 And we are waiting for the participants of this very important event of our conference to slowly come and join us. So we are watching the numbers. So we just take a minute or two to wait for people to arrive. I am seeing a lot of repeat names. This is fantastic. Seeing people who have, I think, been present at every single event we have hosted so far. It's fantastic. And again, it's good to see a lot of our early morning participants showing up as well. Thank you for the continued support. So the room is filling. Welcome. We'll just wait a little longer. Okay, there's already a question. Let's see, Judy. Interesting and great to learn more. Welcome, Judy. Thank you for your lovely comment. I appreciate that. So all of you who have been here before, you know, we try to keep it very simple, very straightforward and in the second half of the event, we really invite you to participate in a community conversation by sending us a question in the Q&A box and our presenters will answer them and we'll see how it goes. We look forward to it. Anyone is new here to Zoom? When it comes time for the Q&A session to access the Q&A tool, just drag your cursor to the bottom and you'll see a bunch of icons show up. Just click on the Q&A icon and that will allow you to type in a question. Another technical tip, our tech guru, Grant McAllister, will send you a chat link so you can see the video. So while you're watching the video, we'll kind of have the webinar a little bit of on hold and we give you extra time to access the video and then also extra time to come back to the room for the Q&A community conversation. So, okay, I would say we get started, yeah, shall we? Okay, so good evening. I'm so glad that you're here tonight. This is our second evening community town and gown event. The title of our session tonight is remembering the removal, a Cherokee perspective, and we will hear a lot more about this, this evening. We also have a very special Grammy Award winning documentary about the active remembering from the perspective of the Cherokee Nation and it's a very powerful video and we are honored to have very esteemed guests, both from the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians with us tonight who will share their perspectives and their insights with us. So welcome, everybody. My name is Ulrike Wietaus. I am professor of religion in the department for the study of religion and I'm a co-convener with my two colleagues who will introduce themselves. I am Grant McAllister. I'm an associate professor and Levison faculty fellow in the department of German and Russian at Wake Forest University. And I am one of the three co-conveners for this conference and I'd like to thank you all for joining us for today's last and final event this evening. Thank you. My name is Eric Elliott and I am the archivist here at the Moravian Archives in Winston-Saman North Carolina. And I also like to extend our greetings to each of you and you're so impressed with your fidelity. We've had almost 300 folks participate on the registered part of this conference and I know many of you are using the video links to watch other copies of our materials. So we're just so glad to be here to share with you tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. I would like to take the opportunity to present a land acknowledgement to you. The conference recognizes and respects the indigenous peoples of our region as a traditional stewards of this land. The conference acknowledges the enduring relationship that exists between indigenous nations and their traditional territories. The land on which Wake Forest University now resides and the land on which the original campus resided has served and continues to serve for centuries and for many centuries to come. As a place for exchange and interaction for indigenous peoples, specifically in the past, the Saura Nation and then also in the past and today the Kataba, Cherokee and Lambi nations in the current location and historically the Shakori, Inno, Sisi Paho and Okanichi in the original campus location. So we are honoring that sacred relationship and this conference is really dedicated to this enduring relationship. So thank you. Before I pass the microphone on to my colleague Nora Doyle, who is a professor at Salem College, I would like to congratulate the Moravian Archives for winning the prestigious and very, very important 2020 Cherokee Nation Wooster Award. Every year during the Cherokee National Holiday, the Cherokee Nation awards the Samuel Wooster Award to a non Cherokee or non Cherokee organization who has made substantial contributions to the preservation of Cherokee heritage, culture, community and sovereignty. The 2020 Samuel Wooster Award honors the archivists and the translators of the Moravian Church in our hometown, Winston Salem, North Carolina. In the words of the Cherokee Nation, Vado, thank you from all of us at the conference for your dedication to preserve the Cherokee Nation's great Cherokee history. And in that regard, I cannot help but advertise the most recent volume that will come out in just a few weeks of the series for which the Moravian Archives won this prestigious award, records of the Moravians among the Cherokee. And I just talked to Richard Starbuck this afternoon and he told me how hard it was for him to put this together because it tells the story from a Moravian perspective about the March to removal during the years of 1835 to 18, excuse me, 1834 till 1835. So if you signed up for this evening because you are sincerely interested in one of these two original sins of the United States in its founding time and that is chattel slavery and the first removal of southeastern indigenous nations, then here you have a powerful way to get more information. So these are my two announcements and I would also like to point out and Reverend tonight will build on that that this evening is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend and esteemed colleague and very, very well respected Cherokee leader TJ Holland. All of us miss him terribly. He died in a terrible and tragic accident very, very recently. And our heart goes out to his family, his friends and his community. And so we dedicate this evening to his memory and Reverend to me has graciously agreed to honor this special person with a contribution shortly. So these are my welcomes and now I turn the microphone to my dear colleague, Professor Doyle. Good evening, everyone. I'm very delighted and honored to be here to represent Salem Academy in college, and in particular to represent the ongoing work of the Anna Maria Samuel project, which focuses on race remembrance and reconciliation at Salem Academy in college. So in the past several years, this project has really fostered new engagement with and curiosity for the intersections between Moravian history, Cherokee history and the history of slavery. And so I've been invited to just take a couple minutes of your time to say a few things about the history that our project has been focusing on exploring. So as many in the community know the girls school at Salem was founded in 1772 and was led by the unmarried women of the Moravian community, who were known, of course, as single sisters. The single sisters live together were economically self sufficient and were dedicated to the education of young women. I also know that in the early history of Salem, students from non Moravian and non Euro American backgrounds were accepted as members of the school community. Moravian records show that at least two enslaved African