All language subtitles for [1995] 500 Nations E3 - Cauldron Of War & Removal

Hello. I'm Kevin Costner.

Welcome back to 500 Nations.

Even before the colonies
were established in the East...

...the European entrepreneurs of
the New World started pushing west...

...testing the boundaries
of this rich new land.

What they discovered was
the wealth of the Indian nations...

...and the staggering abundance
of their natural resources.

The beautiful furs,
the endless supply of deerskins.

Indian people, in turn, saw that the goods
the Europeans offered made life a lot easier.

Metal axes, knives,
copper kettles and guns.

And for a time,
this simple arrangement worked.

But very quickly, North America became
an irresistible prize to the Europeans.

They sent armies to fight for the control
of the continent's resources...

...the way modern armies fight over oil.

In this hour, we take you to the heartland,
to a continent in turmoil.

Welcome to Part Five
of 500 Nations:

"A Cauldron of War."

"When the white man
came here as stranger...

...he saw that the furs worn by our nations
were valuable...

...and he showed to our ancestors
many goods which he brought with him.

And these were very tempting.

The white man said:

'Will you not sell the skins of your animals
for the goods I bring? '

Our ancestors replied:

'We will buy your goods,
and you will buy our furs.'

The whites proposed nothing more.
Our ancestors acceded to nothing else."

Peau de Chat, ojibway.

In the 1600s,
French and English fur traders...

...made deep inroads into
the North American continent...

...where interior Indian nations
hunted beaver, mink, fox...

...and other fur-bearing animals.

For northern Indian nations,
trading with Europeans...

...was merely an expansion
of a seasonal round...

...that had been repeated for centuries.

Winter was the traditional time for villages
to disperse into smaller groups...

...to hunt and trap from winter camps.

Spring was the season when they came
back together and resumed village life.

Hunters returned home with their
winter's take of pelts and welcomed trade.

At first, European traders
conformed to this cycle...

...and the beautiful and exotic furs
placed Indian traders...

...in a strong bargaining position.

"I heard my host, a Montagnais leader,
say one day, jokingly:

'The beaver does everything
perfectly well.

It makes kettles, hatchets,
swords, knives, bread.

In short, it makes everything.'

He was making sport of us Europeans
who have such a fondness...

...for the skin of this animal."

Nicholas d'onee, fur trader.

Fur trade was becoming central
to the European economy.

From beaver came felt, and when
the felt hat came into fashion in Europe...

...the North Atlantic trade
took on global proportions.

It seemed like the European
way of trading...

...was to go out
and try to outdo one another.

Who was gonna have the most?

And so our people were not like that...

...with the other nations
before the Europeans.

But they soon caught on to be able
to become wealthy that way.

Increasing demand and higher prices
forced the fur trade to change...

...and, along with it,
the very structure of Indian nations.

Many Indian people
found it more lucrative to trade...

...than to pursue old economic activities.

If you take a primitive tribe anywhere...

...and present them with something
that will make them have an easier life...

...they will take it.

You know? The easy, easy way.

And by using the easy way,
you're losing also your culture...

...because keeping your culture
is not always easy.

Young men broke away
from their traditional community roles...

...to pursue commercial hunting
in order to obtain goods...

...that could only be gained
through trade.

Agricultural nations planted less.

Fields lay fallow as pelts were used
to purchase food from European traders.

Ancient cultural and religious values
came under attack...

...as the relationships
between Indian people...

...the land and animals,
changed through commercial hunting.

Even European traders
noted the transition.

Before, they killed animals only
in proportion as they had need of them.

They never made an accumulation of skins
of moose, otter, beaver or others...

...but only so far as they needed them
for personal use.

Within decades,
the animal populations of entire regions...

...were completely exterminated.

In the past, there was none
to barter with us...

...that would have tempted us
to waste our animals...

...as we did after the white people
came on this island.

Nations who once traded in peace
were forced into competition...

...even hostility, as hunters encroached
upon the lands of others.

"The times are exceedingly altered.

The times have turned
everything upside down...

...chiefly by the help of the white people.

In times past, our forefathers lived in peace,
love and great harmony...

...and had everything in great plenty.

But, alas, it is not so now.

All our fishing, hunting and fowling
is entirely gone."

Harry Quaduaquid, Mohegan.

Adherence to traditional values...

...was further eroded by the greatest
of all scourges that flowed from trade:

Alcohol.

A British trader observed:

They do not call it drinking
unless they become drunk.

Immediately after taking...

...everything with which they can
injure themselves from the houses...

...the women carry it into the woods...

...where they go to hide
with all their children.

After that, the men have a fine time...

...beating, injuring
and killing one another.

With each generation, alcohol cut deeper
into the social fabric of Indian nations.

In 1803 alone, 21,000 gallons of rum
flowed into the interior.

"We are meant to deliberate upon what?

Upon no less a subject than whether
we shall or shall not be a people.

The tyrant is no native to our soil,
but is the pernicious liquid...

...which our pretended white friends
artfully introduced...

...and so plentifully pours among us."

Creek speaker.

Trade also brought a deadly killer that
went unrecognized until the 20th century.

Indian nations had long traditions
in painting and paint making...

...and few pigments were as highly prized
as red ocher.

When European traders introduced
brilliant red vermilion paint...

...it became widely used
for facial and body decoration.

But the paint was made
from lead and mercury...

...hidden poisons that may have
struck down thousands.

Such was the agreement made
by my ancestors with the white man.

They hunted for the white man...

...and before many years,
the game grew scarce.

And the benefits we derived
from this agreement are these:

Instead of using a stone to cut my wood,
I used a sharp ax.

Instead of being clothed in my own warm,
ancient clothing...

...I used that which comes
from across the big water.

Instead of having plenty of food,
I am always hungry.

And instead of being sober,
the Indians are drunk.

Along the south Atlantic coast,
one small Indian nation...

...would take their economic destiny
into their own hands.

In 1670, the English founded Charleston...

...on land belonging to the Sewee,
or "Islanders."

Charleston emerged as the economic heart
of the Southern colonies...

...built on a thriving trade in deer hides
with the Sewee and neighboring nations.

In the late 1600s,
with the founding of Charleston...

...the economy revolved
around Indian trade.

The men who lived along Goose Creek...

...became the big traders who would go
into the interior, trading with the Indians.

Trading all manner of
manufactured goods and beads...

...but primarily to get deerskins...

...which were being used
for all kinds of purposes.

The financial success
of the Charleston traders...

...did not extend to their Indian suppliers,
who typically received only five percent...

...of what buyers in England
paid for their hides.

The Sewee were determined
to be treated fairly.

An English observer reported:

"Seeing that the ships always
came in at one place...

...made them very confident that that way
was the exact road to England.

And seeing so many ships come thence,
they believed it could not be far."

John Lawson, surveyor general.

The Sewee believed that by rowing
to the distant point on the horizon...

...where ships first appeared...

...they would be able to
find their way to England.

