Tears of Progress: Examining the Cherokee Exodus to Oklahoma in a Different Perspective
...ced in the mid-eighteen hundreds to relocate three times before settling in the Utah Territory. Initially, they were forced to leave Kirtland, Ohio in 1837 because of religious persecutions. Joseph Smith, the president of the church, was threatened with assassination and was placed by his friends and followers inside a box and taken out of town on an ox cart. He then fled to Missouri, where other members had begun to gather in the face of bitter persecution. (Church History 177) At the same time Joseph Smith fled Kirtland the lives of other high ranking members of the church were also threatened and most of the faithful members decided to follow their leaders to Missouri. Hepzibah Richards entered the following in her journal: “all our friends design leaving this place as soon as possible. The feeling seems to be that Kirtland must be trodden down my the wicked for a season. Probably several hundred families will leave within a few weeks.” Unfortunately, before most of the group could leave, the Mormon’s enemies began ransacking the members homes and setting basements on fire. (Church History 178) The Mormon’s settled briefly in Missouri, but as their numbers grew and they prospered financially, persecution began again. In October of 1838 the persecution escalated. Governor L. Boggs, upon the urging of the mobs in Missouri, wrote: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good.” Public opinion was so strong against the Mormons that even those who knew the truth would not side with them. The Mormons had to relocate again. This time they ended up in Nauvoo, Illinois. (Church History 201) Persecution continued in Illinois and Joseph Smith was martyred at Carthage jail June 27th, 1844 on trumped up charges. (Church History 282) Over the next eighteen months, the persecution of the Mormons reached a climax and the Mormons were forced to leave Nauvoo, IL in the dead of winter on February 4, 1846. (Church History 306) The Cherokee Indians of Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama are forced, in the mid-eighteen hundreds, by US government decree to relocate to the Oklahoma territory. A portion of a letter to the Cherokee nations from Thomas W. Wilson and John Kennedy, U.S. Indian Commissioners, reads: “We have long since been convinced that many of you are laboring under a dangerous error, and that you have been duped and deluded by those in whom you have place implicit confidence. In the 16th article of the Treaty of Dec. 29th, 1835, it is stipulated that the Cherokees “shall remove to their new homes {in Oklahoma} within two years from the ratification of the treaty”—and this having occurred on the 23rd of May, 1836, you have now, after wasting opportunities, only the short period of less than five months for the settlement of your affairs here and the preparation for your removal to your new homes. Do not deceive yourselves into a belief in the false hope held out to you that longer time will be given. The treaty will be executed, without change, or alteration and another day beyond the time named, cannot or will not be allowed to you. Your own safety, your own interests, require that you should abandon all idea of change, and set at once about the settlement of your affairs and make you arrangements for speedy emigration.” (Ehle 319) After decades of being used as a political waste dump for convicted felons, the penal colony of Australia has evolved into one of today’s greatest capitalistic success stories. Rated fourteenth in the world in gross domestic product. (GDP) flanked by Korea and Russia, Australia is no country to be overlooked in the world market. After receiving independence from great Britain in 1901 the small colony of outcasts has grown to over 19,000,000 inhabitants in a recent census. Undoubtedly, Australia has astonished all those who had tried to rid the world of these “worthless felons”. The Mormons, yet another group that was forced to relocate from their homes, has since emerged into one of the fastest growing religions in the world. Statistics from the state of Utah, which is where the Mormons relocated themselves too, show that currently 71.76% of the population are members. Utah has developed into one of the most successful states in the union. With Salt Lake City as a main trading hub in the west, Utah has flourished into a booming metropolis with a population of 2,269,789 in 2001. Clearly another example of how a minority, when act...