The Trail of Tears
They took all the land
When they discovered the gold.
The treaties were worthless
That had not even grown old.
They drove them away
On a great march of shame.
Thousands died on the way
Though they weren’t to blame.
All they received
For their misery and suffering
Was a measly promise –
A peace offering.
Opher 28.6.2018
The genocide practiced on the Native American Indians was a stain on the USA.
They lied over treaties.
They used smallpox infested blankets.
They deliberately exterminated the plains bison to starve them.
They stole their land.
They hunted them down and killed women and children.
Even in the twentieth century they stole their children to educate elsewhere.
Finally they forced them onto reservations and force-marched them hundreds of miles in the snow on a Trail of Tears on which thousands died.
How many treaties were broken? Treaties promising land as long as the grass shall grow.
How many women and children were butchered? For as Custer said – ‘Nits make fleas’.
How much land was stolen? The whole of America?
In the 1820s a bill was passed that made it policy to move the Native American Indians off their land and into reservations.
In 1838 many tribes were forcibly moved, starved and ill-treated. The Cherokees and Choctaws were two such tribes. Of the 16,543 that started out between 2000 and 8000 died on that trail of tears and death. The numbers were unclear because few records were kept – after all, they were only Indians.
It is a trail of shame.