Once there, they could
establish direct trade...

...eliminating the expensive middlemen.

Preparations were secretly begun.

"It was agreed upon immediately
to make an addition of their fleet...

...by building more canoes, and those
to be of the best sort and biggest size...

...as fit for their intended discovery.

Some Indians were employed
about making the canoes...

...others to hunting.

Everyone to the post
he was most fit for...

...all endeavors tending towards
an able fleet and cargo for Europe."

John Lawson, surveyor general.

After months of preparation...

...the canoes were loaded with hides,
pelts and the most valuable possessions...

...of the Sewee nation.

All able-bodied men and women...

...boarded the vessels
and launched into the surf...

...leaving behind only the children,
the sick and the very old.

The Sewee nation had become a flotilla.

But as they entered open ocean,
their fragile endeavor turned disastrous.

A gale blew up.

High seas engulfed the Sewee canoes.

Those strong enough to survive
were not the fortunate ones.

They were rescued by
a passing English slave ship...

...only to be delivered to the auction block
in the West Indies.

In an instant,
the Sewee nation ceased to exist.

Its people had become a commodity.

They were not alone.

Indian slaves,
along with deer hides and rum...

...formed the basis of
the Southern colonial economy.

In Charleston, South Carolina...

...the slave trade really started
with the selling of Indians...

...and everything that we see later with the
African-Americans who were sold there...

...was going on in the 1600s and 1700s
with the Indians.

They would be brought into market,
they'd be put up on a block...

...they would be auctioned off.

Many Indian slaves were kept
for the home economy in the South...

...or shipped to New England.

Most were sent to Barbados,
the Bahamas, Jamaica...

...and other Caribbean outposts
to work the sugar plantations.

Life in servitude was brutal and short...

...and, as Indian slaves
succumbed to violence...

...disease and harsh working conditions...

...African slaves were imported
to take their place.

Africans and Indians were basically
being treated as animals.

Even though the Catholic Church had
recognized the humanity of the Indians...

...most of the conquerors who came over
did not recognize them as human beings...

...and they treated them the same way
they would wild horses or cows...

...by branding them, by chaining them,
by making them march in long lines...

...chained to one another,
and then by selling them in an auction.

You could see an Indian being sold
on an auction block...

...the same way you could see cows,
horses, or a mule being sold.

As late as 1730, one-quarter of the slaves
in some Southern colonies...

...were still Indian people.

"They took a part of my tribe
and sold them to the Spaniards in Bermuda.

But I would speak, and I could wish
it might be like the voice of thunder...

...that it might be heard afar off,
even to the ends of the earth.

He that will advocate slavery
is worse than a beast...

...and he that will not set his face against
its corrupt principles is a coward...

...and not worthy of being
numbered among men."

William Apess, Pequot.

"You British and the French are like
the two edges of a pair of shears...

...and we are the cloth which is
cut to pieces between them."

Odawa.

By the mid- 1700s,
the Indian nations of the Eastern interior...

...were surrounded by European powers.

Spain controlled Florida.

The English were pressing in
from their colonies in the East.

And the French were aggressively moving
across the Great Lakes...

...and along the Mississippi River.

Spurred by the increasingly lucrative
fur trade, along with valuable farmlands...

...North America was seen by
the Europeans as a commercial prize.

To win it, the French and English
established military outposts...

...throughout the interior
to support their trading ventures...

...and solidify their claims to the land.

This idea of encroachment...

...and land ownership
was so foreign to us...

...that we couldn't understand it.
As individuals, we couldn't understand it.

It was carving up our mother's breast.

It was parceling out the land
and the air above it...

...to individual ownership.

In 1754, France and England
clashed for control over the continent...

...in what would become known as
the French and Indian War.

From Europe, the American conflict
was seen as a distant chess match...

...for territory, power and trade...

...with Indian nations
mere fighting pawns.

But in America,
the interior Indian nations...

...saw their homelands
turned into violent battlegrounds.

"Why do not you and the French fight
in the old country and on the sea?

Why do you come to fight in our land?"

Shingas, Lenape.

Most Indian nations joined the war
on the side of the French.

We had a very close affinity
to the French people.

The reason is because they had
no designs on our territory.

They were not out to colonize.
If they wanted to live with us...

...they married into the tribe, and they
lived with us, and they were welcome.

On the other hand,
at the other end of the scale...

...the English are notorious
for being colonists.

They don't want the sun to set
on the British Empire...

...so they want colonies everywhere,
and this new world was no different.

That's why they came.

In 1760, after six years of war...

...the French shocked their Indian allies in
the Ohio Valley and western Great Lakes...

...by abruptly withdrawing
from the region.

While the French continued to fight
for other parts of the continent...

...here, the English army moved
into their abandoned forts unopposed.

Englishmen...

...although you have
conquered the French...

...you have not yet conquered us.

We are not your slaves.

These lakes, these woods and mountains
were left to us by our ancestors.

They are our inheritance...

...and we will part with them to none.

One Odawa man, who had fought alongside
the French, then watched them retreat...

...refused to abandon the struggle.

His name was Pontiac.

On the night he was born,
there was snow and rain and winds.

There was lightning and thunder,
and there were shooting stars.

And all of the phenomena
that was taking place that night...

...the elders said that there was
a great person being born.

While many leaders saw the English
as a threat to their nations...

...Pontiac saw the English as a threat
to all Indian people.

Nations had to put aside the past
and unite in common purpose.

Pontiac's vision would change the thinking
of Indian leaders for generations.

So, what he did was
to organize his own thoughts...

...and then organize his own people
and then other tribes.

Got them together, with what undoubtedly
had to be great oratory...

...and great diplomatic moves and skills...

...to get people, some of whom were
his bitter enemies, our tribe's enemies.

We fought the Hurons
for hundreds of years.

We fought the Shawnees.
We fought many of these tribes.

He went around and got them...

...to become part of what's known as
Pontiac's Confederacy.

"It is important for us, my brothers...

...that we exterminate from our land
this nation which only seeks to kill us.

When I go to the English chief to tell him
that some of our comrades are dead...

...instead of weeping,
he makes fun of me and of you.

When I ask him for something
for our sick, he refuses...

...and tells me that he has no need of us.

There is no more time to lose.

And when the English
shall be defeated...

...we shall cut off the passage,
so they cannot come back to our country."

Pontiac, odawa.

Fighting men from the Anishinabe,
Miami, Seneca, Lenape...

...Shawnee and other nations,
responded to his call.

In May of 1763, Pontiac's Rebellion
erupted with the siege of Fort Detroit.

Over the next two months, nine of the 11
English forts in the region fell.

Only Detroit and Fort Pitt
remained in British hands...

...both under siege by Pontiac's alliance.

When he started taking the British forts,
and he took them one by one...

...cut off the security of the colonists,
then they were on their own.

Then his vision was that once we get
the last one, once we get Detroit...

...we'll start and we'll just kind of
herd them ahead of us like ducks or geese...

