5 Civilized Tribes - Unit 1, Lesson 2; Oklahoma Passage Telecourse of Oklahoma History #103 Civilized Tribes - Unit 1, Lesson 2

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. Welcome to Unit 1, Lesson 2 of Oklahoma Passage, a telecourse on Oklahoma history. I'm your host, Dean Lewis, here in the galleries of the Oklahoma Historical Society State Museum of History, where history comes alive for those seeking the lessons of the past. Today, we turn the pages of history to the five civilized tribes whose collective story affords us the unique opportunity of looking at a broad sweep of that past. Ancient Indian cultures, federal removal policy, cultural adaptation, and finally the very survival of the Indian people in the modern world. As we will do throughout this series, we begin with an episode of the award-winning OETA production, Oklahoma Passage. In the previous lesson, our dramatized passage through time began deep in the Georgia Hills of the Cherokee Nation, with the patriarch of the Benton family, Abraham.

A friend of both Cherokee-Editor Elias Budinot and white missionary Samuel Wooster, Abraham found himself at the center of the deepening conflict between the Cherokees and white authorities who wanted the tribe out of Georgia. I'm sorry, my orders are to bring you with me now. Wooster defied the authorities and was imprisoned. Samuel. In the last scene, Budinot, along with his brother Stan Waitey and Major Ridge, broke with Cherokee Chief John Ross and signed a treaty exchanging their lands in the east for Newlands, further west, in the Indian Territory. Then I wash my hands of your fate. Wooster, released from prison, joined Abraham in the trek to the Indian Territory. Because the Georgia authorities impounded his old printing press, Wooster's church in Boston ordered a new one and shipped it west by steamboat up the Arkansas River to Fort Gibson.

Howdy. You the people from Union Mission? Yes, I'm Samuel Wooster, where you've come to get my supplies. I thought the boat would be here by now. Well, Reverend, I'm afraid I got some bad news about your shipment. The boat didn't make it, she sank downstream away. Now, we did salvage two crates, the press. I reckon if it's big and heavy, it'd darn near something raft. We'll hold them up on the shore there. Now, the rest of your supplies, while they're somewhere down river by now, are on the bottom. All my papers and the Bibles, are you sure? Everything was lost, just those two crates were left. I'll tell you what, if you'll go ahead and sign here for me, I'll take you down to them. Why are the crates in the water? I don't know, there's been some rain.

Well, the side-wheelers sank downstream a couple miles, so men were sent to salvage what they could. Everything was claimed from the salvage, but right here. They waited several days for someone to come and pick up the crates. And when no one did and they had to leave, they just left them there on the shore. As you can see, the water come up, and now we've got a problem. Well, I've got to open the wagon, maybe we can pull them out. Well, all right. I'm not going to get this tight on. Nothing like a bath in a cold river at the end of our day, huh?

I don't suppose I've ever felt more free, more alive than I do here in Park Hill. There are times when I wonder about those who stayed behind in Georgia, and I wonder if I did the right thing in leaving. I do know I've put a lot behind me, the hatred and the anger, the fear. It's a new beginning. Excuse me. Do you know where I can find Reverend Wooster? He should be back any moment. Oh, I'm Emma Butler, the school teacher, and I want to...

Yes, I know. Pardon me? I just said yes, I know who you are. How do you know me? Sequoia has told me of you. He said you are a very good teacher. How does he know that? He said it is in your eyes. He said it is in the eyes of the children, too. They like you very much. Well, I like them, too. Abraham Benton. How? Do you know my name? Mr. Wooster says that Mr. Boothnott is his right arm. And you are Mr. Boothnott's right arm, and you are a very skilled printer. I read all that you print. Do you like living in Park Hill?

Very much. For a while, I lived at the Union Mission after moving here from Utah. But where I come from, we never had a teacher as pretty as you. You have ink all over your hands. She is golden this girl, Emily. She is like the sunlight. Her father is a captain of the Dragoons at Fort Gibson. I was so afraid she wouldn't have me, or that her father would send her back east

where she might find a gentleman whose hands were not always soiled with printing. Thank you. Thank you all. I was Cherokee, and she was sunlight. But there are miracles in this world. She is one, and we are another. Our love was lost, but now I'm fine. What's right, but now I see.

