I've been taking my share of criticism from commenters, and some e-mailers, over the sub-head below my title bar, "One man with courage makes a majority." Andrew Jackson said it, and I believe it captures the essence of my blogging opinion. And it's not "a guy thing." Because one woman with courage can make a majority.
That does not mean that I support genocide and forcible removal of people from their homes, which happened to many American Indian tribes, particularly the latter.
One shameful episode of our history was the forcible removal of the Cherokees from northern Georgia and Alabama, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina, which was called for by the Indian Removal Act of 1830--President Jackson signed it into law.
The Cherokees were not living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle by that time, they lived in towns, dressed in contemporary clothing, and farmed. To prove the point that no one is perfect, some Cherokees owned slaves, which is not something you'll learn in a high school or college history class.
Andrew Jackson owned slaves too.
En route to Mississippi, I made a wrong turn, not the first of my recently completed trip to Natchez and back, and I ended up on Illinois Route 146 in Johnson County, which is part of the northern route of the route Cherokees took from the southeast to their new homes in Indian Country--now Oklahoma, dubbed the Trail of Tears.
It's pretty country as well, very un-Illinois like, rolling hills, and I even saw a cypress swamp which I should have taken a picture of, but I thought I'd see more of them in Mississippi. I did, but for various reasons, the photos there wouldn't have turned out.
The Trail of Tears in one of several National Trails, I've been lucky to drive, or run and hike on a whole bunch of them in my travels, including the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, Lewis and Clark, the Mormon Trail, Nez Perce, Pacific Crest, and the Appalachian Trail.
During my recently concluded trip, I also drove on the Natchez Trace from Tupelo, Mississippi to Natchez. More on that later.
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Technorati tags: Native American 
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Cherokee 
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history trails Americana Cherokee Andrew Jackson byways travel MississippiIllinois
To the owner of this blog, how far youve come?
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