...right back to the Atlantic ocean.

Pontiac stood on the verge
of total victory.

With France still in control
of Louisiana and the Mississippi...

...local French residents assured him...

...that French forces would soon
return to the region...

...to help him drive out the English
once and for all.

But unknown to Pontiac, France had already
signed a treaty of surrender in Paris...

...ending all hostilities between
the two colonial powers in North America.

Rumors of the accord
reached Pontiac in June...

...at the height of his triumph.

But he refused to believe that the French
would not respond to his victories.

The British army, freed from
campaigns against the French...

...launched massive expeditions
against the Indian forces.

But Pontiac's alliance held their ground.

Increasingly desperate to prevail...

...British commander Jeffrey Amherst
put a bounty on Pontiac's head...

...then proposed a sinister tactic:
Germ warfare.

Could it not be contrived
to send the smallpox...

...among those disaffected
tribes of Indians?

We must, on this occasion, use every
stratagem in our power to reduce them.

You will do well to try to inoculate
the Indians by means of blankets...

...to try to extirpate this execrable race.

Shawnee, Lenape, and Odawa...

...were crippled by smallpox-infested
blankets from Fort Pitt.

Pretty soon, burst out
a terrible sickness among us.

Lodge after lodge was totally vacated.

Nothing but the dead bodies
lying here and there in their lodges.

Entire families being swept off
with the ravages of this terrible disease.

In October, confirmation of the French
surrender reached Pontiac and his allies.

The news was a decisive blow
to the momentum of the rebellion.

Now they knew that help
would never come.

Pontiac called off the siege of Detroit...

...and retired with his people
to their winter camps.

The next spring, he tried to rally forces
for another push against the English...

...but his efforts were ineffective.

Many Indian nations were encouraged
by English promises...

...that settlements would
never be allowed on their land.

They were also anxious
to normalize relations...

...and to resume European trade.

With the passage of another year,
Pontiac was a leader without a following.

His moment had passed.

The British forts were there to stay.

In 1769, only six years after
the incredible success...

...of his campaign against the British,
Pontiac died...

...murdered in the ancient Indian center
of Cahokia.

But his life had not been in vain.

His vision of united Indian nations
would echo through the region...

...and across the coming decades.

The idea didn't die.

The idea that Pontiac had implanted...

...with these other leaders
and these other tribes prevailed.

Pontiac's life was a message
to the future.

But before the nations of the Great Lakes
and Ohio Valley would rise again...

...the continent would be embroiled
in another costly war...

...this time, between
the American colonists and their king.

"The Iroquois laugh when you talk
of obedience to kings.

For they cannot reconcile the idea
of submission with the dignity of man.

Each individual is a sovereign
in his own mind...

...and as he conceives he derives
his freedom from the Creator alone...

...he cannot be induced
to acknowledge any other power."

John Long, fur trader.

The Europeans,
their point of view on our people...

...is that we didn't really exist as a people,
as a structured people...

...until they came.

You know, but, really,
when you research back into our history...

...you're gonna find that
we were already structured...

...and with governments intact,
and our way of life was already intact.

The oldest democracy in North America
was created by five Indian nations...

...in what is today New York state:

The Onondaga, Oneida,
Mohawk, Seneca and Cayuga.

Together they became
known as the Iroquois.

They called themselves
the Haudenosaunee.

The Haudenosaunee confederacy
was born in a violent era...

...centuries before
the French and Indian War.

At that time, a vicious cycle
of war and revenge...

...was running out of control
among the five nations.

In the midst of the chaos, a visionary man
from the Huron nation appeared.

Rather than a war club and arrows,
he carried teachings.

He would be known as
"the Peacemaker."

The Peacemaker proposed a set of laws
by which people and nations...

...could live in peace and unity.

A system of self-rule, guided by
moral principles known as the "Great Law."

In all your acts,
self-interest shall be cast away.

Look and listen for the welfare
of the whole people...

...and have always in view
not only the present...

...but also the coming generations.

The unborn of the future nation.

When the Great Peacemaker
designed the confederacy and its laws...

...he brought together five warring nations
into one heart, one body, one mind...

...and he symbolized it
by using five arrows...

...when he bound it together
to make it a strong union.

He said, "When you pull one arrow out,
it's easily broken."

He broke one in half in front of them,
just to show them.

So he told them, he said,
"If you all stick together, in union...

...then you will never be broken."

The first wampum belt was created
to symbolize the Great Law.

The image embodied the dream
that became a reality.

Five nations, independent,
but joined together as one.

The Great Law was both
a set of moral teachings...

...and a concrete plan
for a democratic union...

...built around the social structures
of the nations.

Each nation had long been
organized into clans...

...which served as extended families.

Clans lived together in longhouses...

...which were owned
by the women of the clans.

Up to 200 feet in length, longhouses
sheltered as many as a dozen families...

...with private areas and shared fires.

They were a place of security,
a warm refuge against harsh winters.

Clan membership passed
from mother to child.

When a child came of age,
they would marry into another clan.

In this way, the entire nation was woven
into one greater family.

From this clan structure...

...the Haudenosaunee
built a representative democracy.

The women of each clan
would appoint one man as clan chief.

In this way, leadership would rise
through trust, rather than conquest.

The clan chiefs of each
of the five nations...

...gathered at the Haudenosaunee
capital of Onondaga...

...to form the Grand Council.

Governing from the heart
of their territory...

...the Grand Council envisioned
all five nations...

...as sheltered by a giant longhouse...

...stretching 250 miles.

The longhouse's central aisle...

...was the Haudenosaunee trail...

...the principal line of communication
between the members of the league.

The eastern door of the domain
was guarded by the Mohawk.

The Seneca watched the door
to the west.

And the Onondaga were the center...

...the keepers of the fire.

The democratic confederacy
envisioned by the Peacemaker...

...preserved peace for centuries.

When the Europeans arrived...

...in the territory of the Haudenosaunee
in the early 1600s...

...the process or protocol that the
Peacemaker had given to us was in place.

So we were able to deal with
those Europeans on a political basis.

In 1754, Benjamin Franklin attended
a conference with the Haudenosaunee...

...in Albany, New York.

He came away inspired
by the successful model...

...of independent states
united under one rule of law.

Soon after, he would propose
a similar union of colonies.

Twenty-two years later,
these United States...

...would declare their independence
from England.

In that year, 1776...

...events swirled toward
the American Revolution.

Ten thousand strong
and strategically located...

...between the colonies
and the British in Canada...

...the Haudenosaunee
were seen as a key to victory.

British and American diplomats
met repeatedly...

...with representatives
of the Grand Council...

...trying to pull the Indian nations
to their side.

But the Grand Council...

...guided by the principles of peace
laid down by the Great Law...

...declared their neutrality.

Although they would not ally
with either power...

...in a diplomatic gesture,
a delegation from the Grand Council...

...traveled to Philadelphia.

