Nancy Ward - The Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears

According to documentation on the web-site RootsWeb, Ward wrote to the President of the United States asking for help "Our people would have more hoes, plows, seed, cotton carding and looms for weaving. They would learn your way of cultivation. If you would send these things we will put them to good use." In her last years Ward repeatedly had a vision showing a "great line of our people marching on foot. Mothers with babies in their arms. Fathers with small children on their back. Grandmothers and Grandfathers with large bundles on their backs. They were marching West and the 'Unaka' (White Soldiers) were behind them. They left a trail of corpses the weak, the sick who could not survive the journey." After she passed away, President Andrew Jackson supported the state of Georgia while taking the land of the Cherokee for low compensation and promises of new land further west. The militia invaded Chota and destroyed the printing press used by the tribe to print their newspaper. When the Native Americans were round-up and sent to enforced exile, only a few Cherokees managed to escape seeking refuge in the mountains in North Carolina. In 1838 the exile of the dispossessed Native Americans began and they were forced to march 800 miles west, beyond the Mississippi, travelling despite of the hard climatic conditions. About 4,000 Cherokees died in the exodus, later known as the "Nunna-da-ult-sun-yi", The Trail of Tears.