American students were accepted at Salem in the 1780s and the 1790s. Anna and enslaved 10 year old who received permission to attend the school in 1785. And there was Anna Maria Samuel for whom our project is named, who was an enslaved girl from Bethabra, and who had been baptized as a Moravian at birth. And she took classes from 1793 until 1795. There's two very brief examples of the ways in which the history of slavery and the history of our institution were entwined. And as one of the goals of the Anna Maria Samuel project to continue researching and documenting this history, so that we can achieve a fuller accounting of the connection between our institution and the broader history of slavery. In addition, we're also beginning to delve into the history of Cherokee students at the Salem girls school. The relationship between Moravians and the Cherokee Nation was formalized in 1800 when two Moravian representatives attended the Cherokee Council and received permission to begin work at what would become the spring place mission in Georgia. Although many members of the Cherokee Nation were not specifically interested in converting to Christianity. They were at the time keenly interested in the education that missionaries promised to provide. Many Cherokee parents saw this education as a way to give their children the tools they would need to thrive and to sustain Cherokee sovereignty in the face of challenges from both American settlers in the region, and from the new US government. The establishment of the spring place mission created a strong tie between the Moravian community here at Salem and the Cherokee Nation as members of each community traveled back and forth. In the 1820s in 1830s the girls school at Salem included roughly a dozen Cherokee students, including the granddaughters of James Van and elite member of the nation who helped pave the way for the spring place mission, which was located near his property. The Cherokee leader Major Ridge also applied for his daughter Sally Ridge to attend the school that appears that his application was initially rejected, perhaps for fears that he would be unable to pay her fees. But records suggest that Susanna Ridge, a convert to the Moravian faith may have applied again on behalf of her daughter, and this application was ultimately accepted. Susanna Ridge was a Moravian congregant at the time, and so her daughter Sally Ridge was able to travel to Salem to attend the school in 1826. Jane Ross, the daughter of another Cherokee leader, was also a student at the school, but her time was interrupted when she left the school to join her family on their forced journey on the trail of tears in 1838. So this is just a very, very small taste of the history of our institution and of the connections between the Moravian community here and the Cherokee nation. But these are the kinds of stories that the Anna Maria Samuel project has been great interested in uncovering and exploring, particularly for the benefit of our student body but also the benefit of the larger community as well. So I'm very happy to be here tonight and to have the honor of introducing our two speakers tonight. So I want to begin by introducing the Honorable Jack Baker. Honorable Jack Baker has served the Cherokee nation in many distinguished leadership positions over the years. He currently contributes his formidable leadership experience and extensive knowledge of Cherokee history to the positions of president of the National Trail of Tears Association, the Oklahoma Historical Society, and president of the Going Snake District Heritage Association. And particularly important for our conference this week. He's also a founding member of the Cherokee Moravian Historical Association Board. Another another important leadership role he's also served as treasure of the Cherokee National Historical Association. So we are very fortunate to have him joining us today from Oklahoma. And then I would also like to introduce the reverend Matthew Tuna, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. He's a Cherokee cultural consultant, a storyteller, a spoken word artist. He grew up on the Kuala Boundary, the tribal lands of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, and he continues to live there as a member of the paint town community. His brother John Tuna and their parents, Carolyn and Larch Tuna share Matthew's interest in an appreciation for Cherokee tradition and culture. His brothers became cast members of unto these hills, which is a well known outdoor historical drama that has been performed on the Kuala Boundary. He also plays traditional Cherokee flute music has played that in for this performance as well and delivered his lines in that play in the Cherokee language. Notably, he has recorded an album through their eyes in 2017, which was nominated for a Native American Music Award for Flutist of the Year. He's performed at the National Folk Festival in Greensboro recently in 2017. He's a member of the Medicine Lake Traditional Dancers, a heritage dance group descended from the Raven Rock Dancers which was founded in the 1980s by Walker Calhoun. In 2017 Matthew Tuna described the role of music in his life in this way. My music is something that has become very important to me. I know that sounds cliche but it's true. I have found an exceedingly great amount of inspiration from my culture. I believe that it helps me to express what I feel about that particular subject. Everything that comes from our hearts is genuine inspiration. My music is to me. So I will turn it over to Matthew. I'm going to have to remind myself to update that bio. Thanks for being a while. All right. Well, as Ulrike has mentioned that we have lost a great person in our community. His name was TJ Holland. He was very knowledgeable in a lot of our history. He was knowledgeable in a lot of our town sites that lay around here and he could tell you almost what where they were tying their shoes or what they were eating that day. He knew a lot in that aspect and the cosmology of some of our places that hold significance. It is a great loss and I know that here our main focus and we put a lot of stress on language but that kind of knowledge also is very valuable. And it is a great loss to our community. So at this time I'm going to play something for in honor of him. It's not written out. It's just I do a lot of improvisation. So here we go. Thank you for the introduction, Professor Dahl. I'm Jack Baker. And as you said, former member of the Turkey Nation Tribal Council, and also the National President of the Trail of Tears Association. And I would like to give you just a brief background of the Trail of Tears and basically the logistics of the Trail of Tears. Of course, we lived in the southeast in parts of North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Georgia. And during the 1820s, well even earlier in the teens and the 20s and early 30s, we fought against removal. And then in 1835, a handful of chair keys with no authority from the Cherokee Nation signed a treaty, ceding our lands. And this was ratified by the Senate. It was signed the end of December 1835 the Senate ratified it May 18 of 1836 and President Andrew Jackson signed it on May 23 and we were giving two years from that time to remove. So meanwhile our principal chief and our council fought against the treaty because considered an invalid treaty. And actually we still do to this day by the way, but we fought against and we had a lot of support that we may get either a better negotiate a better treaty, or