On This Long Journey

by Joseph Bruchac

  My mother has visited the Bushyhead encampment to see her good friend Nanny, Reverend Bushyhead’s sister. She is concerned. Nanny has a persistent cough and is quite weak.

  Reverend Bushyhead’s wife is growing near her time and will probably give birth near the end of this month.

  December 6, 1838

  Rode out again to look at the Mississippi. As I sat on a bluff, a white bird flew overhead, heading west. The Great River is no barrier to the flight of birds. They leave their homes and return again each year. But we Cherokees have no wings. So we must suffer upon the ground when we are thrown from our nests.

  December 9, 1838

  Two were baptized by Reverend Bushyhead today in a small river that flows into the Mississippi.

  Three died yesterday. One was the girl baby born last night to Jane Nakee, wife of Long Wind. One was Nick, a black slave. One was Mary Welch, the white wife of John Welch, a formerly prosperous Cherokee plantation owner. The Welchs had been married for nineteen years.

  December 12, 1838

  The ice still chokes the Great River. Snow falling again. Many are sick from sleeping upon the frozen ground.

  December 16, 1838

  Assisted John Iron with blacksmithing. Many of the horses and mules need to be reshod. There was also repair to be made on metal parts of wagons. Blacksmithing is one of those things I have often been curious about, and he was willing enough to teach me.

  At the end of the day John Iron said I would make a good smith, for I am strong and my eyes are keen and the fire does not seem to frighten me as it does many.

  December 25, 1838

  Christmas celebrated by the Christians among us. Few gifts to exchange other than wishes for health and good fortune. The singing of Christmas songs in Cherokee was quite beautiful, and even the weak among us seemed to grow stronger as the singing continued.

  One child born this day to Culasuttee’s family in Jesse Bushyhead’s Baptist congregation. They named him Samuel. No wise men came to see him.

  January 1, 1839

  I pick up this journal again after having had little to say and even less time to write for the last few days. Our camps have not been able to move, strung out across the face of southern Illinois like drops of water frozen on a window.

  But because we have not been able to move, because of the snow and the cold, because of the sickness and the dying, because of the scarcity of firewood, all of us who were able-bodied have been kept busy each day. Many days have been spent riding for miles to find dry wood and then load it into wagons or drag it back to camp behind our horses and mules. Ancient Red has never been more needed by our people, for the tents and blankets are too thin to keep out the wintry blasts. We have had many funerals, far too many. I have stopped keeping count. Our hands, which once were blistered from the shovels, have now grown thickly calloused from the digging of so many graves.

  I have also been kept busy as a courier and also in scouting for supplies that we may purchase. The cold weather seems to bother my mule Napoleyan not one whit, and he is tireless even as we go through deep snow and have to ride far. The closest farms have run out of grain and corn to sell us. To their everlasting credit, these white farmers of Illinois have charged us no more than the fair market price for their corn and fodder. But they have no more. So we have had to range farther to supply food for our people and our animals.

  Our hunters have also emptied the nearby forests of game. Some travel for two or three days to the north just to bring back a single deer. We have purchased some cattle and a few pigs from farmers. We also have purchased bacon and salt pork. All of us exist now on much less food than at any time in our journey. Many are suffering from the flux.

  Today the weather began to change. I felt a warmer breeze. When we rode to the Great River and looked out, we saw that the ice was clearing from its moody face. There are no new floes in sight coming down the river. The ferrymen say they will risk a crossing tomorrow.

  January 4, 1839

  Jackson, Missouri. We are in camp here. Our crossing took two full days. Reverend Bushyhead was set to cross behind us, but we did not wait for his party. Instead, we moved on as quickly as possible. Our hunters left a space of twelve miles behind us in which the later groups might find game.

  January 5, 1839

  My mother received a message from Reverend Bushyhead. His beloved sister, her dear friend Nanny, died on January 4 after crossing over the Mississippi. During that same crossing, Reverend Bushyhead’s wife gave birth to a daughter. They named her Eliza Missouri.

  Nova ex veteris.

  January 8, 1839

  I have mentioned the blacks among us who are slaves. Often their masters treat them much like family members, although when it comes time for gathering wood or making the meals, it is usually the blacks who do it.

  One is a young woman named Flora. She has been a friend to my two little sisters. When she was not working, she spent time playing and talking with them. Today we bade her farewell. But it was not a sad farewell. A white man who visited our camp on his way back home to the south recognized her. She had been sold from the plantation of his father to a wealthy Cherokee man some eight or nine years ago. He informed her that her family was still alive and well, including her parents. If she wished to return home, he told her, he would purchase her from her Cherokee master. She was eager and excited to do so, and her owner was agreeable.

  Before she left, she reached into her apron and took out a packet. It contained hollyhock seeds she had gathered from flowers grown in the earth of our lost Cherokee Nation. She gave each of my sisters a small handful of those seeds, urging them to plant them in their new home in the west. That way she and the memory of our land would be with us each spring.

  January 13, 1839

  We have passed Little Prairie.

  Chief Ross called a meeting for the conductors of all of the parties on this side of the Mississippi River. He urged them to speed their journey by traveling at least half of the day on Sundays when all in their parties are well and strong enough to do so. All of our detachments have lost many days of travel when they have had to remain in camp because of illness.

  Meanwhile, word comes to us that the Elijah Hicks party has already reached the western lands on the 4th or 5th of January. Their journey is done, but ours still has weeks to go, for more than 250 miles yet lay ahead of us.

  Though it is a Sunday, we traveled half of the day and made six miles before camping.

  January 14, 1839

  Missouri seems much less peopled than any of the other states through which we passed. Farms are few, and the towns are much smaller. It is not always easy to get corn for our food or fodder for our animals. Still, the farmers and merchants treat us fairly. Our only continuing problem with the white people remains the whiskey sellers. They are like buzzards, constantly circling and looking for the weakest upon whom they may prey.

  January 15, 1839

  The weather continues to change from one day to the next. Today it is quite sunny, and the snow is melting away. Yesterday we drove into blizzards of sleet and snow. Tomorrow it will surely snow again.

  January 18, 1839

  A difficult day today. At dawn we discovered that several men were missing. Snail, Matthew Crane, Isaac Helter. Their families were concerned, for all three had been drinking. Arrow Toter and two other Light Horse and I followed their tracks through the snow. It was easy to do, for all were barefoot, and after a mile or so their tracks were marked by blood from their feet being cut by the snow crust. We found Snail first, unconscious. One of the men threw him over his horse like a sack of potatoes to take him back to the camp to thaw him and sober him.

  Isaac Helter and Matthew Crane were more difficult. We found them at the mouth of a cave, hurling stones into it. They had armed themselves with clubs and fought us, shouting as they did so. All of us were bruised. We had to rope both men and
tie them to bring them back. Helter kept raving in his drunkenness that they had planned to catch Major Ridge and kill him as a traitor. He was quite convinced that Major Ridge had taken shelter from them inside that cave.

  It saddened me greatly. Helter, in particular, has been a good man throughout the journey. He had a small farm not far from our own. He has always been quiet and helpful to others. I think the death of his wife to ague last week is the cause of his drinking. I am afraid that now he has begun to drink, he will continue to do so. I have seen this happen to many others along our way.

  I vow that I shall never drink.

  January 20, 1839

  I dreamed last night of the Feeler. We stood together in the forest. We had just gone to the water together. He held tobacco in his hand and then placed it into a pouch, which he handed to me. Then he put his hand upon the trunk of a hollow tree. It was the same tree in which I concealed my father’s musket.

  “It is waiting for you in here,” he said in Cherokee. I knew that he did not mean the gun. I knew he meant his book in which all of his formulas were written.

  Soon after dawn, after breaking camp, Tsan came to me. He held a pouch that looked familiar in his hand. “This pouch, I thought I had lost it,” he said. “But it was only hiding from me at the bottom of my saddlebags. When I last saw him two months ago, your old grandfather asked me to give it to you.”

  January 24, 1839

  We camped last night at the James fork of the White River, which flows beside the road here. Springfield is a three-day journey ahead of us. The river here is well suited for baptism. I am sure that Reverend Bushyhead will make use of it when his party reaches here. They are now five or six days behind us.

  I went down to the river before dawn, taking some of the tobacco from the pouch given to me by the Feeler. I prayed for the safety of my family, all of those in our care.

  January 27, 1839

  Started out at 9 O’C A.M. and passed through Springfield. Halted and encamped at 5 O’C P.M. Eleven miles today without incident. No deaths this past week. No desertions, no incidents of drunkenness.

  February 1, 1839

  Pushing on through Missouri at a slow but steady pace. Warmer weather today. Ground is bare of snow in many places as we pass.

  With so few unfortunate incidents, there has been more time to think. As I ride along on the back of my red mule I wonder what path I shall pursue in my new life. Of course I will help my mother and my sisters to build a new home. Since I am the only man in our family, that may prevent me from leaving to do other things for some years. But if I were free to leave, what would I do?

  I have found the life of a Light Horse policeman interesting, though I confess I do not like the rough way we must sometimes treat others, especially those who are drunk. I also do not like the fact that we are sometimes charged with bringing back slaves who have run away — as has happened three times on this journey.

  I was told by John Iron I could make a good blacksmith. As a blacksmith I would always have work to do.

  I also think of the Feeler’s book, which waits for me in that hollow tree in our old lands. Someday I shall return for the gun and the book. But what shall I then do with them?

  I could become a scholar. I could become learned and write and translate, as did John Brown. Or I could help in the rebirth of a newspaper for our Nation in the west and write for it as did E. B. for the Cherokee Phoenix.

  Whatever path is open to me, I shall have some money of my own to spend upon it. Though I plan to give half of the wages I have earned for my work on this journey to my mother and sisters, I shall keep half for myself. It may amount to as much as thirty dollars, a large sum indeed.

  February 4, 1839

  I should not have said that all was peaceful. The day before yesterday two teams ran away as they were being hitched. One of our hunters shot another with an arrow by accident (though the wound was only in his arm). A horse stepped into a woodchuck hole, broke its leg, and had to be shot, and a band of five young men became drunk and kept the camp awake late at night singing songs until we were compelled to bind and gag them.

  I was kept busy not only with all of those incidents that I witnessed or was involved in, but also had to carry a message to the detachment before us one day and the one behind the next. Just writing about all this makes me feel tired.

  With all that, our party was compelled to spend two days in camp and made no progress west.

  February 6, 1839

  Rain fell this morning, snow by afternoon. Road treacherous.

  February 8, 1839

  Hunting is very poor. Hunters brought in only fourteen deer, ten turkeys, and six dozen squirrels. Little enough for our party of over nine hundred. Later detachments may have to take alternate roads. We have swept this land clean of game.

  February 10, 1839

  Received a great shock today. My mother and my friend Preacher Tsan came to me and told me they are to be married. I knew they spent time together in my absence, but I did not know they had grown close in this way. It is true that my two sisters already treat Tsan as if he were a well-loved uncle and that they would certainly welcome him as a permanent member of our household. It is also true that my mother is in good health and has a strong spirit, but I never thought that someone as old as she would marry again. She is thirty-six years old, which is a year or more older than Tsan himself.

  Tsan further told me that she was the one who asked him to marry her and that he agreed immediately, as would any Cherokee man with sense enough to recognize a great blessing.

  “Do you accept me into your mother’s family, Jesse?” Tsan said to me. His voice was filled with concern. The shock of their announcement must have shown itself on my face.

  In answer I threw my arms around him and hugged him so hard that he had to beg me to stop for fear I would break his spine. Though the two of them seem to me to be almost too old for marriage, I am very happy for them.

  February 12, 1839

  We have almost crossed Missouri and will soon pass down into Arkansas. We shall pass north and west of the lands that belonged to the western Cherokees from 1810 to 1828, before they were told they must remove beyond the borders of that state.

  February 17, 1839

  Reached Cane Hill, Arkansas.

  February 19, 1839

  Though I may wonder about my own destiny, I have now discovered that others have quite firm ideas about my future.

  Reverend Foreman had a serious talk with me today. He urged me to go back to school and become a teacher. Perhaps I may do so. I told Elizabeth about my talk. She agreed that Reverend Foreman was right.

  “I shall return to school, also,” she said. “When we are married, we can both be teachers.” She then kissed me upon the cheek and walked away.

  I stood there with my hands upon my hips. Until then, I had not known that we had such marriage plans. But learning of them has not displeased me.

  February 22, 1839

  We are at our last camp. Tomorrow we shall end our journey. So I take up my pen today to write of a concern I have begun to feel more strongly.

  Now that it seems our long journey shall indeed have an end, I wonder what awaits us in the western lands. The Cherokees who emigrated there many years before our Removal have for two decades or more enjoyed their own government. They have their own chiefs. Though our number is three times as great as theirs, I wonder if they will accept the government we bring with us.

  Then there are those Cherokees who signed the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota and emigrated of their own accord. They have no love for John Ross and will fight him at every turn, especially such stubborn men as the Ridges and Stand Watie.

  Most of all I worry about those among us whose hatred has grown deeper with every death along this road where our people wept and suffered. Nunda’utsun’yi is what many are now calling it. “The Trail of Tear
s.” These angry men speak around the fires at night about the law that calls for the death of any who sell our land. They mention the names of those who signed the treaty and then spit upon the earth. They resolve that there will be a reckoning to come.

  I wonder if we will pass from one trail of suffering where our people die of cold and sickness to another where we die at each other’s hands?

  I have made my own resolution. I will cast anger and hatred out of my heart. Though I cannot forget what they did, I shall forgive those who betrayed us. Though their actions were wrong, I shall try to believe that they did what they did because they felt there was no other way to help our people. When I see Elias Boudinot, I shall offer him my hand. If we must build a new Nation in the west, we must do it together. Our Cherokee phoenix shall rise again.

  Jesse Smoke and his mother, Sallie, with the help of Preacher Tsan, built a small house near Park Hill, Oklahoma, at the edge of the new Cherokee capital of Tahlequah. Sallie Littledeer and Preacher Tsan were among the first Cherokee couples to be married after the Trail of Tears, and had three children, two girls and a boy. Tsan gave up circuit riding to became a deacon in the church and a part-time preacher. Together, he and Sallie ran a successful dry-goods store in Tahlequah. Aside from the time of turmoil during the Civil War, they enjoyed a long and quiet life together, celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1889.