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Cherokee Nation Thesis

Satisfactory Essays

My 4th Great Grandmother, Le-tsi-Li, who took the English name of Rachel, was born in Georgia during the turmoil of the Indian Removal Act. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for her and her family. The terror of leaving your home, possibly at gunpoint, and marching to some unknown land. The terror and emotion of this experience is unquantifiable. Following her arrival in Oklahoma my Great Grandmother married twice and had several children. However, she would pass at the age of 38 when her youngest child was just 4 years old. No records exist as to what happened to Rachel’s parents. I sometimes wonder if they died at the hands of the soldiers sent to round them up, or if their bodies lie in unmarked graves somewhere between Oklahoma and Georgia.
As a tribute to their memory and the terrible suffering they endured, I will never stop looking for them, and someday I hope to lay flowers upon their graves. I wish to dedicate this paper to their memory, and to the memory of all Native Americans who lost their lives during this abominable period of American history. The atrocities they endured are undoubtedly classifiable as acts of racism. …show more content…

Much like the Romans, Europeans swept into North America on a quest to conquer; unlike the Romans, Europeans could not be content with just conquering; they would drive Native populations into exile for the land and to rid the Natives of their seemingly pagan beliefs. English settlers considered themselves to be the superior race and thought nothing of the acts they foisted upon the tribes of what would become the United States. The Cherokee were a prosperous and united tribe prior to contact with Europeans, with villages scattered throughout many eastern states. In the decades following that first contact, the Cherokee would face the effects of racism in many

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