even do away with that treaty, because we had support from members such as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and other influential governmental leaders. But yet, still they sent General Winfield Scott to round up our people because we were given like as I said two years. So they started on May 23 of 1838, the two years was up, and they started rounding up our people almost immediately. And they started in Georgia. In the three week period, they had all the chair keys out of Georgia that moved to present Chattanooga, Tennessee to Ross's Landing. And then initially in early June sent the three detachments to the West under guard of the soldiers. There was an extreme drought going on that summer. So that the first detachment made it all the way into Indian territory present Oklahoma. The other two ran aground. Just west of Little Rock, Arkansas. And so they had to walk the remaining roughly 150 miles. And one of the detachments in those two to three week periods that they were on the river route there, lost almost a fourth, lost 145 people, roughly a fourth of the detachment. So because of this high fatalities, we were able to get permission to wait until fall to remove because the summer season at that time was considered the sickly season and people did not travel normally in the summer. So permission was granted. And then, so we were put into roughly 11 camps with one being in Alabama. And the other 10. And the vicinity from Chattanooga to Cleveland, Tennessee into Charleston, Tennessee, which is where the tricky agency was with the majority of them being your Charleston, Tennessee at the agency. So also during that summer, as we continue to lose people there in the camps, but then the Cherokees asked for permission to be in charge of their own removal at that point, because we'd already been forcibly removed from our homes. So permission was granted for us to do that. So we took over our own immigration. And we formed them into 10 detachments, excuse me, 11 detachments with the one being in Alabama and the others from East Tennessee. And then we also had an additional water detachment that our chief waited until everyone else had gone and then he took the ones that were too ill with him on the water detachment for the 12 detachments. So one of the detachment leaders, and by the way, on the hot dry summer we were actually delayed an extra month because the rain said not started, and there was no water along the road to go. So, so it was just around the first part of October before we actually were able to start. And then there was an extremely severe winter. So that the three of the detachments were able to cross Mississippi River. But then I started flowing down the Mississippi, and they were not able to cross for roughly three weeks and many of them were camped there in southern Illinois, and one detachment still in Kentucky waiting to cross. But one of the detachment leaders was a Moravian by the name of George Hicks. And if I can. So this was this picture of him was taken around 1860 so about 20 years after removal. And he had been in Salem in August and brought two of his daughters to Salem the school in Salem. Check. I'm sorry. Are you having the share screen. I know you have a slide. I've. I hit the share but I didn't hit. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, but thank you. I appreciate it. Mm hmm. Okay. There's that better. Okay, so this. So this is George Hicks pictures taken about 20 year around 1860 about 20 years after he was the detachment leader. But while he was stopped in southern Illinois waiting for the ice to go down on the Mississippi, he wrote the letter back to Salem. And it's from Johnson County, Illinois 13th of January 1839. This is my dear friend and brother. We left the Cherokee Nation east, the land of our activity on the first day of last November, and took up the line of our march for the far west. And through the mercies of an all wise Providence, who is ever ready to assist the oppressed, and whose ears ever open to their cries have arrived thus far on our journey west. The cold and winter has been very cold. And we have necessarily suffered a great deal from exposure from cold and from fatigue. Our people, a great many of them were very poor and very destitute of clothing and other means of rendering themselves comfortable. We've done all in our power to remedy their destitute situation and contributed very much to their comfort by supplying them so far as we could with clothing blankets and shoes. But still, we have suffered a great deal with sickness and have lost something 21st of October last about 335. A great proportion of them were aged and children. This is our numbers are over 1100 and so largely trained to see to to attend to their want, and to watch over required a great deal of care and industry. This causes a great anxiety of mine and so much responsibility added to the fatigue of traveling brought upon me a spell of sickness, for which I thought I should not recover. But through the mercy, I having a good degree recovered my health. We're now lying about 20 miles of the Mississippi River, which we cannot cross on account of ice. We've been lying by about two weeks had not been traveling on account of their big ahead of us to detach from some charities who must cross before we can cross. The Mississippi has been full of large quantities of floating eyes, which at times rendered to the impassable, but they still keep crossing and I'm in hopes we will get over in one or two weeks. We will start in the morning again on our journey west. The roads are in very bad order, as the ground was frozen very deep. And there's been for the last 10 days that general thought, not even any frost together with a good deal of wet, which probably will make them almost impassable. But we must necessarily calculate on suffering, a great deal from hardships and exposure before we get reach our homes in the far west. We look to the almighty for strength and protection to enable us to reach the place of a destination. As yet, we're hardly halfway. And to look forward to the determination of our journey and our toils we cannot as yet, but hope for the best. And that was written to the Reverend, we invent flag and say so. So that was a significant Moravian connection on the trail with one of our detachment leaders and then many of our church, the Moravian church members, Cherokee Moravian church members also went west. And so then, in 1984, we had a group of Cherokee young people, decided to remember the removal. And they rode their bikes and camped out along the way. And at that time, there were only two marked sites on the trail. One was in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, whether the graves of Fly Smith, and our Cherokee leader, White Path. And their graves were marked. And then another marked grave in Cape Gerardo, Missouri, just on the west side of the Mississippi River, who actually was the sister of Reverend Jesse bushy head. Nancy bushy head, Hilda brand was buried there. And basically were the only two sides. But for she in the last 10 or 12 years, through the works of our great members of the trailer tears Association, working through their state chapters with the National Park Service. We marked a huge number of sites and put up interpreting panels. So that each year is the bike rider and the bike riders for 25 years that was the only ones the ones that went in 84 and then in 2009, we decided to start up the program again. And then a couple of years later we were joined by the eastern