was July 4,1838. White people were joyously celebrating their independence. I was cooking a good dinner for my husband who was plowing a field some distance from our cabin. We were grateful we would have much food to store for winter. As I went about my work, I thought about the rumors we heard from New Echota, the proud capitol we had built in Georgia in 1820, rumors that the new people were going to force us from our homes and far to the west that they called Indian territory. Then I told myself there was no cause to worry. Even though President Andrew Jackson had signed a bill in 1836 ordering the removal of some 16,000 Cherokee from land claimed by our ancestors for centuries, I was certain John Ross, our fine Principal Chief could somehow have the bill reversed. When then-General Jackson's life had been saved by Cherokee Chief Junaluska in 1814 the general had promised Chief Junaluska, "As long as the river flows and the grass grows the feet of the Cherokee shall never be turned to the West." We Cherokee trusted even a rattlesnake to keep its word.

We Cherokee were as a whole more civilized than our foreign neighbors. We had forbidden the sale of liquor, which was introduced to the Indians by the anglos, in our Nation. We were contributing substantially to the economy of Georgia. White people crossed our nation at will, fearing no harm. Our people were nearly 100 percent literate since Sequoyah had created the Cherokee alphabet in 1821. Many of our people had embraced Christianity.

Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, Daniel Webster, and other prominent white men spoke strongly against our removal. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall had ruled that Cherokee removal was unconstitutional and unnecessary. And how could a mighty race that spoke so fervently and poetically about freedom and justice for all bring further suffering to an already defeated people by taking from us the little land they had not already taken? Who can conceive of doomsday? I began to softly sing an ancient lullaby of our people to my baby. He sat on the floor playing with a little rattle his father had made from a gourd. It was pretty with its brightly colored designs.

I thought I was having an awful dream...a nightmare, when suddenly two men dressed in the blue uniforms of militiamen burst in, one through the front door, the other through the back door in order to prevent escape by anyone inside.