Boys and girls, it's time to practice our ABCs. Let's keep it very neat. Today, Sequoia came up to teach the children. Emily said Sequoia tells the children tales about the Cherokee before the white man came. He told about how the universe was created, and why the Milky Way is called the place where the dog ran. I am amazed at how quickly the children learn to read using Sequoia's syllabary. It is brilliant, this 86-symbol alphabet, a symbol for every sound in our language. We have the little girl you want us. I'd like to call her Chasaka, after my great-grandmother.

Chasaka. The printing press never seemed to stop. Abraham and Wooster began printing the Gospel of John and a number of children's books all in the Cherokee language. They printed the Cherokee almanac filled with news of local events and information about planting and harvesting. It all seemed so far away from the troubled times in Georgia. Elias. Elias, what's wrong? It's worse than we thought. The group is just arrived from New York, Georgia, and their suffering was terrible. They were dragged from their homes and driven by band-aid into pens like animals.

Everything they own has been taken from them. The white man is even drawing a loss to see who will get their homes. Many of our people are absolutely destitute. Those who refuse to leave have been punished severely. Thousands are dying. Literally thousands being driven towards the West like cattle. It was a tragic and inhumane journey. They called it the Trail of Tears. More than 4,000 Cherokee died from hunger and sickness and from the bitter winter winds. No one escaped the suffering.

Not even Chief John Ross would finally give an end to the federal authorities and organize the removal. His wife died from pneumonia. Some people say because she gave her blanket to a little child. Sadly, the dying didn't end when Ross and the survivors of the march finally reached Indian territory. The two competing factions, Dream Speaker and Suncatcher, Ridge and Ross, were faced to face again. Time and tragedy had not dull their differences.

Look around you, Major Ridge. 13,000 came with me from Georgia. More than twice your number. We've been driven from our ancestral lands in our home in Georgia. We will not be denied our rightful place here. But there's already a government here. We have our own laws, elected chiefs and consulmen. We are a set of people with our own institutions. John, I can un talk the key. Address you in your Cherokee name. Mysterious white bird. We'll share all we have with you. Our land. Our future.

Who is GUI? We'll build together. We only ask that you accept the existing government. When you sold out to the white man in Georgia, you forfeited your right to rule. You broke the law. You were a criminal people. Yet I offer reconciliation. Remember a new achotto when we spoke of the blood law of treason. Don't speak to us of old laws, Ross. All you have to offer is a reversal of fortune. Only a fool would accept such a notion. Yet a chance to come with us. But you, Ross, chose to split the Cherokee. Look around you. See whose decision was correct. We're prosperous. Look at your people.

We old settlers and recent emigrants are here in council. We have traveled the same path since all this living memory. After Sequoia spoke. My friends left the council for their homes. Among them was John Ridge, Major Ridge's son. Like Buddha not, waitee and me. He had signed the treaty. The Ross followers believed to be treason. Let's go. Let's go.

Mr. Buddha not. You've been sent to ask for medicine for our friend who is sick. I don't have any medicine here. It's all over Reverend Wooster's house. We'll have to go over there to get it. It's a short distance. They killed Elias Buddha not.

They killed Major Ridge and his son John. And I suppose they will kill me. Surely I'm on the list to die and stand waiting. Anyone who signed the treaty. So what do I do now? I have a family. I built a life here. And if I run, where do I go? Of course, John Ross denies he had anything to do with the killing. The murderers have not been found. But there have been more killings. One killing leads to another. So many have died. It's as if we have a mysterious wish for self-destruction. The trail of tears filled with dramatic conflicts and terrible sufferings is important to the histories of the five civilized tribes.

But it is by no means the beginning nor the end of their story. The Cherokee, Chakta, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole eventually referred to as the five civilized tribes where ancient peoples long before the removal. At the time of Columbus voyage in 1492, the five tribes occupied most of what would be the south-eastern United States, from the Carolinas and Tennessee to Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. Most were village people with complex social systems, well-worn trade routes and highly developed governmental traditions. During the colonial period, European traders moved among the tribes and married Indian women, raising large families who quickly rose to leadership positions. While himself a mixed blood developed a syllabary for the Cherokee language that was used to publish newspapers and books. John Ross, only one-eighth Cherokee, was college-educated and lived in a grand plantation home.