There, the Haudenosaunee,
the oldest democracy in North America...

...officially recognized
the fledgling American government.

The delegation had been lodged
in Independence Hall...

...above the chamber of
the Continental Congress...

...where representatives were drafting
the Declaration of Independence.

During that same critical summer
of 1776...

...a young Mohawk named Joseph Brant
returned from England.

A prot�g� of the British agent
for Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson...

...Brant's family had long-standing ties
to the British.

Traveling among
the Haudenosaunee nations...

...Brant passionately argued
for an alliance with the British...

...as their only hope to prevent
being overrun by the Americans.

He started to go amongst the nations...

...of the Mohawks, the oneidas,
the onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas...

...trying to entice the young men...

...to go on the side of the British.

In an act that threatened the very existence
of the confederacy...

...Joseph Brant, in open defiance
of the Grand Council...

...called a meeting
in the summer of 1777...

...to argue the British case.

Blacksnake, a young Haudenosaunee man
from the Seneca nation...

...listened closely.

Brant came forward and said...

...that if we did nothing for the British...

...there would be no peace for us...

...our throats would be cut
by the redcoat man or by America...

...that we should go and join the Father.

This is the way for us.

Blacksnake's uncle, a respected
Seneca leader named Cornplanter...

...rose to challenge Brant.

Cornplanter was a veteran
of the French and Indian Wars...

...and had participated in the critical
Council decisions of his time.

He wanted no part of a war
that was not his to fight.

"You must all mark and listen
to what I have to say.

War is war.

Death is death.

A fight is a hard business.

Here, America says not to lift our hands
against either party.

I move, therefore, to wait a little while...

...to hear more consultation
between the two parties.

Let the British say everything
he is going to say to us.

We then can see clear where we are going
and not be deceived."

Cornplanter, Seneca.

In shocked disbelief...

...Blacksnake and the others watched
as Brant rose to his feet.

He ordered Cornplanter
to stop speaking...

...then called him a coward.

The men had a great deal of controversy
among themselves...

...with some for Brant
and some for Cornplanter.

They began to say
that we must fight for somebody...

...because they could not bear
to be called cowards.

The following day, the gathering,
predominately Mohawk and Seneca...

...broke with the Grand Council...

...and agreed to fight with the British.

Cornplanter resigned himself
to the majority will...

...and rallied his men.

Every brave man show himself now.

Hereafter, we will find,
are many dangerous times.

I, therefore, say to you...

...you must stand like good soldiers
against your own white brother.

Because just as soon as he finds out
that you are against him...

...he will show no mercy on us.

But as factions broke
from the Grand Council...

...not all joined the British.

The Oneida, heavily influenced
by American missionaries...

...were moving toward an outright alliance
with the Americans.

The horror of civil war
loomed over the confederacy.

In the midst of the American Revolution...

...a Haudenosaunee civil war began.

On August 6th, 1777...

...Oneida fighting men
and their American allies...

...clashed at Oriskany Creek
with British troops...

...and their Seneca and Mohawk allies.

At day's end,
hundreds lay dead on the battlefield.

As the war raged across
the eastern continent...

...Mohawk and Seneca forces
allied with the British...

...wreaked havoc on frontier settlements...

...draining American economic and military
resources away from the war effort.

In retaliation,
George Washington sent an army...

...against the Haudenosaunee capital
at Onondaga...

...one nation still clinging tenaciously
to neutrality.

After Washington's army
ransacked the capital...

...the Onondaga also plunged angrily into
the war on the side of the British.

You call George Washington
the father of your country.

We call George Washington Hanadegaies,
which means "town destroyer."

In August 1779...

...Washington sent General John Sullivan...

...into Haudenosaunee country
with 5000 men.

Entering territory few white men
had ever even seen...

...Sullivan carved a chilling swath
of destruction...

...forcing those in his path
to flee their homes.

Sullivan's soldiers could not help
but marvel...

...at the prosperity of the deserted towns
they were destroying.

We reached the town,
which consisted of 128 houses...

...mostly very large and elegant.

The Indians live much better
than most of the Mohawk River farmers...

...their houses very well furnished
with all necessary household utensils...

...great plenty of grain...

...several horses, cows and wagons.

It appears to be a very old settlement.

There are a great number
of apple and peach trees here...

...which we cut down and destroyed.

A group of Haudenosaunee mercenaries...

...who guided Sullivan's army
into the territory...

...were captured by the Seneca.

One man recognized his own brother
among the captives.

Brother, you have merited death.

When those rebels drove us from the fields
of our fathers to seek out new homes...

...it was you who would dare to step forth
as their pilot...

...and conduct them to the doors
of our homes to butcher our children...

...and put us to death.

No crime can be greater.

But though you have merited death
and shall die on this spot...

...my hands shall not be stained
in the blood of a brother.

Who will strike?

A Seneca chief
killed the prisoner instantly.

But even the powerful Seneca could not
stand against Sullivan's massive army.

Old and young grabbed what few
possessions they could carry and fled.

"The part of our corn they burnt...

...and threw the remainder into the river.

They burnt our houses...

...killed what few cattle and horses
they could find...

...destroyed our fruit trees...

...and left nothing but the bare soil.

What were our feelings...

...when we found that there was not a
mouthful of any kind of sustenance left...

...not even enough to keep a child
one day from perishing with hunger?"

Dehgewanus, Seneca.

In retaliation for the American destruction
of Onondaga...

...Mohawk, Seneca and Cayuga villages...

...Joseph Brant attacked the Oneida
and neighboring Tuscarora...

...allies of the Americans.

In the end, all of the five nations
were ravaged.

Out of scores of Haudenosaunee towns...

...only two survived unscathed.

And it was already fall...

...with no way to replace the lost crops.

The tragedy heightened
with the coming of winter.

It was the coldest in memory.

Snow fell 5 feet deep.

Many homeless Haudenosaunee
died of hunger, cold and disease.

Less than four years later, in 1783...

...the British government surrendered
at the Treaty of Paris.

With no concern for the sovereignty
of Indian nations, even their allies...

...the British ceded control of the continent
as far west as the Mississippi...

...to the new American nation.

In postwar treaties...

...the United States government
seized vast Haudenosaunee lands...

...even those belonging to their allies,
the Oneida...

...whose women had brought
life-saving corn and blankets...

...to George Washington's starving troops
at Valley Forge.

But the five nations
of the Haudenosaunee...

...would heal the wounds of civil war
and remain defiant.

In 1790, they forced concessions
from the United States...

...at the Treaty of Canandaigua...

...which allowed them to keep
their core homelands.

The Haudenosaunee
would survive and rebuild...

...drawn together by the Great Law
and their Grand Council...

...a union that endures to this day.

If the Haudenosaunee was destroyed...

...at the Revolutionary War...

...then why am I sitting here?

We were not destroyed.

Our Council fire still remained.

Our Council's fires has remained
all of these years.

And the history and the culture
of the Haudenosaunee...

...its political and spiritual structure
is still intact.