band. And so it's continued each year till this year and they postponed it again until next year. So, so that is, so we are very appreciative of our trailer tears members that mark that and they also work closely. I think on the video you will see many of our trailer tears members who work and help out as they come through their area. So, and PJ was a North Carolina member of our chapter and did a lot of work, and we're going to missing greatly. But would you like to start the video. Sure. Matthew, would you like to add to the honorable track bakers comments before we start. No worries. No, no. That's all right. Yeah, there's a lot of components that was happening during the removal. A lot of things are happening in Georgia as Mr Baker said, a lot of things were happening here in North Carolina as well. What we've seen is there was some strategic planning going on here in North Carolina during that time. Two distinct treaties, one of 1817 and 1819 granting Cherokees to become citizens of the state of North Carolina. And with that, we were granted 640 acres of land. And some of the leaders got together and were strategically telling certain families where to go. And we see that they were starting to, to settle and take their, their lots near specific town sites like the quasi or cowie. And we see Yonaguska moving into Godua, right in there. You tell I went over to cowie but then before all the surveying all that happened, the North Carolina decided to hold a land lottery. And you tell it in that group had to move. And then Yonaguska moved up to what is now Wolftown community here on the boundary. But those are some of the things that we've seen here. And I find it interesting that they were strategically trying to get as close to our ancient sites, our old towns as possible. Especially with Godua. Godua was a mother town is the mother town for for Cherokee. That's where all of us came from that's where we originated and take and seeing that but also considering the the prophecy that was given many, many, many years before European contact telling us that one day our fire was going to move that we were going to be split apart, and that no man would be able to get it back. No man was able to get it Yonaguska came close, but he had to move on up into the boundary here now. But until the 90s, when our chief our first female chief Joyce Dugan was in office. She was the one that got what that was able to get the property back and have it into Cherokee hands. And it's just, it's sort of wild to me to realize that we had this prophecy telling us about these things that were going to happen and that did happen, and that no man, no man was able to get that mother town back was able to get Godua back until our first female chief here in the eastern band of Cherokee Indians. And that's just, that's just something. But yeah, there's there's a lot of things that were happening. And it will take more than just two hours to even see how all these connected in together and meshed in together during that time. That is true. That is definitely true. So this is just the beginning. And, and it's, it's so good to get started with this. So thank you. Thank you both. And I think we can move now if that's okay with everybody into the video. Grant, could you say a few words how we are going to do that technically. Yeah. Welcome back everyone. Hopefully you're all able to watch the documentary film and have some questions and comments ready to go. I just wanted to go ahead and now invite the honorable Jack Baker and Reverend Matthew tonight and see if they had any comments that they wanted to offer to kind of get the conversation started. I would like to make a comment on Matthew's, but Matthew said before the video about the members of the eastern band or the North Carolina Cherokees at that time, selecting their reservations to preserve our ancient sites. And now, because the eastern band are buying back. Many of those town sites. And I just really appreciate all that the eastern band is done in preserving those sites and requiring them. Thank you Matthew did you want to add anything any other reflections about the experience that particularly Cherokee young people have had in learning how to remember this historical event. It had a great impact with this removal bike ride I myself personally hadn't been on it, but I know quite a few folks, even in from the video I know that were impacted greatly by it, and these are folks that wouldn't have known anything unless they went on this bike ride. The thing that stuck out of my head was through the whole thing was, we were told that they were singing along on the trail. And this is a hymnal that was produced back in around the 1820s. It's not an actual one but it's a, it's a copy, but we have various hymns in there. I don't know if you can see that well good. I could imagine that some of those folks were singing out of this hymn despite how wretched and how dark and how tragic the experience must have been knowing to that you're leaving your home for good into an unknown land. But what I see out of this too is faith. I see the faith of our people I see that strength coming from our people I see that endurance of our people, despite what the, what the circumstances were. They were able to get to that point, because all in all this was this was ethnic cleansing this was genocide this was trying to get rid of us. I also see the strength of our people, we're still here. You got two of us here right now in this meeting that that shows evidence of that. But I believe the faith of our people and our our our spiritual strength that we got. I think it only it made us stronger during these points it made us. Be able to get through it, despite what the, what the circumstances were, despite what harsh conditions we had to get through despite the death that was happening. It was it was, it would be easy. It would be easy to just drop everything and to be sorrowful all through it to just that just sit there in the cold snow in the cold winter when the harshest winners of that was recorded. And just give up and die. But we could we went on. And if it weren't for that if it weren't for them that had to go on this journey if it wasn't for my ancestors that hidden these mountains that died in these mountains. I wouldn't be here. And it's, it's humbling to to see the strength of their of the spiritual side of them of their faith and of their of their strength of character. And, you know, that's what I really see and I'm glad I'm glad for it. Oh, go ahead. Appreciate what Matthew said he said, well, I have a longer trailer tears talk and I end with that, that the true story, the trailer tears is our endurance and the fact that we're still here. And then we were able to overcome it. And the documentary really seems to show the ways in which those sufferings have fostered the resilience of young people today in tackling that pretty extraordinary journey that they do by bicycle. Yes. And that is also part of the program is a leadership training program. In fact, if I know that Jeremy Wilson was one of the bike riders who's Eastern Bay and Tribal Council person. And we have some others that are planning to run from Cherokee Nation Tribal Council. So, so they say focused on the our nations become an integral part in helping our governments. We have some questions and some comments flowing in. And we have a couple of questions that take us back to some of the historical context that you provided earlier Jack, and I wonder if you might fill in a few a few details here. I have a question from Don line back to ask what happened to the group of Cherokees who agree to the removal treaty without full approval from the nation as a whole and from other tribal leadership and connected to that. I have a question about what became of some of the leaders like the vans, like John Ross, once they reached Oklahoma. So maybe we could get a little more historical context on that. Yes, the during the two year period that I'd mentioned earlier between May 23 1836 May 23 1838. Most of the removal party. The treaty signers, the program removal, they went ahead and moved west. And there were three of the principal leaders. Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and Major Regents nephew Eli Spudnock were all killed on June 22 1839, after the other Cherokees got there. And one of my ancestors. In the longer talk that I mentioned I talked about the effect on my ancestor, James have my fifth grade grandfather and the people that died rounding. And he was one of the ones who killed major Ridge. So it was a very turbulent time in the Cherokee Nation West for the first few years. And during that time, it wasn't just those three, but many other treaty leaders, excuse me treaty signers were killed. Different kinds, including even up in the early 1850s. So, but of John Ross. He was actually in Washington DC when the roundup started they were still negotiating better terms and we're almost there but unfortunately it didn't happen. And when he came back through Salem, which actually most of our Cherokee detachments went through Salem because that was basically the best road to get from the Cherokee Nation to Washington DC. The, and when he came back through there. He was there I believe, and was at the home church services on July 4 of 1838. He brought up his daughter, Jane, who's a student there and brought her back to the Cherokee Nation. And John Ross himself lost his wife on the way and she's actually buried in the Rock, Arkansas. But he still continued to be elected chief. Another 25 more than 25 years after removal. He served in the time, got there from 1839 on until his death in 1866. Thank you for that. We have another question. Do we know approximately how many charities remained in the East during the Trail of Tears. And how did they do so, to what extent did they hide out, or to what extent were they able to use legal means to stay. I know Matthew had told us a little bit about that earlier, but maybe there's more details we could flesh out. I'll turn that over to you, Matthew. West goes to East. Alright. Well, I see I see the question here so there were various ways we were doing this here in North Carolina. All right, during the actual removal process. We have a fort there in present day Andrews, North Carolina. And this is actually coming from one of my ancestors. His name was John Welch. Now John Welch had become a head man of this unofficial town. And his daughter was seeing the physician there at the fort. And the physician was feeding information to the daughter, the daughter would go to the father, and then John would go up into the woods and find various people hiding there. And he will tell him, you can stay here for a little bit longer, because the soldiers will be over here, or he'll tell him you're going to have to move. But that's how they were able to leave the soldiers. And really, the soldiers are coming out of the wars from Florida, out of fighting the Seminole. And the biggest place of worry was Western North Carolina because they thought that's where the uprising would begin. That's where they thought they was going to have the most trouble. So that was one way we were alluding the soldiers, but we also were taking legal means. Now during that time, it was illegal for a Cherokee to own land. And being a citizen of North Carolina, we gathered up money to give to William Holland Thomas, who was the adopted son of Drummond Bear. We call him Yonaguska. And he was buying up tracks of land that created what is now the Paula Boundary. And from there, we were starting to move up here and making our permanent home sites. And actually this here in Paula Boundary is known as the Waste Lands. The settlers didn't want the mountain areas. They didn't want that. They wanted big fields, big places by the river. That's good fertile soil. That's good places to go to. That's what they were banking on. That's what they were looking at. But they, the soldiers came all the way up into North Carolina here in the Western region. The Cherokee Nation was cut off. It's on a highway now, but it's cut off going towards Robbinsville, North Carolina, in between there and Bryson City, North Carolina. That's where North Carolina started and that's where Cherokee Nation ended. But they came all the way up here into the Paula Boundary. And the only reason they did that was because they were looking for one man. And he has become a very important part of our history here. His name was Solly. Solly was responsible for killing some soldiers. And they couldn't find him. And they told, they told William Holland Thomas that if you don't find him, we're going to take all of you and get you all out of here. So, from there they went and tracked down Solly and his boys. Solly is killed and executed for the killing of the two soldiers. But they came all the way up into this region where we're at now on the Paula Boundary. As far as the number was, I don't have it right off the top of my head, but I know that there was quite a few folks that did get taken into the stockades. And that really flushes out sort of the context of what was happening here in North Carolina during that period, kind of related to this region. We have another question, Sally Hirsch asking, how are the Katava, Seponi and other tribes involved in this story if they were in any way? I wonder if either of you would like to speak to that broader context a little bit. But they were not involved directly with the Cherokee removal, other than some of the Cherokees that intermarried with part of the Katavas. And so they went west with the Cherokees, along with their families, I should say. So there was a great number, but there was few, there were a few. Yes, and my understanding is that because the Cherokee Nation controlled so much valuable land initially and was very numerous in comparison to some of these other communities that they became particular targets of removal, as opposed to maybe some of these smaller communities. Well, all of the, what we call the five tribes, now the Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscovy Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminoe were all targeted and forced to west during this same period. We have a question from Annette Wood, and this is about really the experience of removal itself, particularly as people journeyed closer to the west. Right, I read in one of the records of the Moravian that Cherokees were left on the banks of the river without food shelter, and they froze to death. Is this true? And if so is there a memorial in that place? Maybe we could, if you want to speak a little bit more just to some of the really the details of this suffering that people experienced on that journey. That story I have not heard that because once the Cherokees took over the removal during the summer of 1838, then they were in charge, all during that winter. And there's a great letter from John Ross where he talks about that provisions will be had, regardless of what they cost. And there are no complaints once the Cherokees took over of being any