Daniel Sabin Butrick, an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions minister, went with the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears and served the tribe for twenty-five years. He also collaborated with John Howard Payne to collect sources from the Cherokees that became the Indian Antiquities volume, an invaluable source on Cherokee culture and history.
The following excerpts from his journal on the trail provide a view of the depth of suffering, especially among women and children.
Sabbath July 1 [1838]
Soon in the morning a large company of United States troops came up and stopped in the lane. Then a number of volunteers from the camps made their appearance about the saw mill. Every thought and every view was painful. Nothing of the Holy Sabbath. Br. Vail concluded not to leave home as so many were about and therefore I rode alone to the camps.
On the way I met crowds of people, some with dishes as if going after berries, and many I feared were going to the creek.
On arriving at the camps, I spoke from 2 Tim 4:8. Before closing my meeting I told our dear friends that I had before come to the conclusion not to visit the camps on the Sabbath, lest I should see them playing cards, though I had been persuaded to come today. I told them however, that if they continued to profane the Lord’s Day by playing cards, they might depend upon it, that the wrath of God would pursue them to death.
Their almost universal Saturday night frolics, carried through the Holy Sabbath, had already drawn down Divine wrath upon them. True, they might say their enemies were cruel, but suppose they were, how did they get this power over them unless the Lord was angry with them, why should He thus give them up[?]
On returning home I met the soldiers and Cherokees, who had been to Brainerd [a Christian mission to the tribe at what is now Chattanooga, Tennessee]; and on arriving found that the women had been in the creek, swimming while the soldiers stood by them on the bank and other young men were in the creek, naked but just below. We held a prayer meeting.
Soon after on going to the creek for water, found a company of young men and boys in the creek, close by the road. I talked at length and persuaded them to put on their clothes. But almost immediately another company was there. I talked again, and told the men we could not endure such conduct any longer. Some also were fishing. We were pained to the heart at the profanations of the Holy Sabbath.
But the few Cherokees of whom I speak above are evidently exceptions, the women who infested the place by going into the creek while the soldiers were standing by, might be some who had been seduced by the soldiers.
Br. Vail, the other day, on going to the landing, saw six soldiers about two Cherokee women. The women stood by a tree, and the soldiers with a bottle of liquor were endeavoring to entice them to drink though the women, as yet, were resisting them. Br. Vail made this known to the commanding officer, yet we perceive no notice was taken of it, because it was reported afterwards that those soldiers had the two women out with them all night.
A young married woman, a member of the Methodist society, was at the camps with her friends, though her husband was not there, I believe, at the time. The soldiers, it is said, caught her, dragged her about, and at length either through fear or other causes [she] was induced to drink, and yield to their seduction, so that she is now an outcast, even in the view of her own relatives. How many of the poor captive women are thus debauched, that eye which never sleeps alone can tell.
The United States have now ascended about to the top of the climax. For about ten years, it would seem that the power, the wisdom and the funds of the whole union have been employed for the temporal and eternal ruin of this little handful of Indians.
In the first place, they were rendered lawless, and it was made a penitentiary crime for any of their rulers to execute their laws. Thus all the laws which the council had wisely enacted respecting liquor and gambling were at once annulled and every one led to follow his own inclination.
The country was soon filled with liquor to overflowing; and stores of liquor & cards were set up to induce gambling, while white gamblers were strolling through the country, seeking whom they could destroy. Many of the white men who established little stores to induce drinking and gambling go in with some Cherokees, who thus become engaged with them in carrying the plans of government into effort, thus gambling spread like wild fire through the country with none to check it.
The young people were not only almost compelled to disregard their own chiefs, but also taught to despise their parents and teachers, except such as would countenance all their wicked ways.
Thus the young men have been taught to treat the Bible, the Holy Sabbath, the ministers of the gospel, and all the duties and ordinances of religion, not as unenlightened heathen, but with all that contempt and acrimony peculiar to the Voltaires of the present age.
