From the Trail of Tears to Reservation. The Cherokee Tribe as a Minority from 1800 until Today

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, language: English, abstract: This work analyses the Cherokee tribe and concentrates on their minority status in the United States. The author analyses the Trail of Tears and their situation until today. The work focuses on the Trail of tears and comments on the Indian Removal Act, adds reports of contemporary witnesses and examines the life of the Cherokees in reservations and cities. The Cherokee Tribe still represents a minority in the US, and it is questionable which position they have in American society today. The work, "A Cherokee Prayer" by Spiritwind Wood, describes the experiences of the Cherokee tribe in the time of their resettlement by the European settlers. This time was terrible for the Cherokees, and this poem clearly demonstrates this. The author mentions the "pain" which the Cherokees had to endure during this period. This means not only the physical pain, but also the psychological pain in losing one's own country and relatives, as well as the pain caused by discrimination and humiliation. To overcome this "pain", the Cherokees prayed for "strength" and a "guide" to a spiritual force they called "the great spirit". This shows the desperate and helpless situation in which they were trapped. The Cherokees felt like "convicts" and "abandoned from society", although they were such an innocent and generous tribe. Their world, in which they "once walked so free", was simply wrested from them. Passages such as "rivers turned red" or "another one dies" also show how many tribal members cruelly lost their lives due to the relocation.