lack of food. The, now in the camps during that summer before the Cherokees took over, then there was kinds of food that the Cherokees were not used to. Now whether it was inadequate, I'm not sure, but the main problem with provisions came after they arrived into the President Cherokee Nation. Because under the terms of the treaty, the government was to provide rations for the next year until they were able to raise new crops in 1839. And that's where the major problems with the contractors came in and the cheating and the bad provisions, oil needs and so forth, that they tried to give to the Cherokees. And there was actually a congressional inquiry in the early 1840s into this. But as far as someone being left by the wayside, no, I've never heard of that. And besides that, once the Cherokees were in charge and they looked after their people. But as Matthew had said earlier, it was an unusually severe winter, one of the worst we've ever had, which I believe was due to volcanic eruption a year or two before. So it was, it was just rough, the long hot, dry summer and then the cold, wet winter. So the weather conditions were against them. Thank you. And we have a couple of pretty specific questions here. We have one saying, can you tell us about Thomas's legion? And another asking, was John Ross's wife, Moravian, had she converted to Christianity? And did she die on the trail with some specific details there? The first part of the question. So can you tell about Thomas's legion? This is not a story. I'll let you talk about that if he wants to. All right. From what I know about the Thomas's legion, wayside it with the South, with the Confederates. I know one of the main focuses of the war was for the abolishment of slavery. But at that time here, it was a completely different reason that we were, are we good? I'm getting a notice that my internet connection is unstable. Are you, are you having a good connection with the rest of you? Yes, I think so. Mine too. I'm back. I'm back. So that's the, you're doing everything online. I guess sometimes we're going to have a few. Suddenly it's gone. And now we're back. Yes. Go ahead. Sorry. That's all right. Technology. All right. Our reasons for joining in with in the, in the war during that time was over concerns that another removal might happen that they might just go ahead and take us on out on out west themselves. So our, our fight was to make sure that our homeland was maintained that are we were. We were going to fight to make sure that we stayed in our mountains in our, in our homeland right here. That was the, that was the only reason that I've, I've read about for joining that war. And that's why we joined with the Confederates. I think Jack, yeah, the folks out there, they, they weren't on both sides, weren't they? Yes, during the Civil War, we were split and very close to the issue of removal. The majority of the treaty parting sided with the south and John Ross and the majority of the Cherokees, all sided with the north. John Ross actually went back east. And, and actually and his daughter went to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to the meridians there. And stayed there until after the Civil War. Actually, she went after 1862, when her home was burned in her father's house was burned and her husband was killed by the Confederates. So then she went back and joined her father who had already gone back east. So the Civil War was a tough time for the Cherokee Nation, because we lost roughly a third of our men and in addition, many women because we sided both sides. And so the both sides swept back and forth across the Cherokee Nation and each burned the other ones homes. So the Cherokee Nation was totally devastated in the Civil War, and there was almost no buildings that survived. So it was, there's more devastation I would say in the Cherokee Nation and there was in any parts of the south, but that once again was our internal war. So you had another part of the question after Thomas Legion. Yes, and I think the other question and you may have I missed unfortunately part of your discussion because of my technical difficulties but hopefully those are over now. But I think the other question was about John Ross's wife, and if she had converted to the Moravian faith, and what happened to her in terms of did she survive removal did she die on the trail. John Ross and his wife, both became Methodist, but she had attended the Bethlehem school, the Arabian school in Bethlehem. And so she was had close close ties to the Moravians, but I believe she had been sick for some time it had been an invalid. And as I said earlier that John Ross took a few of the people who were too sick to go. And of course his own family also stayed with him on the boat, and she died. As I said, your little rock car could saw and it's very there. So we have another question that takes us back in time a little bit before removal. And this is I think is a really interesting legal question. In fact, as I recall hearing that the Cherokee sued to keep the land, when the state of Georgia forced them to hand over their land to white settlers. The Turkey won the case before the Supreme Court of the US, but President Andrew Jackson, then refused to send in the military to enforce the law. So is this an episode that you could expand on a little bit any other details to add. There were actually two Cherokee cases. One was the Cherokee Nation versus Georgia. And the Supreme Court, John Marshall stated that the Cherokee Nation had no standing because they were claiming to be an independent sovereign nation. But he sort of put a told how they could do it. It is opinion. And so then later, Samuel Wooster and Eliza Butler had been imprisoned by Georgia, then they sued the state of Georgia. And it was in those court cases, it came to ruling that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign dependent nation, not an independent nation, but a dependent nation. And that's still what Indian law is all based on those court cases even today. And I'll put in a plug for C-SPAN 3 if I may. The end of February, actually February 29, they did a great preservation in Virginia, the Museum of History and Culture along with the University of Oklahoma at a joint conference, a one day conference on Chief Justice John Marshall and these cases. And there were, I was actually my longer Troiler Peers talk is part of that. But if you go to C-SPAN, you can find all the different talks that day. Our principal chief, Chuck Hoskin Jr., did a great presentation, as well as Lindsey Robertson. He's an Indian law, well, he's a law professor, but he does have especially an Indian law at the University of Oklahoma spoke as well as some other individuals. So, so if you want to know more about the cases, and actually my talk with the Troiler Peers, you can go to C-SPAN 3. That's great. That's a wonderful resource. And I would just maybe add to this question about the Supreme Court cases. Could you comment a little bit about the Cherokee Constitution that was established in the late 1820s. That I think was, you know, seen as a very strategic move on the part of the nation to really assert its sovereignty in the face of growing threats, both from the state of Georgia, and from the US. Did that constitution play an important role in this legal battle? Yes, because they had the Constitutional Convention in 1827, and then it was implemented in 1828. Well, this had a, probably the most important thing that it had to do with the removal was that it upset the Georgians to a great