When the Cherokees were driven from their homes into camps for removal to Indian Territory, some were taken to Ross’s Landing, located on the Tennessee River. The site is now in Chattanooga.

The following petition found its way into the Records of the Cherokee Indian Agency in Tennessee. This rare document reveals the desperation of the prisoners and pleads particularly for the women and children of the tribe.

The humble petitions of the Cherokee prisoners at and near Ross’s Landing, June 11, 1838

We your prisoners wish to speak to you—We wish to speak humbly for we cannot help ourselves. We have been made prisoners by your men but we did not fight against you. We have never done you any harm. For we ask you to hear us. We have been told we are to be sent off by boat immediately. Sir[,] will you listen to your prisoners. We are Indians. Our wives and children are Indians and some people do not pity Indians. But if we are Indians we have hearts that feel. We do not want to see our wives and children die. We do not want to die ourselves and leave them widows and orphans. We are in trouble and our hearts are very heavy. The darkness of night is before us. We have no hope unless you will help us. We do not ask you to let us go free from being your prisoners unless it should please yourself. But we ask that you will not send us down the river at this time of the year. If you do we shall die, and our wives will die and our children will die. We want you to keep us in this country till the sickly time is over so that when we get to the West that we may be able to work to make boards to cover our families. If you send us there now the sickly time be commenced, we shall have no thought to work. We should be in the open air in all the deadly time of sickness, or we shall die and our poor wives and children will die too. And if you send the whole nation, the whole nation will die. We ask your pity. Pity our women and children if they are Indians. Do not send us off at this sickly time. Some of our people are Christians. They will pray for you. If you pity us, we hope your Lord will be pleased and that He will pity you and your wife and your children and do you good. We cannot make a good talk, our hearts are too full of sorrow. This is all we say.¹

ENDNOTES

¹ Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Records of the Cherokee Indian Agency in Tennessee, 1801–35, RG 75, microcopy 208, History Branch and Archives, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Tenn.