The Trail of Tears Quotes

“The Cherokee’s routes during the Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears “I fought through the War Between the States and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew.” – Georgia soldier on the Trail of Tears”
― Charles River Editors, The Trail of Tears: The Forced Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes

“However, murder is murder whether committed by the villain skulking in the dark or by uniformed men stepping to the strains of martial music.   Murder is murder, and somebody must answer. Somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in the summer of 1838. Somebody must explain the 4000 silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile.”
― Charles River Editors, The Trail of Tears: The Forced Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes

“At this time, 1890, we are too near the removal of the Cherokees for our young people to fully understand the enormity of the crime that was committed against a helpless race. Truth is, the facts are being concealed from the young people of today. School children of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point to satisfy the white man’s greed.   Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter.”
― Charles River Editors, The Trail of Tears: The Forced Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes

“The name Cherokee is likely derived from the Creek word chelokee, which means “people of a different speech.” Also, though many Cherokee people accept the term “Cherokee,” some prefer and use the word “Tsalagi” to refer to themselves and their tribe. Originally, the Cherokee referred to themselves as the Aniyunwiya or Anniyaya which can be translated as “the principal people.”
― Charles River Editors, The Trail of Tears: The Forced Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes

“In 1821, Sequoyah (also known as George Gist) developed a writing system for the Cherokee language. Using a system of 86 symbols, each with a phonetic value, Sequoyah assigned syllabic values to each symbol that represented all the sounds used while speaking the Cherokee language. Because the system was relatively simple and easy to learn, the vast majority of Cherokee people became literate in their native tongue within a few years. Furthermore, The Phoenix, a Cherokee language newspaper, began publication in February 1828. Due to these early efforts to assimilate into U.S. society and adopt practices, the Cherokee remain one of the most highly educated Native American tribes and maintain one of the highest standards of living among indigenous peoples.”
― Charles River Editors, The Trail of Tears: The Forced Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes

“The first contact with Cherokee people made by Europeans occurred in 1540, when members of the de Soto Expedition recorded that they had found “Chalaque” settlements along the Tennessee River.”
― Charles River Editors, The Trail of Tears: The Forced Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes