The Trail of Tears

You may have heard of the Trail of Tears, a tragic and sad part of American and Native American history. In the early to mid 1800s,a treaty was signed by some people of the Cherokee Nation agreeing to relocate all the Cherokee people to place far west of their original lands. The original lands would go the the government. Not all Cherokees were in agreement, and when it went through Congress, it only passed by one vote. None the less, the Cherokee were rounded up and journeyed westward. It was winter when the reached the Mississippi River, and the whole group was unable to cross before the weather made crossing impossible. Part of the group wintered on the Illinois side, the others on the Missouri side. It was a bad winter, many died.  In Missouri, at the spot of the winter encampment, there is now a state park commemorating those people and that winter. Seeing it in the September sunshine, the leaves just hinting at fall color makes it hard to imagine what a freezing winter would be, the the ravines and mountains would be a challenge with proper hiking gear, even today. We visited the park, and here are a few pictures from the lookout. 

  That’s Illinois on the other side!

 

We wonder if this is the same barge that we saw earlier in the day from the city.You’ve heard of The Old Man and the Sea? Well this photo is the Old Man and Old Man River (one of the nicknames for the Mississippi).