THE NEVER ENDING TRAIL The whites honor the Hermitage And the man who once lived there - But, that leader of our Nation Was cruel, unjust, unfair - He ordered the removal Of the Cherokee from their land And forced them on a trek That the Devil must have planned - One thousand miles of misery - Of pain and suffering - Because greed of the white man Could not even wait till spring - We should bow our heads in shame Even unto this day About The Trail Of Tears And those who died along the way. It was October, eighteen thirty-eight When seven thousand troops in blue Began the story of the Trail Which, so sadly, is so true - Jackson ordered General Scott To rout the Indian from their home - The Center Of The World they loved - The only one theyd known - The Braves working in the fields Arrested, placed in a stockade - Women and children dragged from home In the bluecoats shameful raid - Some were prodded with bayonets When, they were deemed to move too slow To where the Sky was their blanket And the cold Earth, their pillow - In one home a Babe had died Sometime in the night before - And women mourning, planning burial Were cruelly herded out the door - In another, a frail Mother - Papoose on back and two in tow Was told she must leave her home Was told that she must go - She uttered a quiet prayer - Told the old family dog good-bye - Then, her broken heart gave out And she sank slowly down to die - Chief Junaluska witnessed this - Tears streaming down his face - Said if he could have known this It would have never taken place - For, at the battle of Horse Shoe With five hundred Warriors, his best - Helped Andrew Jackson win that battle And lay thirty-three Braves to rest - And the Chief drove his tomahawk Through a Creek Warriors head Who was about to kill Jackson - But whose life was saved, instead - Chief John Ross knew this story And once sent Junaluska to plead - Thinking Jackson would listen to This Chief who did that deed - But, Jackson was cold, indifferent To the one he owed his life to Said, The Cherokees fate is sealed - Theres nothing, I can do. Washington, D.C. had decreed They must be moved Westward - And all their pleas and protests To this day still go unheard. On November, the seventeenth Old Man Winter reared his head - And freezing cold, sleet and snow Littered that trail with the dead On one night, at least twenty-two Were released from their torment To join that Great Spirit in the Sky Where all good souls are sent - Many humane, heroic stories Were written long the way - A monument, for one of them - Still stands until this day - It seems one noble woman It was Chief Ross wife - Gave her blanket to a sick child And in so doing, gave her life - She is buried in an unmarked grave - Dug shallow near the Trail - Just one more tragic ending In this tragic, shameful tale - Mother Nature showed no mercy Till they reached the end of the line When that fateful journey ended On March twenty-sixth, eighteen thirty-nine. Each mile of this infamous Trail Marks the graves of four who died - Four thousand poor souls in all Marks the shame we try to hide - You still can hear them crying Along The Trail Of Tears If you listen with your heart And not with just your ears. The above poem was provided by Del Abe Jones The preceding was partly inspired by a story told to children by John Burnett on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 1890. It was printed in a book titled Cherokee Legends And The Trail Of Tears, adapted by Thomas Bryan Underwood.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 05:09:52 +0000
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