Robert Jones, a Chakta cavalier, farmed thousands of acres and owned hundreds of slaves. Despite these cultural adaptations, the five civilized tribes were pressed by white Americans looking for cropped lands and gold. It was a story repeated to the north where tribes such as the Sack and Fox, the Shawnee and the Potawatomi, were being constantly pushed from their ancestral lands by the growing American nation. By the 1820s, the cry for westward expansion was too loud to ignore. The solution forced upon the tribes was removal to the west. Professor Odie Faugh traces the impact of that federal policy. East of the Mississippi River, and just immediately west of it, you had various Native Americans who had been shoved west and they were fighting and there were pockets of Native Americans, especially in the south where you had huge numbers of Cherokees, Chakatos, Chickasaws, creeks, Seminoles, the five civilized tribes, upstate New York,

where you had the Seneca and the Mohawk and those groups. Various tribes of Native Americans and up into the Midwest, in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, territory where you had the Sack and Fox and the Ottawa and the other tribe, what to do with them? In 1825, the President of the United States, in his last annual message to Congress, this would be James Monroe, in January of 1825, he would go out of office in March of 1825, succeeded by John Quincy Adams. President Monroe, in his last annual message to Congress, came up with a proposal. It actually was written by Secretary of War, John Calhoun. And that proposal was a policy of Indian removal, to one big reservation in the west. This great American desert, this land that was forever unfit for people who would farm, would be a big Indian reservation from the plat in Nebraska to the Red River in Oklahoma, Texas. One big Indian reservation.

And Monroe said, if we can move them there, we will end all Indian wars. What was the cause of Indian wars? Well, it was the Anglo-Americans warning land and the Indians fighting to keep their land. So if we move all the Indians west, we will end the clashes between Native Americans and non-Native Americans. Thus, we will be doing everyone a favor. And to see that these Indians were moved west, don't get into trouble with whites moving, trying to move into their territory, let's build a chain of forts. A forts which will keep the non-Indian zone side and the Native Americans on the other, will license traders. And go among them and trade will be licensed by the government. We'll regulate to keep out fire water and firearms this sort of thing. And thus, we will end Indian wars. Congress eventually passed that legislation. In 1830, we have the establishment of an official policy

of Indian removal. All Native Americans east of the Mississippi removed to this big Indian territory in the west. And as we know, the removal of the five civilized tribes followed. Actually, by 1830, there already had been tentative removal westward. Some of the Cherokees had moved west and lovelies purchased in 1817 and what now is Arkansas. And to Western Arkansas, about 3,000 Cherokees had moved, supplemented eventually some 6,000 were there. In 1828, Arkansas and the U.S. government made an agreement that Arkansas at one point owned about 40 miles over into Oklahoma. They would exchange lovelies, purchase, land owned by the Cherokees and Arkansas for that land in what now is Oklahoma. And they would swap, move all the whites out of the Indian territory, all the Indians over. And by 1829, about 6,000 old settler Cherokees,

the Western Cherokees, were in the Indian territory. Simultaneous with this movement, there was the removal of creeks into the central Indian territory, and Choctaws into the southern territory. About a fourth of the Creek Nation had agreed to remove them. They were under tremendous pressure in Georgia and some of them said, hey, we're going to be forced out. Let's go ahead and make the best deal we can now and move. So by 1830, about a fourth of the Creek Nation was across the central part of the Indian territory. Another fourth of the Choctaw Nation in the southern part of the Indian territory. And in 1830, you had these three groups of the so-called five civilized tribes, mainly over in the eastern part of the territory. And in the western part, you had still the Plains tribes, the Comanches, and their allies, the Cairo, the Cairo Apache. And some of the tribes in this area, the Osage had been forced out of Oklahoma in 1870.

And in the late 1820s, in the late 1820s and early 1820s into Kansas, the Cherokees had moved in there. Creeks, the Seminoles, the Plains tribes, and a few small groups in between, still trying some of the, some of the Keto and people trying to preserve their hold on the land. 1830, the Indian territory was a reality. Now, in the 1850s, Kansas and Nebraska would split up the old Indian territory. That was going to stretch from the platt to the red. Kansas and Nebraska cut off leaving the Indian territory. This was the place for removal. Between 1830 and 1880, about 60 tribes would be moved to the Indian territory. It was to be the place for all Native Americans from east of the river. There'd be wars to accomplish that. The second fought war, the Black Hawk War, it's generally called in which Abraham Lincoln fought.

People were moved here, unwillingly. And President Monroe said we will be doing them a favor. A favor indeed. Removal might have been a simple solution to a complex problem, but for individual citizens of the tribes, removal meant loss of lands, loss of improvements, often loss of life. Some bands were moved west in orderly fashion with government supplies and efficient transportation, but others forced from their homes at the point of a bayonet, undertook the trek in the snows of winter, exploited by the settlers along the route, robbed by the contractors hired to supply their needs. Now, it's no wonder that the removal has become known as the trail of tears. Dr. Brad Agnew, professor of history at Northeastern State University, picks up on that exit as at the historic community of Park Hill. My name is Brad Agnew.