And we sit here, traveling around the world
on our own passports...

...as sovereign people.

We were not destroyed
by the Revolutionary War.

No sooner had the United States
come into being...

...than its people, hungry for new land
and opportunity...

...poured west, across the Appalachian
Mountains, to open up the new frontier.

But imagine the movement
as the Indian people must have seen it.

This was their home...

...where their ancestors were buried...

...where they were raising their children.

They had already experienced
the disruptions of trade:

Alcohol, missionaries, disease and war.

Now their lands were at stake.

Indian people fought
to preserve their freedom...

...and in their aggressive defense,
stories of frontier violence...

...came to define them as hostiles
and savages.

Armed with this distorted image,
the same cycle...

...that had dispossessed
the Indian nations of the East...

...was underway again.

We begin Part Six in
the ohio River valley.

Where, in the atmosphere
of frontier chaos...

...one of the great leaders
of North America would emerge...

...with a message of hope.

His name was Tecumseh...

...and he would try to change
the course of history.

"When we passed through the country
between Pittsburgh and our nations...

...lately Shawnee and Lenape
hunting grounds...

...where we could once see nothing
but deer and buffalo...

...we found the country thickly inhabited...

...and the people under arms.

We were compelled to make
a detour of 300 miles.

We saw large numbers
of white men in forts...

...and fortifications around salt springs...

...and buffalo grounds."

Cornstalk, Shawnee.

In the aftermath
of the American Revolution...

...the lands of the powerful
Haudenosaunee nations...

...were shrunk to little more
than reservation islands.

The front lines of the invasion
moved west...

...to the nations of the Ohio Valley:

The Lenape, Shawnee, Miami and others.

Settlers flooded west...

...many of them
Revolutionary War veterans...

...paid with land grants by the government
left bankrupt from the war.

Supported by the new United States...

...they came prepared to fight for the land.

"The people of our frontier carry on
private expeditions against the Indians...

...and kill them
whenever they meet them.

And I do not believe there is a jury
in all Kentucky...

...who would punish a man for it."

John Hamtramck,
major, United States Army.

Over the next 20 years...

...through a series of battles
and dubious treaties...

...the new United States laid claim
to Indian lands on the frontier.

Vast tracts were ceded
to white settlement...

...including the future sites of Detroit...

...Toledo, Peoria and Chicago.

"My heart is a stone...

...heavy with sadness for my people...

...cold with the knowledge that no treaty
will keep whites out of our lands...

...hard with the determination to resist...

...as long as I live and breathe."

Blue Jacket, Shawnee.

In this atmosphere of despair
and frontier violence...

...missionaries undermined the cultural
and religious values of Indian communities.

Our life is who we are, our identity...

...our language, our ceremonies...

...our way of how we used to dress
and how we related to each other.

Those are the makeup...

...part of the makeup of our people.

And so when Christianity came about...

...it started to change.

They were trying to make us become
what we were not.

"You have got our country...

...but are not satisfied.

You want to force your religion upon us.

The Creator has made us all.

But he has made
a great difference between us.

He has given us a different complexion
and different customs.

Since he has made so great a difference
between us in other things...

...why may we not conclude...

...that he has given us
a different religion...

...according to our understanding?

We do not wish to destroy your religion
or take it from you.

We only want to enjoy our own."

Red Jacket, Seneca.

But the pressure on Indian people
was unrelenting.

Their land, livelihood, culture
and very beliefs under attack.

Frustrated warriors traded
scarce resources for alcohol.

And now reality's in your face.
You're slapped in the face with reality.

What's the best way to escape
that kind of reality?

During those times,
our people began to take up the rum...

...to numb their feelings.

Because that feeling, that hurt,
was so strong.

"The men revel in strong drink
and are very quarrelsome.

The families become frightened
and move away for safety.

Now the drunken men run yelling
through the village...

...and have weapons to injure those
whom they meet.

Now there are no doors in the houses...

...for they have all been kicked off.

Now, we men full of strong drink
alone track there."

Handsome Lake, Seneca.

One young Shawnee man, Lalawethika...

...like many demoralized young men
of his generation...

...had succumbed to alcoholism.

He was completely dependent
on his older brother, Tecumseh.

Tecumseh and Lalawethika had grown up
in the world of frontier violence.

Their father was killed fighting the British.

Their older brother died
at the hands of Tennessee settlers.

The village of their birth had been
laid waste by Kentuckians.

Now, in 1803...

...determined to maintain his traditions...

...Tecumseh led Lalawethika
and the people of their village...

...west, into Indiana...

...in an effort to put distance
between themselves and white settlers.

But in Indiana,
Lalawethika's drinking worsened.

He sank into a deep depression.

But his life was about to turn around.

One day, while in his home...

...Lalawethika fell to the floor.

For a time, Tecumseh and others
in the village believed he was dead.

But he was not dead.

Lalawethika had had a revelation...

...a divine message that responded to
the unbearable conditions of his people.

Suddenly and clearly,
he saw a path for renewal.

Abandon the ways of the white man
and return to the old teachings.

From that moment forward...

...Lalawethika would be known as
Tenskwatawa...

...the Shawnee Prophet.

Tenskwatawa never drank again.

And he urged his followers
to shun alcohol...

...and all other ideas and things
that came from white men.

"Have you not heard at evenings...

...and sometimes in the dead of night...

...those mournful sounds
that steal through the deep valleys...

...and along the mountainsides?

These are the wailings of those spirits...

...whose bones have been turned up
by the plow of the white man...

...and left to the mercy
of the rain and wind."

Tenskwatawa, Shawnee.

Tenskwatawa promised that if
the people returned to their own ways...

...the whites would be pushed back,
and prosperity would return.

Tecumseh embraced his brother's vision
of cultural renewal...

...and together, they spread the message
to every Ohio Valley nation.

Hundreds traveled to Indiana
to hear them speak in person.

Shawnee, Odawa...

...Wyandot, Kickapoo...

...and other families
converged on a new settlement...

...established by the Prophet
and Tecumseh...

...near the intersection of the Wabash
and Tippecanoe rivers:

Prophetstown.

Tenskwatawa preached to visitors
in the council house every night...

...followed by dancing and singing.

White frontiersmen claimed to be able
to hear the drums all night long.

But it would be Tecumseh who would
challenge the course of history...

...by transforming
his brother's message...

...into a political and military movement.

Using Prophetstown as his base...

...Tecumseh would emerge...

...the most powerful Indian leader
of his time.

"Brothers, we are friends.

We must assist each other
to bear our burdens.

The blood of many of our fathers and
brothers has run like water on the ground...

...to satisfy the avarice of the white men.

We, ourselves, are threatened
with a great evil.

Nothing will pacify them
but the destruction of all the red men."

Tecumseh, Shawnee.

In 1808, while the Shawnee Prophet,
Tenskwatawa...

...preached cultural renaissance
at Prophetstown...

