Some long forgotten documents stashed among some boxes at Chattanooga-Hamilton County Public Library may offer Cherokee citizens more insight into the infamous Trail of Tears, according to historians.
The papers, known as Army ration papers, were donated to the library in the 1940s. Only in recent months did anyone realize what the ration books represent, the beginning point of the Trail of Tears. About 4,000 Cherokees died on the forced march of about 15,000 Cherokees from their homes in Georgia to reservations in Oklahoma. The story appears in the Sunday edition of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Recorded by Albert S. Lenoir, a federal Indian commissioner during the Cherokee and Creek removal from 1836 to 1838, the papers list names of Cherokee families who were at the encampment at New Echota, a Cherokee capital just north of Calhoun, Ga. The records show the changing numbers of people in the families there and that family unit usually decreasing numbers. And they show that the rations corn, beef, bacon and salt also were varied but most often were sparse.
Photocopies of the records are available for viewing. The original documents are being stored at the library.
I am a member of the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah Oklahoma. I was born and raised there and now reside in Old Hickory, TN The home of Andrew Jackson President at the time of the Trail of Tears. I drive past his home every day to get to work, I sometimes wonder what kind of a man would this to any human race or animal as we were considered to be. I still feel the overtones of his oppression today. It makes me sad
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