost 467.9, elevation 2,400 feet.

This overlook stands on the ridge overlooking the Big Cove area of the Qualla Boundary, the watershed of the Raven Fork River and its tributaries. Called "kalanv" in Cherokee language and "corvus corax" in Latin terminology, the raven is a glossy black bird about two feet long, larger than a crow, with distinctive pointed feathers at its neck. Part of Cherokee mythology, and known around the world, this bird has become rare and is now seen mostly in remote areas and at higher elevations. Ravens tend to roost together in rock cliffs, and place names throughout the Appalachians mark their presence. When flying, they sometimes fold one wing and somersault through the air. (This paragraph is taken from Cherokee Heritage Trails.)



We drove through 3 tunnels but did not see any bears like in the vintage postcard above.

The Cherokee Path
Alone with the moon, my spirit cries
For the lives of my people crushed by white men's lies.
Taken by force from our mountain home,
Robbed of freedom, hearts heavy like stone.
The path was long and littered with death,
Alone with the wind, my spirit does not forget.
The blood of my blood left on that cursed trail,
With the young, the old, the fragile, the frail.

Forced to march into the unknown,
For my proud Cherokee family my spirit now moans.
But we did not die,
Our souls are still here
Walking in spirit on the trail of the tear.

- Martha Moongazer Beard