...his brother, Tecumseh,
traveled throughout the territory...

...spreading the Prophet's message...

...along with a political
and military vision of his own.

"The whites have driven us
from the sea to the lakes.

We can go no farther.

The way, the only way, to stop this evil...

...is for us to unite in claiming
a common and equal right in the land...

...as it was at first and should be now.

For it was never divided...

...but belongs to all.

Unless every tribe...

...unanimously combines to give a check
to the ambition...

...and avarice of the whites...

...they will soon conquer us,
apart and disunited...

...and we will be driven away
from our native country...

...and scattered as autumnal leaves
before the wind."

Tecumseh, Shawnee.

Tecumseh electrified his audiences.

At one gathering,
a nervous white observer...

...reported seeing young men
shaking with emotion...

...a thousand tomahawks
brandished in the air.

William Henry Harrison,
governor of the Indiana territory...

...recognized Tecumseh's
personal power and charisma...

...and saw the Shawnee leader
as a singular threat.

"The implicit obedience and respect...

...which the followers of Tecumseh
pay to him is really astonishing.

And more than any other circumstance...

...bespeaks him one of those
uncommon geniuses...

...which spring up occasionally
to produce revolutions...

...and overturn the established
order of things.

If it were not for the vicinity
of the United States...

...he would perhaps be the founder
of an empire that would...

...rival in glory that of Mexico or Peru."

Governor William Henry Harrison.

Prophetstown's population swelled.

But despite Tecumseh's
growing influence...

...he could not control the actions
of all Indian leaders.

In 1809, at one of many
treaty conferences...

...Governor Harrison convinced
leaders of the Miami...

...Lenape and Potawatomi...

...to sell 3 million acres of land
in Indiana and Illinois.

Tecumseh was outraged...

...considering those who signed the treaty
guilty of treason.

No tribe has the right to sell a country...

...even to each other,
much less to strangers.

Sell a country.

Why not sell the air, the great sea,
as well as the earth?

Did not the great spirit make them all
for the use of his children?

Tecumseh went to Harrison,
and, in a volatile meeting...

...confronted the governor face to face.

Brother, I look at the land
and pity the women and children.

I am authorized to say
that they want to save that piece of land.

We do not wish you to take it.

It is small enough for our purposes.

I want the present boundary line
to continue.

Should you cross it...

...I assure you it will be productive
of bad consequences.

But the settlements
continued to expand...

...even onto the newly ceded lands.

Tecumseh was convinced that only force
would stop the American advance.

To build a military resistance...

...he continued to travel tirelessly...

...among the nations of the Great Lakes
and Ohio Valley...

...while Harrison kept a nervous eye
on his movements.

No difficulties deter him.

For four years,
he has been in constant motion.

You see him today on the Wabash,
and in a short time...

...you hear of him on the shores
of Lake Erie or Michigan...

...or the banks of the Mississippi,
and wherever he goes...

...he makes an impression favorable
to his purpose.

In 1811, Tecumseh traveled south...

...in an effort to bring the powerful
Choctaw, Chickasaw...

...and Creek into the alliance.

There, in village after village...

...he argued that Indian nations
stood at the brink of disaster.

Where today are the powerful tribes
of our people?

They have vanished before the avarice
and oppression of the white man...

...as snow before the summer sun.

Will we let ourselves be destroyed
in our turn...

...without making an effort
worthy of our race?

Shall we, without a struggle...

...give up our homes, our lands...

...the graves of our dead and everything
that is dear and sacred to us?

I know you will say with me,
"Never. Never!"

But Tecumseh's passion
and presence alone...

...could not overcome a growing
cultural rift.

Many Southern Indian leaders
were encouraging their nations...

...to emulate mainstream white society.

Others saw military conflict
with the U.S. As suicide.

Although Tecumseh found passionate
supporters everywhere...

...his hope that Southern nations
would join in a unified resistance...

...was not to be.

In January of 1812...

...Tecumseh returned to Indiana
to find Prophetstown destroyed...

...its people dispersed.

Governor Harrison had waited
until Tecumseh...

...the military leader of the movement,
had departed for the South...

...before moving on Prophetstown.

But Tenskwatawa,
with a much smaller force...

...attacked the Americans
before they reached the town...

...allowing the residents to evacuate.

The following day, Harrison entered
the deserted town on the Tippecanoe River...

...and burned it to the ground.

Although his army suffered twice
the casualties of the Indian force...

...Harrison claimed a victory
that would eventually propel him...

...to the presidency.

Despite the loss of Prophetstown...

...Tecumseh and the Prophet began
immediately to rebuild their movement.

Then the War of 1812 broke out
between the British and United States.

Suddenly, there was a new opportunity
to push back the Americans...

...through an alliance with the British.

The two brothers moved north to Canada
with 1000 men.

There, they were joined by allies from
throughout the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes.

After years of tireless effort...

...Tecumseh's unified resistance
was now a reality.

The British and Indian force laid siege
to the fort at Detroit...

...quickly forcing its surrender.

American forts fell at Mackinac
and Dearborn.

In January of 1813,
Tecumseh and his allies...

...forced the surrender
of the Americans at Frenchtown.

Tecumseh hoped to push the campaign
into the Ohio Valley...

...but the following May, British
and Indian forces suffered their first defeat.

Then, during the summer...

...the war began to turn against them...

...and Tecumseh could see
the British will failing.

He confronted the British commander,
General Proctor.

You always told us that you would never
draw your foot off British ground.

But now we see you are drawing back.

We are very much astonished
to see you tying up everything...

...and preparing to run away...

...without letting us know
what your intentions are.

Without informing their Indian allies...

...the British made plans
to abandon Detroit...

...as a large American force approached.

At the head of the American Army rode
the man who destroyed Prophetstown...

...Governor William Henry Harrison.

Tecumseh demanded that
General Proctor make a stand.

"Listen...

...we wish to remain here
and fight our enemy.

You have got the arms and ammunition.

If you have an idea of going away,
give them to us...

...and you may go and welcome.

As for us, our lives are in the hands
of the Creator.

We are determined to defend our lands...

...and if it be his will, we wish to leave
our bones upon them."

Tecumseh, Shawnee.

Faced with Harrison's 3000-man army...

...Tecumseh was forced to fall back
with the British 80 miles.

They halted their retreat
along the Thames River.

There, Tecumseh would make his stand.

On October 5th, 1813...

...the Shawnee leader rallied his men
as he inspected the lines from horseback.

He urged General Proctor to do the same.

Tell your men to be firm,
and all will be well!

Tecumseh dismounted and joined his troops
at their position in a swampy thicket.

The night before, he had had a premonition
about the battle.

And in it, he had foreseen his death.

Tecumseh removed the scarlet British
military jacket he always wore...

...and dressed in traditional
Shawnee clothes.

He handed his sword
to a trusted friend...

...and instructed him to give it
to his son when he grew up...

...and to tell him
what his father stood for.

In midafternoon,
Harrison's cavalry charged.