I'm a professor of history at Northeastern State College. We're standing here on the grounds of Chalagi, the Cherokee National Historical Society. Matter of fact, I'm standing right in front of the three remaining columns from the original Cherokee female seminary that was built here in the 1840s and opened in 1851. This was the center of Cherokee history and culture. It was to this place that John Ross, the principal chief of the Eastern Cherokees, brought his people 12,000 immigrant Cherokees in 1839. It was here that they ended their trail of tears. When Ross arrived, he had believed that he would be the chief of the unified tribe because he brought more Cherokees here than existed before. As a matter of fact that the Cherokees had been here some time earlier, the old settlers came in the 1820s. They were about a fourth of the tribe.

They had a government already in place here. And it was that government that the old settlers believed should remain in place at least until the first election. Ross, however, had a different idea. He was convinced that the election should be held immediately that a new government should be formed within a matter of weeks. And because of this, the Cherokees held a meeting at Taliqua about two or three miles from here at a springs. And at that meeting, the Cherokees wrangled over who was going to form the government. The old settlers backed by the forces of the Ridge Party, the people who had signed the Treaty of New Ashota, maintained that the old settlers' government should remain in effect. As a matter of fact, the Ridge Party was led by John Ridge, his father, Major Edge, and Elias Budenot

and his brother stand waiting. After several days of acrimonious discussion, the meeting broke up without any decision being reached. Several days later, on the 22nd of June, 1839, friends and supporters of John Ross, early in the morning, assassinated three of the four principal leaders of the Ridge Party. John Ridge, his father, Major Edge, and Elias Budenot. Stand waiting was also marked for execution, but somehow managed to escape. Within a few days, most of the formidable opposition to the Ross Party sort of evaporated, fled to Fort Gibson or other places.

And in September, Ross and his followers were able to form a government here in the Cherokee Nation, a government that prevailed right down until Oklahoma became a state in 1907. The Cherokees weren't the only tribe that moved here to Oklahoma in the 1830s and 40s. As a matter of fact, there were four other members of the five civilized tribes. The Choctaws and Chickasaws lived in what is now Mississippi before they were removed in the 1830s and 30s. The creeks moved to this area in the 1830s also. And finally, the Seminoles came about the same time. Now, each of these tribes was considerably different. The four other tribes all spoke Mescogian, but they didn't all share the same cultural traits and habits.

They each had their own culture and differences in language. And within the tribes, particularly within the Cherokees, they had a great deal of cultural difference. The major difference between the two factions of the Cherokees had to do with blood quantum. The full bloods were the more traditional of the Cherokees. They retained their old tribal customs and ways as a matter of fact, even down to the present day in some instances. However, there was much intermarriage with whites, leaders with Irish, with Englishmen, even with some Germans, and thus the names, the adairs, the Rosses, the Roger. And it was this group of mixed bloods that came to dominate the government of the tribe, the leadership of the tribe.

For example, John Ross was really only about an eight Cherokees, yet he led the full blood faction of the tribe. Many of these mixed blood Cherokees in Georgia and here in Indian Territory lived very much like their counterparts in white society. John Ross, his nephew, George Merrill and others, had homes that I would call mansions. They rivaled, well, perhaps not Tara of Dawn with the wind, but all most. They tilled their land with slaves. They brought the finest furniture from their homes from France. They really formed an Indian aristocracy. On the other hand, the full bloods tended to, as I said before, retain the old ways. And in Indian Territory, they went up in the hills

and lived on small sort of subsistence farms. And really didn't take part in the tribal government that was dominated by these mixed blood matters. So as you can see, there was a considerable variation in the lifestyle of the Cherokees here in Indian Territory and even before they came. One thing that tied them together was a common language. And perhaps the most important development concerning their language has to do with Sequoia and the development hits Silovere or Alphabet. In the 1820s, Sequoia developed what he called talking leaves. After seeing the white man and his writing, Sequoia, a person who didn't speak English, who was a literate,

figured out a way to record in symbolic form every syllable of the Cherokee language. And early historians suggest that literally overnight, Sequoia's syllabary made the Cherokees literate. And I think gave them a distinction from their member of the Five Civilized Tribes possess. Move from their ancestral homes to a frontier taken from the Osages and Wichitas, the people of the Five Civilized Tribes encountered challenges, but they also found new opportunities. They reestablished constitutional governments that included lawmen called Light Horsemen, court systems organized into districts and democratically elected chiefs. They spread across the rich farmlands of the river valleys, established farms and plantations and communities very much like those across the border in Arkansas.