The young women who have been educated at mission schools, and by great expense and labour, taught to read and understand the Holy Bible, are the first victims of these emissaries of darkness. Because they understand English, the dark rhetoric of hell has an immediate and distinct effect on their minds, and they are pressed into the service of darkness, and become the ringleaders of wickedness. On this account most of the labour and expenses of the mission have been wrested into the service of Satan.
I have often been led to regret that any Cherokee had the least knowledge of the English language. They have not only been engaged in drinking and gambling, but also in profaning the Holy Sabbath, and the sainted Name of God. And with regard to the Holy Sabbath many professors of religion in the surrounding states are among the first to exert an unholy influence by travelling on business, visiting and talking entirely on worldly subjects.
But notwithstanding all the warning and sacrifices and example of men in high standing, the distraction of the poor Cherokees was not effected but by the direct power of the United States. An army containing as many soldiers probably, as there are adult Indians in the nations, was thrust into the country. These soldiers were armed with guns, bayonets, swords, pistols and all the horrid artillery of death. The few guns the Indians had were taken from them, and in the heat of the summer they were crowded into camps, or driven in most distressing manner to the West.
The fever and dysentery are now desolating the camps, yet thus far the mortality is not greater than might be expected.
A child died at the camps last night and the friends wished it to be buried here; but while we were making preparations, word came that it was buried near the place where it died. Soon after a measure was brought for a coffin to bury an aged black man, who had just died. Thus we are becoming almost familiar with death.
Our dear Christian friends are often put to blush, in their present sufferings. A minister of the gospel, who professed to have been the cause of sending or leading the A. Board to send missionaries to this country, was the agent who induced a few individuals to dispose of the whole country, in opposition to the will of the council, and of almost the whole nation.
Wednesday July 23 [actually July 25]
Rode to the camps near the agency. Here are about eight thousand Cherokees in camps waiting the first of September, then to be sent off to the West. The National council house requested the privilege of moving the Nation themselves, instead of having them driven by soldiers. This request was sent to General [Winfield] Scott on Monday and an answer was expected on Tuesday but did not come and is expected today.
On arriving at the council place, I requested Mr. Taylor to mention the subject of our going to the West to Mr. [John] Ross and the other chiefs generally, as we should not wish to go without their approbation….
On returning, found the council had adjourned till tomorrow and that the answer of General Scott would be presented tomorrow morning. I saw Mr. Ross and spoke with him about going with the Cherokees to the West. He said there would be no objections to our going.
O Thou Dear Redeemer, wilt thou direct and assist us in every place, and at all times, and make us a blessing to this dear people.
Thursday, July 26
Rode to Brainerd. A little child had been buried since I left home.
Just before arriving at the creek I met several wagons and learned afterwards that they had been employed in conveying the last detachment of Cherokee prisoners to Waterloo on Tennessee River, where they were put on board steam boats.
One of those wagoners stopped at br. Vails, as he passed. He said there was very great sickness and mortality among the Cherokees on the road, in so much that he could not but pity them though they were Indians. They were not allowed to stop or rest on account of sickness. They were driven on as long as they could walk, and then thrown into the wagons. And when the wagoners perceived some to be in the agonies of death, and informed the wagon master, his order was; Drive on! Drive on! And when it was known that one was dead, the lifeless body was left to the care of some stranger who might be employed to put it away, though in some instances the friends were allowed to perform the services.
Let us fancy the feeling of a dear sister, an aged father or mother, or a beloved wife or child, driven by strangers (of adamantine hearts)[,] scorching with fever, under a burning sun, parching with thirst, rendered more tormenting by the heated dust filling the air, see this dear wife of our bosom, languishing and almost ready to drop to the ground every step, and yet handing to her friends, choosing rather to die in their arms, than to be torn from them and thrown into a heated wagon, to be separated forever from all she held dear. See her last despairing look at her dead husband, as she sinks at his feet and falls in the road.
Now she is taken and thrown into a great wagon, covered with thick cloth, and all the air confined and heat[ed] by a burning sun. Here she has no cordial, no kind friend to wipe the cold sweat from her face.
