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many trails of tears
An anthropologist comes up to an Indian, and asks him
what did the Indians call America before the whites
came, and the Indian replies, "Ours."
- Vine Deloria, Native Activist
When the phrase "Trail of Tears" is used, many people
think of the horrendous death march of the Cherokee
peoples, from what is now called Georgia, to
reservations in the Western territories. Thousands
died during the forced march, from cold, from
sickness, from heartbreak at the idea of leaving their
ancestral lands, to satisfy the land greed of the
white settlers.
There were however, many such trails of tears that
have occurred across the land we now call America,
most of which are ignored, and forgotten in the
national amnesia that we call history.
Of course, even in that infamous Trail of Tears of the
Cherokee dispossessed, there was a trail within a
trail, as the Cherokee, one of the so-called Five
Civilized Tribes, imitated white people in some ways,
including the possession of black slaves. On that
trail, along with Cherokee, were hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of blacks held in captivity. There is
uncertainty over how many because few people felt it
important enough to keep count.
From the tropical swamps and lowlands of what is now
called Florida another indigenous people, the
Seminoles, were forced along a deadly trail. Florida
was the setting of at least three spheres of global
conflict: the interests of Spain, the British, and the
Americans (the French were involved relatively
briefly). Caught in the middle, were Indian and
African peoples.
For Seminoles (who broke away from their Creek kin)
Florida was home, as it was the home of the Timuquan,
Muskhogean, and Apalachee people before them. It was
here, in the early 1500s, that the Spanish sought the
hidden Fountain of Youth. It was here that perhaps
the oldest European city was begun, St. Augustine,
around 1565. And it was here, that land greed spelled
the beginning of the end for free Seminole life on
their ancestral lands. For whether it was the
Spanish, the French, the English, or the Americans,
the expansion of white settlement means the
contraction of red lands, and in several hundred
years, their removal.
When Spanish authorities were in possession of the
territory, their relative weakness in terms of
population, army, and immigration, forced them to make
the territory attractive to those who would defend her
imperial interests. The Spanish Crown therefore
ordered that any black person who escaped from slavery
in the Anglo "north" (of Georgia or the Carolinas)
would be free in Florida, if they swore to bear arms
and defend it. Thousands did. The famous Stono
Rebellion, where hundreds of black captives, armed
with makeshift weapons, drumming, marched towards St.
Augustine, gives some idea of Florida's appeal. It
also gives some idea of why Georgia and the Carolinas
(and the United States) wanted to take Florida from
Spain: to extend slavery. This factor also gives some
idea of why the Seminoles were always the object of
U.S. derision and hostility. The Seminoles,
themselves a breakaway branch of the Creek Confederacy
(the name is said to mean runaway or break away),
treated their African runaways as friends, and fought
hard to resist American attempts to recapture and to
reenslave blacks who became members of the Nation.
Americans were critical of what U.S. General Thomas S.
Jesup called "the influence of the Negroes" upon the
Seminole council.
After at least three devastating wars, trickery,
deceit, and cheating, the Seminoles were marched off
to Oklahoma. There, they were given inferior lands,
none of the promised equipment, clothing, blankets, or
food was provided. They were overcharged, and left on
land that was promised to the Creeks.
While some army records suggests over 4,000 Seminoles
died during the deadly trek west, no figure accurately
recorded those who died after arrival in Oklahoma.
What mattered to the Americans was that they were
gone.
They were further devastated by the Civil War, as they
were once again, put in between the fights of others,
and punished after the war, by still more land theft.
The history of the relationship between the settlers
and the native peoples of the Americas is one of naked
injustice, greed, violence and death.
It is but one feature of a rarely told, and little
known, facet of American history. (c)MAJ 2001
Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights
reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.