The British lines immediately
collapsed and ran...

...with the British general on horseback
passing his own troops as they fled.

Tecumseh did not run.
And neither did his men.

From a nearby hillside...

...the Shawnee Prophet watched as the
Americans charged his brother's position.

Tecumseh received a gunshot
wound to the chest...

...and fell.

Thirty minutes later,
the battle was over.

For the Ohio Valley nations...

...the eventual British defeat
in the War of 1812...

...would simply underscore
the tragic loss of Tecumseh.

In the years before the war,
he had traveled the Indian roads...

...stretching in every direction
from Prophetstown.

In every village,
his warning had been the same:

"The Americans will not stop
until they have taken all our land. "

Tecumseh had seen the future.

"While strong...

...it has been our obvious policy
to weaken them.

Now that they are weak and harmless...

...and most of their lands fallen
into our hands...

...they must be taught to improve
their condition."

William Clark,
superintendent of Indian Affairs.

For decades, federal agents
and Christian missionaries...

...had pressured Indian nations
to abandon their traditions...

...and assimilate into white society.

The policy, promoted by Thomas Jefferson
and others after him...

...advocated intermarriage,
religious conversion...

...and financial incentives
to turn Indian people...

...into Americanized farmers.

In the South,
U.S. Policy was succeeding.

Traditionals had been eliminated
as a serious military threat...

...and American culture was spreading.

The large Southern nations...

...the Cherokee, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole...

...came to be known as
the "Five Civilized Tribes."

To the Americans, the most civilized
of these were the Cherokee.

We call ourselves Aniyunwiya...

...which is translated into
"the Principal People."

When the Creator made the world...

...he created these beautiful mountains
here in the Smokies.

And he needed someone to live here...

...someone who would take care of what
he'd made and what he gave to us...

...so he chose the Cherokee people.

The ancient Cherokee nation...

...flourished in and around
the great Smoky Mountains...

...building their capital of Echota...

...in the foothills southwest of present-day
Knoxville, Tennessee.

Echota was a peace town,
where no one could be harmed.

But with each passing generation...

...there were fewer and fewer who clung
to the traditional Cherokee-life way.

Many Cherokee became successful...

...modeling themselves after
their American neighbors...

...living in two-story houses on plantations,
raising European crops...

...owning slaves and educating
their children in American schools.

In 1817, a new national council formed...

...with wealthy landowner John Ross
as its principal elected chief.

The centuries-old clan-based government
was replaced...

...with a republican state modeled
after the American system.

Echota, the venerated
Cherokee peace town...

...was replaced as seat of government
by New Echota in Georgia.

In 1821, a man named Sequoya...

...completed an alphabet that committed
the Cherokee language to writing.

Soon they had their own newspaper,
the Cherokee Phoenix.

But despite Cherokee efforts to coexist...

...and United States government policies to
bring Indian nations into the American way...

...it was a relationship
marred by racism and greed.

In the middle of a booming slave economy
built around cotton...

...demand for land was growing...

...and the Southern Indian nations
still controlled vast areas.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson,
like William Henry Harrison...

...used his reputation as an Indian fighter
to propel himself to the presidency.

Greed, usually...

...is a thing that makes people...

...do things they wouldn't do otherwise.

Gold was discovered down in Georgia.

Hundreds of miners illegally swarmed
across the Cherokee border...

...to lay claim to the vein.

The Cherokee turned to
the United States for protection.

But President Jackson,
himself a land speculator...

...removed federal troops from the area,
telling Georgia officials:

"Build a fire under the Cherokee.
When it gets hot enough, they'll move. "

The greed of the white man grew...

...and the first thing that came
into his mind was:

"We must obtain this land...

...at any cost."

And that idea of the removal
started there.

For the Indian people who believed
their salvation...

...lay in emulating American society...

...the most bitter betrayal
came on May 28th, 1830.

Under Jackson's advocacy...

...the Indian Removal Act was passed.

Nations east of the Mississippi...

...were to give up
their homelands forever...

...and move to a special
Indian territory in Oklahoma.

"The Americans said,
'The land shall be yours forever.'

Now they say:

'The land you live on is not yours.

Go beyond the Mississippi.
There is game.

There you may remain while
the grass grows and the water runs.'

Brothers...

...will not our Great Father
come there also?"

Speckled Snake, Creek.

At New Echota...

...Cherokee leaders felt deeply betrayed.

Principal Chief John Ross...

...and wealthy Cherokee landholder
Major Ridge...

...both had fought alongside
President Jackson...

...in a war against traditional factions
of the Creek nation.

Meeting in violation
of Georgia state law...

...the Cherokee Council
vehemently opposed removal...

...and reminded the nation of their law
that carried the death penalty...

...for anyone who sold Cherokee lands
without authorization.

"Even if report was favorable...

...as to the fertility of the soil
in Indian territory...

...if the running streams
were as transparent as crystal...

...and the silver fish abounded...

...we should still adhere
to the purpose of spending...

...the remnant of our lives
on the soil that gave us birth."

Cherokee Council.

Indian protests fell on deaf ears.

The Choctaw were the first
made to bend.

"Painful in the extreme
is the mandate of our expulsion.

I ask you in the name of justice
for a repose for myself...

...and my injured people.

Let us alone.

We will not harm you.

We want rest.

We hope, in the name of justice...

...that another outrage may never be
committed against us...

...and that we may, for the future...

...not be driven about as beasts
who benefit from a change of pasture.

We go forth, sorrowful, knowing that...

...wrong has been done."

George Harkin, Choctaw.

Between 1831 and 1832...

...13,000 Choctaw made the long
and difficult trek to the West.

Two thousand were to die along the way.

"My voice is weak.

You can scarcely hear me.

It is not the shout of a warrior...

...but the wail of an infant.

I have lost it in mourning over
the misfortunes of my people.

Their tears came in the raindrops...

...and their voices in the wailing winds.

Our land was taken away."

Colonel Webb, Choctaw.

The Creek were next.

In the spring of 1836...

...the American Army forced them
to surrender all their land.

One-third of the Creek died
on the journey west.

The way I feel is
there is a wound in our hearts.

And that was a wound
in our ancestors' heart.

And that wound will never be healed.

And I feel like that
whatever they do for us...

...will never pay up.

"Last night I saw the sun set
for the last time...

...and its light shine upon the treetops...

...and the land and the water
that I am never to look upon again."

Menewa, Creek.

Every year, from 1830 to 1838...

...Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross
visited Washington...

...attempting to forestall removal.

"We have been made to drink
of the bitter cup of humiliation.

Treated like dogs...

...our lives, our liberties,
the sport of the white man.

Our country and the graves of our fathers
torn from us in cruel succession...

...until we find ourselves
fugitives, vagrants...

...and strangers in our own country."

John Ross, Cherokee.

Ross wrote hundreds of letters.

He met several times with President
Jackson, with whom he had served in war.