degree that there was an Indian nation claiming to be a sovereign nation within their borders. And this actually is one of the reasons that they pressed for the Cherokee's removal. It passed the law in December of 1829, extending their jurisdiction over the Cherokee lands within Georgia. So I remember right the very first article of that constitution specifies the boundaries, the physical land boundaries of the Cherokee nation and I imagine that was perhaps in particular what really got the state of Georgia riled up. Yes, it did. We have a question from Barbara Strauss that follows up on a panel from earlier to today, asking at the time of removal, what happened to the enslaved people who we learned about this morning? Well, the part of them actually went on the forced removal with the Cherokee's. These were generally the Cherokee's that had smaller numbers of enslaved African Americans. For example, we have Buttrick's journal, Reverend Daniel Buttrick, which the Oklahoma Chaffer Triller Pierce has published as Cherokee removal. And his diary, which starts the end of May of 1838 and goes, and he went with the Cherokee's on the removal, and it goes through his arrival in the Cherokee nation in March. But he talks about actually hiring one of the enslaved blacks from one of the slave owners on the trail. The larger, well actually, we talked about in the video, the home of James Van and his St. Joseph Van, who was the largest slave holder at the time. He actually had, he had removed earlier because he had been forced out of Georgia, which they told a little bit about, Julia Autry did in the video. Then he came west and brought his slaves and the larger slave owners actually made sure that their slaves were transported differently and did not go on the forced removal. Because sad as it is, they were too valuable property to risk on that, so they made sure that they were able to be transported in other ways. But we still had a significant number. And unfortunately, the Triller Pierce Association, we would like to devote more, well, we would like to tell the story more fully, but there just aren't the stories there. I mean, we certainly recognize that they were on our forced removal, but there are so few accounts. But Patrick has one account. So, so it's a story that needs to be told, but we don't have the documentation to tell it, but it's one that needs to be telling you told. So I think we have looked at a lot of the questions so far and maybe I'll exercise my privilege being on the panel and ask a question of you both. Just thinking back to the documentary that we just watched a little while ago. And I was wondering what other kinds of acts or practices of remembrance are happening, whether that's on an annual basis, the way the spike ride is being established or other types of remembrance that you think are particularly important for people to know about. When the Triller Pierce Association started, one of the main goals was to locate the actual trail routes and many of the sites along there and to see that they're marked. And as I said earlier, I'm extremely proud of our members of the Association for doing a great job on this and continue to do a great job. But in Oklahoma, I was the Oklahoma chapter at the time when we first formed. Okay, they disbanded pretty much at the borders once they got into the Cherokee Nation. So there aren't the trail sites and all to identify. So what I thought we should do is to actually honor the people who came on the trail. So we have markings with their marked graves of people that we know actually came on the removal. And we involve their family members. And sometimes we've had one hundred to 150 family members who did not even know each other for the most part come to honor their ancestors. They were able to locate them. So that was is one thing that we did. And last year, we were able to mark the grave of one of the last survivors. And I should believe to be the last survivor, four years old when she came with trailer tears and died. Approximately 100 years of age, or a hundred, perhaps 104 I don't remember exactly what we marked her great. And this was the video that you saw was done by our OCO TV, which is OSI, why oh, and OCO is hello. And Cherokee. But if you go to, you can actually go to Cherokee Nation TV or Cherokee Nation Television or whatever. But there are a lot. There are a lot of shows on there. And the marking of Rebecca Nugent's grave is one of the programs I believe that is on there. That's one of the things that we do with the equipment chapter, we don't have as many as we would like, but it's still a great way of remembering the people and it also brings home to the people that the trailer tears didn't just happen wasn't something that happened back in history, but it was something that happened to your family. And this is very significant to many of the younger people who to them it's just a note in history. And that's something also that we remember the removal bike ride does because we're able to most cases to trace our ancestry back to the ones who came on the trail. And that's why it's very where they were finding their ancestors name on the monument there. So that has become something significant that we did. Matthew, did you want to add anything to that important practices of remembrance, but that stand out to you or the one that I can think of. And it's about the only one that I, that's actually coming to my mind is the the council meeting with all three groups of Cherokee, ABCI Western Turkey Nation and the United Gadua band, we all meet ever so often there in the red clay Tennessee which was our last meeting and it, I feel like that one of the biggest significant meetings that we can have because we still can get together, we can still meet and congregate one more, you know, another time for as one people. And even though it's just for a weekend I feel like it holds a lot of significance for that. And that's, that's about the biggest thing that I can think of here, aside from our outdoor drama which is about the removal unto these heels. But the other than that that's about the only thing that I have, you know, on that. Yeah, it looks like we have one more audience question. Sally Hersch asks, how did the Cherokee adjust to living in such a wildly different environment. Is there a large difference in how the Cherokee Eastern Band have continued their transition as compared to the nation in Oklahoma. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, interestingly enough, except for the mountains of North Carolina, but the majority of the Cherokees, more than half the Cherokees lived in Georgia, and another 20% or so, so more than three quarters of them lived in Georgia in East Tennessee. The lands in Eastern Oklahoma are almost identical. And the weather is pretty much identical. So, so that helped, I'm sure, with the transition. I'm sure it was much more difficult for the North Carolina Cherokees who most of those detachments actually settled in what is Delaware County, Oklahoma, and most of the Cherokees living in Delaware County and the counties to the west of there are descendants of the North Carolina Cherokees. I am for just a follow up to my previous question about sort of acts of remembrance, but one of the comments in the film that really stood out to me. One of one of the bicyclists said, you know, the trail of tears really shows up, hardly at all in our education system the way we teach history. And he said, you know, maybe get the page, maybe get the paragraph, maybe get the foot now to write. And I'm wondering, do you see that changing at all in the public school systems, either sort of locally in Oklahoma, here in North Carolina, or, or across the nation, or something that that really needs to be to be worked on in terms of educating all of our school children in this history. That is a major problem, even in Oklahoma, we still only have a paragraph or two to the trailer tears. And in Oklahoma history, what I took Oklahoma history, and I guess junior high. So it basically started in Oklahoma with the land runs of 1880 or 1889 and 1893, which actually were on Indian lands. We were forced to give up. So, so there was only, there was almost nothing on the Indian nations that were here with their own governments prior to that period. And we still have it to to a degree. And it's one thing that the trailer tears Association, we actually have a committee who is working on developing curriculum that we can give to schools and the different states. And it developed yet but it is big work, though. I think that lack of knowledge that lack of awareness in the nation as a whole really connects to a couple of questions popping up here about the recent Supreme Court decision on Oklahoma Indian country and how that might affect the Cherokee nation. I think a lot of Americans are not informed enough about this history to really understand these contemporary events as well. So I don't know if you want to speak a little bit about more more recent events, and how they affect. And then I think we'll have her case. What the recent Supreme Court decision did was that it declared that the jurisdictional area in eastern Oklahoma, where it was for the Creek nation specifically, but it pretty much applies to all of the five tribes that I mentioned earlier, including the Cherokee nation. And that we've maintained our jurisdiction even after stated that it was never given up. There was no law that took it away from us. And so therefore, we're responsible for the cases, criminal cases, we did our boundaries. It doesn't change. What it does is it extends the jurisdiction before this we had it that it was on Indian lands, which was either a restricted land or trust land for the Cherokee nation, and any criminal acts on those by Native American, and they were to be either prosecuted in tribal court or in federal court. Because of the worst serious cases, we refer to the federal courts on those. And that really hasn't changed other than now there's going to be a much larger number that are going to be going to the federal courts, and to our tribal courts. But it doesn't affect many of the people were really concerned no points is does that mean we're, we've lost our land we don't longer out our hopes and it doesn't mean that we have a court for anything. No, nothing has changed other than that. If you're Native American, then where you're going to be tried that it's going to be going to federal court, rather than the state courts. So it does change. We're going to have to increase our tribal courts and the federal courts are going to have to increase. Well, their workload is being increased practically so they're going to have to increase the number of employees there. But as far as white people who live the area doesn't affect them at all. So thank you for those details. So that I think wraps up our panel really nicely we've gone from the early 19th century right up to the present day covering a little bit of everything. So thank you very much Jack Baker at you tonight and I'll turn things back over to our conference conveners any announcements about the. Thank you very much Nora for joining us tonight and so skillfully and thoughtfully guiding us through the many questions that our audience submitted to us and many, many thanks to the honorable Jack Baker for sharing with us your wealth of knowledge and information that are so central to the focus on our in our conference and to this region and also many, many things to reference tonight for your insight and contributions about the eastern band of Cherokee Indians and I think it's really very moving and we have both of you here tonight. Representative of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and a descendant of the courageous Cherokee people who stayed behind. And as you said Reverend to me, strategized with such foresight to keep the ancient places under Cherokee sovereignty and also as Reverend Baker said, buying them back and enlarging, you know the protection of these ancestral sites today and so that's a very, very good thing to do. So for all of you who are here tonight I hope you see this as just the beginning that you can go deeper you got good references. Thank you so much for joining us today and also joining us tomorrow and Saturday and we hope that we will all be able to continue working with the honorable Jack Baker and the Reverend message tonight and the Cherokee Nation, as we really have an develop our neighborly ties in perhaps a way that will serve the seventh generation in a really good way. So thank you all. Yes. Before we finalize the closing. There is there is something that I feel like we, we should do or you know, I want to contribute this to to what we're talking about the removal and the remembrance of those people that have passed to allow us to be where we're at. As I mentioned earlier, there was folks that were singing during that trail during that journey. And one of those, it's a very popular one here among the among us during the call of Andrew called guide me Jehovah, and it's a prayer song, and it talks about our weakness or reliance upon God and helping us to get through that. You know that time. And we always sing it whenever we are, you know, referring to a commemoration of the removal. Because it's, it's a very, it's a solemn event. It's a sombering event that shouldn't be taken lightly, just like any other tragic event shouldn't be taken lightly. So, if you, if you would like, I would like to share this with everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Matthew, thank you. I will carry that music with us into this evening and all please be safe. Hold this evening in your memory, the sacred songs, the knowledge, the remembrance, and we'll see you tomorrow. Take good care. Thank you everyone. Okay. Appreciate everyone's work. Thank you so much for joining us. Sure. Matthew, thank you very much and you know, both the Eastern Band and Cherokee Nation were supporters of our records and their radians among the Cherokee we were so grateful for the privilege of carrying some of your stories in our place and being able to share that. So, thank you for sharing your stories tonight with our audience really do. It's a blessing. Thank you. Good night. Is our audience still with us or looks like they're gradually disappearing. Our audience has discovered that they can listen in as long as we're still here. So, I think we have to make a decision about that. But it was interesting. We've got a number of really good questions tonight. We did not explain who the United Katua Band was. We got you guys, but that was mentioned in a maybe one of our later iterations in our conversations we can get all three in. And there's, which I had intended to mention earlier when Matthew first mentioned the songs, because two of our songs is One Drop of Blood and Orphan Child. Supposedly we're composed on the Trail of Tears. Click end. So, as a panel, we'll end our discussion together. Wish everyone a good night. Please join us for the remaining events. Good night. Appreciate everything. See you.