One rich Choctaw even owned two river boats that carried profitable bales of cotton to New Orleans for international markets. In many ways, this golden age of the Indian Territory from the 1830s to the 1850s was a period of rapid development and high expectations. That pursuit of progress is nowhere more evident than in their devotion to education. Dr. Norbert Manken, retired professor of history at Oklahoma State University, describes that early commitment to learning. I think in talking about early elementary education in Oklahoma, it's really basic that we look at a one-room school such as this. Or at least three generation of Oklahoma's, the one-room school was their basic introduction to the educational process. I'd like to point out that this is true even before Oklahoma was open to white settlement. We often forget that among the five civilized tribes,

particularly the Cherokee and Choctaws, education had developed very extensively before the Civil War. As a result of an interest from the part of tribal leaders, plus the interest of church groups, educational work had begun among the five civilized tribes to a small degree before removal. But once the tribes were removed to Oklahoma, they very quickly developed and surprising interest in education. The Cherokee Constitution revised in 1839, provided that there was to be a system of public schools in the Cherokee Nation, complete with a superintendent of instructions, and the other ingredients needed for the maintenance of such a school. Education among the Cherokee had begun as early as 1801 in the country in the east with the establishment of the first mission schools there.

In the area of what is now Oklahoma, schools developed extensively in the Cherokee and Choctaw Country in the 1830s. Finance by combined effort of mission societies from the east and by tribal funds which are allocated specifically for education. Virtually every treaty which the Cherokees and Choctaws sign its U.S. government provided for certain funds to be specifically earmarked and allocated for the education of purposes. The first school laws in what is now Oklahoma, date basically from 1841 to 1842. These were Cherokee and Choctaw laws, Cherokee law of 1841, provided for the establishment of public schools. I believe that this was the first public school law west of the Mississippi River, modeled on the state laws of early pioneering states such as Massachusetts

and Connecticut. This is understandable since many of the early missionaries and the women teachers who came west to work among the tribal groups came from that area of the country. The Cherokee law of 1841 provided for the establishment of public schools. Initially 11 were established. They increased in number to 30 by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. 30 schools taught in all but two cases by Cherokee teachers themselves that had been taught in schools back east given the training necessary for preparation for that work. The Choctaw schools provided subsidies to the mission schools, established nine boarding schools as well. I think we often forget and minimize the impact of these schools.

We forget that in many ways Oklahoma has a pioneering tradition of leadership here among its early inhabitants in the period before the Civil War. The Cherokees pointed out that in their 30 schools they had 1,500 of their students enrolled. If you remember that the Cherokee population at this time was approximately 16,000. This puts about 10% of the population in schools a rather considerable number. Fortunately, there was ample supply of all the ingredients needed for a good school system. There were trained well-trained teachers provided initially by the Eastern colleges and schools through people who enrolled for service with the mission societies and later then by tribal personnel trained in the schools of that time. Train personnel was there.

Consistency of administration was there. Many of the men who directed the programs, the Evan Jones and the Cherokee country, the Myers-Buyington and Jock-Dock country had worked for 30 years or more in these endeavors and gave a continuity and consistency which is so important in early education. There was a stable, if not over abundant supply of financing made possible by the fact that the mission societies provided the teaching personnel and some of the materials and the tribal funds provided then the wherewithal that the facilities were constructed. A considerable degree of progress had been made by 1861. This is what made the Civil War so devastating in Park in Oklahoma. For it's all of it, it was destroyed. Many of the buildings were burned. The teachers left. The investments of the tribal groups

in southern state bonds were eliminated and the financing of these programs were severely undercut. And though the efforts was made after the Civil War to revive these educational programs, they developed more slowly than many would have anticipated. The Civil War was indeed a turning point for the five civilized tribes. Per capita, the people of the Indian Territory suffered more loss of life and property than any state in the Confederacy. The government so well established before the war was divided and ineffective. Internal improvements from schools to roads taken for granted before were abandoned. The physical losses were compounded by the reconstruction treaties of 1866 which took half of the territory for other tribes and opened the door for ultimate dissolution of tribal lands. Despite attempts at recovery, the dye was cast.