He petitioned Congress and brought two
lawsuits before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We are not ignorant of our condition.

We are not insensible to our sufferings.

We feel them.

We groan under their pressure...

...and anticipation crowds our breasts
with sorrow yet to come."

John Ross, Cherokee.

Ross did win one victory...

...when the Supreme Court ruled that
the Cherokee were a sovereign nation...

...and not subject
to Georgia's jurisdiction.

But President Jackson
disregarded the ruling...

...and belittled the power
of the Supreme Court...

...by challenging the chief justice
to enforce the law himself.

Georgia held lotteries for Cherokee lands.

State troops forced people
from their houses.

Cherokee government buildings
at New Echota were sold off...

...along with the residence
of Principal Chief John Ross.

Cherokee leader Major Ridge
also lost his plantation.

He now became convinced of the futility
and peril of resistance.

I know the Indians have an older title
than the United States.

We obtained the land
from the living God above.

They got their title from the British.

Yet they are strong...

...and we are weak.

Major Ridge, as I understand it...

...he advocated for a good
period of time...

...that no more Cherokee lands
would be sold or ceded...

...under penalty of death.

And then later, he wound up
doing the same darn thing.

As a matter of fact, worse.

Ridge traveled to Washington...

...without the authorization
of the Cherokee Council.

There, he met with federal officials.

Ridge privately negotiated a treaty...

...ceding Cherokee lands for $5 million...

...new land in the Oklahoma-Indian territory,
and removal assistance.

We had been a country for 500 years
before they were...

...and we were on an equal status.

And every time we had a treaty
from then on...

...we got a little less status,
and they got a little more land.

Ridge returned home to convince
the national council...

...to accept the treaty terms.

I would willingly die to preserve
the graves of our fathers...

...but any forcible effort to keep them
will cost us our lands...

...our lives...

...and the lives of our children.

There is but one path of safety...

...one road to future existence
as a nation.

That path is open before you.

Make a treaty of cession.

Give up these lands...

...and go over beyond the great
Father of Waters.

The national council rejected the treaty.

But Ridge, with no legal authority
to represent the Cherokee nation...

...met secretly with U.S. Officials.

Defying the council's death sentence
for the selling of Cherokee lands...

...Ridge, his son, and others
signed the removal treaty.

On May 17th, 1836...

...the U.S. Senate ratified
the treaty by a single vote.

The Cherokee nation was given
two years to move west.

In that time, Ridge and 2000 Cherokee
emigrated to Oklahoma...

...while the vast majority of the nation
ignored the illegal treaty...

...and remained on their lands.

In late spring of 1838...

...as the deadline for removal passed...

...General Winfield Scott
arrived in Georgia...

...with 7000 soldiers.

His orders were to
remove the Cherokee...

...by any means necessary.

"Think of this,
my Cherokee brethren:

I am an old warrior...

...and have been present
at many a scene of slaughter.

But spare me, I beseech you...

...the horror of witnessing
the destruction of the Cherokees.

Do not even wait...

...for the close approach of the troops."

General Winfield Scott.

Thousands of Cherokee were
rounded up at bayonet-point...

...unable to carry with them anything
but the most necessary belongings...

...then held in stockades
to await removal.

My great-great-grandmother,
when they came to take them away...

...they drove them out of the house...

...didn't even let the kids
get their shoes or anything.

They were setting down at dinner...

...and they got outside and they were
kind of roughing her around...

...and my great-great-grandfather...

...kind of fought back.

They throwed him in chains
and took him off one way...

...took her and the children
off another way.

Conditions inside stockades
were terrible...

...and many died.

"We have been made prisoners
by your men...

...but we do not fight against you.

We have never done you any harm.

We are Indians.

We have hearts that feel.

We do not want to die.

We are in trouble, sir.

Our hearts are very heavy.

Very heavy.

We cannot make talk."

Cherokee Council.

Sixteen thousand Cherokee
were removed from their homeland.

Principal Chief John Ross left
with his family on the last convoy.

His wife, along with one-quarter
of the nation...

...would die on the forced exodus...

...that would be known as
the "Trail of Tears."

The non-lndian people who came here...

...did not view the Cherokee people
as human beings...

...which made it easy to dishonor
and desecrate these people.

People sometimes say
I look like I never smile.

Most of the time,
I keep thinking of the old nation...

...and wonder how the big mountain
now looks in springtime...

...and how the boys and young men
used to swim in the big river.

And then there comes before me
the picture of the march.

Maybe someday we will understand...

...why the Cherokees had to suffer.

While the body of the nation
was forced west...

...several hundred Cherokee
evaded Scott's men...

...and retreated to the deep recesses
of the Smoky Mountains.

The Army, ineffective at locating
the free Cherokee...

...was recalled from the mountains.

As the troops were withdrawing...

...one cavalry detachment stumbled upon
a small camp of 12 free Cherokee.

Among them was an older man...

...Tsali, his wife, brother and sons.

When the Cherokee refused to submit
to the soldiers...

...Tsali's wife was jabbed with a bayonet,
and a struggle ensued.

Two soldiers were killed.

Tsali and his family fled deeper
into the Smoky Mountains.

But U.S. Soldiers had died...

...and now General Scott would have to
make the Cherokee pay at any cost.

With winter approaching,
Scott delivered an ultimatum to Tsali:

"Surrender, or 7000 soldiers would be
unleashed on the free Cherokee...

...until the last of their nation
was captured or killed. "

Tsali made a fateful decision.

He offered to surrender, if Scott would let
the rest of the Cherokee resistance...

...remain in their
Smoky Mountain homeland.

Scott agreed, and Tsali surrendered
along with his family.

Tsali approaches and offers the gun...

...holding both ends with each hand.

General Scott...

...takes the gun...

...and they are to be martyred.

They were taken to a place at the mouth
of the Tuckaseigee River.

There, Tsali, his brother,
and his two oldest sons...

...would be executed by firing squad.

Tied to a tree, awaiting death...

...Tsali had a last request of a friend.

U'tsala...

...there is one favor I wish to ask
at your hands.

You know I have a little boy
who was lost among the mountains.

I want you to find that boy
if he is not dead...

...and tell him the last words
of his father...

...were that he must never go
beyond the Mississippi...

...but die in the land of his birth.

It is sweet to die in one's native land...

...and be buried by the margins
of one's native stream.

On November 25th, 1838...

...Tsali died for the freedom
of the Eastern Cherokee people.

And when he died...

...he was a victor.

He accomplished the thing...

...which was uppermost in his mind...

...that his people might go free.

Seven months later,
in the new Oklahoma-Indian territory...

...Major Ridge, his son and nephew...

...who had all signed the removal treaty...

...were assassinated for selling
the Cherokee homelands.

Our next program moves west
to the Great Plains...

...and the famous horse culture
that has come to define...

...the first nations of this continent
throughout the world.

Join us when 500 Nations returns with...

..."Struggle for the West."

Subrip by Tantico, Croatia
(03.2012)