As she awakes from a swoon and calls for water to quench her thirst, no kind voice replies, no hand can minister to her relief. The wagoner is in all the noise of the crowd and cannot hear her faint lispings and when he does hear, cannot understand. Thus she must lie perhaps from morning till night parching with thirst, or in the most excruciating pains of body, thrown, as it were upon the rack, by every heavy jolt of the wagon rolling over a rough road.
And thus from day to day till death kindly releases her departing spirit.
And now where is the dear partner of her bosom, the children of her love, or the fond mother of her childhood? They are mingled in the crowd and perhaps scarcely permitted to take even a parting view of the dear object of all their delight. The first they know, perhaps, someone accidentally remarks that such a person died and was left at such a place to be buried.
Let us imagine such scenes daily and for a long time together; and then inquire why the dear Cherokees are doomed to such miseries; have they murdered their white friends? Have they robbed or plundered? Or have they done any wrong to the United States for which that powerful nation is thus putting them to torture? They have done no wrong to merit any part of this evil, their enemies themselves being judges, but by refusing to acknowledge the justice of that treaty made by a few individuals, in direct opposition to the whole national council and the voice of the people.
Friday [July 27]
Visited the camps but found most of the people absent whom we wished to see. The poor old woman with us is very sick with the dysentery. Last night a small child was brought from the camps and buried in the graveyard.
Saturday [July 28]
We hear that General Scott has resigned the business of moving the Indians to the council, allowing for the removal [of] 300,000.
Went to see the poor, old, sick woman. While standing by her, a number of wagons passed swiftly by. An involuntary sigh from her heaving bosom led me to consider how dreadful that sound was to her ears. Such carriages brought her from her peaceful house, from her aged husband, from her children and grandchildren, and also racked her aged and withering frame and hurried her away, far away from all the scenes of her childhood, to cruel camps where she was guarded as a prisoner of war, denied that kind of food congenial to her feeble stomach, almost unable to rise, and yet torn from all those on whose kind arms she had been accustomed to lean for support.
When the soldiers went to the town where this family lived, such as were able [fled] to the woods. But the old man and woman could not run. The soldiers therefore took this dear old distressed woman and as her husband was too heavy to be handled without some inconvenience, he was left alone. The poor old woman was therefore at the camps a number of weeks before she could have any satisfactory evidence that she should ever again see her earthly friends. The old man, her husband, being unable to walk, came to the point of starvation, when some white children found him in the house and fed him. At length those who fled to the woods were taken and together with the old man brought to the camps.
Thursday, Dec. 13
Within ten miles of Ohio River, or Golconda.
Last week on Thursday [December 6] we passed Isaac Bushyhead, Colo. Powell, and another man, left sick about three weeks before by Rev. Jesse Bushyhead’s detachment. Isaac’s father and sister Susan were with him.
As we camped about two miles beyond I returned and spent the evening with them and was pleased to find them disposed to converse on religious subjects. As I was about leaving, Mr. Bushyhead requested me to pray with him, as I was myself desirous to do. Sixty persons had died out of their detachment previous to their arrival at that place.
During the night a Cherokee woman died in the camps. Though she had given birth to a child but a few days before, yet last evening she was up & no danger was apprehended, but in the morning she was found dead with the infant in her arms. As the man living near was not willing to have her buried there, and as no place could be obtained for a coffin, the corpse was carried all day in the wagon and at night a coffin was made and the next morning she was buried near the graves of some other Cherokees who had died in a detachment that had preceded us.
Also on Saturday night of last week an infant, a few months old, died with the bowel complaint. The corpse was interred after meeting on the Sabbath.
Friday [December 14]
Last night a child about twelve months old died. This is the 15th dead since we crossed the Tennessee River. We travelled about 6 miles and camped 2 miles from the Ohio River.1
ENDNOTES
1 Daniel S. Butrick, “The Journal of Rev. Daniel S. Butrick, May 19, 1838–April 1, 1839,” ABCFM Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 18.3.3, vol. 4.