In 1870, the first railroad was built across the territory, followed by white intruders who flocked to the emerging towns. A lotment begun in 1887 was completed by 1977, the end of tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma. The 20th century brought more challenges for individual members of the tribes. Technological and economic change left many behind. Government policies, designed to Americanize the Indian, attack their social, political, and economic systems. But all was not lost. Fortunately, cultural traditions, the Indian ways survived, despite the onslaught of time. Today, members of the tribes face new challenges. Challenges rooted in the past. Wilma Mankiller, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, shares her insights into that struggle for survival. We've paid an awful lot of attention to linking the present with the past.

Particularly, I would say, in the last six or seven years, I believe very firmly that the only reason that we've been able to survive in this country as a culturally distinct group of people and continue to maintain a tribe and a tribal government is because we've been able to keep in touch some of the old values and some of the old Cherokee value system and some of the systems of governance. I think it's very important for us to preserve that. And as we're now, we're looking at the 21st century as a rapidly approaching, and I have to look at the 21st century and say, where do we want to be 20 years from? Now, what is it we're doing today that will help our people be able to enter the 21st century on our own terms? One of the things that I think will help us is looking back at our history.

And in our past, we're doing that in lots of ways where we run medical clinics here and we more and more integrating traditional healing attitudes and practices with the modern Western medicine. When we teach a second language in Sequoia Indian school, we're not teaching Cherokee, the Cherokee language. We're starting to publish more literature and the Cherokee syllabary. We have lots of little campaigns going which tries to show the importance of language. We're encouraged our young artists to not do so much stylized Indian art but to do more Cherokee art traditional art because art truly reflects culture. And so there are lots of things we're doing to link our present with our past.

And our system of governance in the old old days, way prior to the removal, used to be a system based on consensus. And the system of governance we have today is more a corporate type of governance in the formal structure with a principal chief being the executive officer and tribal council sort of being the legislative body. But in practice what we do is that that's on paper. But in practice what we do and how we deal with issues of significance to the tribe is we still use sort of a method that's very democratic. There's not the absolute separation between all these branches that it says on paper. Sometimes we sit down collectively as a group of people and jointly decide as they used to do in the old days. One of the biggest problems our people face today is a lack of trust in their own thinking.

Having been a part of the removal, having revitalized the Cherokee Nation and then the Civil War occurred, the Cherokee Nation was involved in that in many, many ways. After the Civil War the United States came back together again and then started opening up Indian territory to white settlement, which they told us they would never do. Tried to dismantle the Cherokee Nation and then for 60 years, more than 60 years, there was no central tribal government. The Cherokee Nation existed as just a small unit. And so for all intents and purposes, there wasn't a central tribal government. And we fell into incredible decline and then began to revitalize 20 years ago.

But I think if you review all that history for people and talk to them about our resilience as a people and then it can help them reach a point where they can trust their own thinking and believe in themselves when you've been through that kind of oppression and so many problems really that are the result of external factors, then someone sitting in a rural community an Indian family that has every problem related to poverty and doesn't blame themselves so much. And there's something very liberating about learning that maybe it's not my fault, I'm in this situation. There were a lot of external factors that played a part in my being here. And then the next thought is then how do I get out of it? And then of course our philosophy is that the only way you get out of it is to help yourself and for us to do it ourselves collectively and that's always been our philosophy. So what I try to do in our work today

and our moving forward today on major issues and we have major problems. We need to double the Indian Health Service budget we have. We still have tremendous housing problems, some people in our area living with few amenities, lots of problems, and in facing those problems how I get people to deal with them head on and very directly as to point to the way our ancestors dealt with problems and how they were able to bounce back from adversity and sort of assess the situation they find themselves in. And then figure out how to move forward. That Cherokee medicine man who played a part in my life has always told me that traditional Cherokee thinking says that you should always try to keep yourself free of negative thoughts about events and people as much as possible and that no matter what situation you find yourself in to try to find something positive to hold on to. And I think that's what we do individually and collectively

as a group of people. And that's a historical and a traditional Cherokee value that helps us an awful lot. And looking back I think at some of the things our people have endured makes today's problems that those terrible problems seem relatively minor. The past and the present, ancient and modern, the two worlds of yesterday and today that seem so different yet there are clear undeniable links between the past and the present. As the Cherokees have learned by studying the past we learn lessons that help us understand the present by learning from our failures as well as our successes we prepare for the future. For the people of the five civilized tribes, the lessons of challenge and survival will serve them well as we approach the 21st century.

Until next time, I'm your host Dean Lewis with Oklahoma Passage. .

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