Trail+of+Tears+Jeffa09


 * __ Trail of Tears __**
 * __ & __**
 * __ Keezheekoni Journey __**

I looked up past my mother’s shoulders toward my father, who was trudging along in the deep snow. I could feel my mother shaking from the blistering winds, as I held on ever tighter. As I tried to forget just how miserable I was, I thought back to how I came to be here.

It was a warm day, when the white men showed up at our home. Mother and father told me not to worry, but I knew something wasn’t right. We were but a few of nearly 3,000 other Cherokees taken from our homes that dreadful summer in 1838. We barely had any time to gather our belongings, and I left many a treasure behind. The soldiers roughly forced us on a journey far away from home. We were put in a prison camp, in a land later told to me called Tennessee. We were then moved again, on an even longer voyage east. And here I am now, cold and crying, over the loss of my friends and family.

Heavy snow, falling endlessly upon my shoulders increased my suffering and prolonged our journey. I could see the despair on the faces of the others around me. We went through rough and difficult times, and it seemed like the torture would never end. A short while in, my brother Etu got sick with a deadly disease that took many others too. I cried all night with my mother and father, but I didn’t know that my pain was just beginning. Throughout the next few weeks, hundreds of fellow Cherokees died of hunger and a total of 4,000 were lost by the time we got to our new home. Every day I would see another of my companions fall and not get up. My mother and I were crying nearly every day, while my father was just quite and didn’t say much. As time went on, I began to hate these white men that were killing my people and destroying our nation. I will never forget the horror I witnessed on this treacherous journey. We finally got through the land of Arkansas, and end in the new territory of our people to the west.