22 INCH WHEELS AND TIRES

Trail of Tears stop remembered by UA event


By Brett Bennett

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

FAYETTEVILLE — Decades before historic Old Main was ever constructed, the University of Arkansas campus was the site of another historical event.

Cherokees traveling the Benge Party route for the Trail of Tears camped on the hillsides that are now part of the UA and Fayetteville High School campuses at Garland Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

On Monday, groups of about 15 people walked from the Arkansas Union to the historic marker south of the UA soccer stadium to reflect on the Cherokees’ struggles as part of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Day at the university. The Cherokees were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, in the 1830s.

Indigenous Peoples Day is planned as an alternative to Columbus Day. It is designed to give people time to reflect on the suffering of Native Americans, said Dick Bennett, of the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology.

“We’ve been holding this on Columbus Day for five years now,” Bennett said.

The Indigenous Peoples Day ceremonies were sponsored by the Omni Center, the UA Honors Film Association, Native American Student Association and the department of communication.

The groups met first at the union to watch a documentary on Trail of Tears and read excerpts of poems and journals about the journey.

UA student Arshan Dehbozorgi read an account of a Cherokee who traveled the trail when he was 9 years old. His father died first, and his mother later died while he was on the trail, leaving him to be taken care of by other members of the tribe.

The passage also spoke about how the Cherokees were rounded up in stockades before receiving orders to begin the journey.

After the walk from the union to the marker, walker Gloria Young made reference to the struggles faced by those walking along the trail.

“How’d you like to do that every day for four months,” she said.

According to a historical marker on the UA side of Garland Avenue, a group of 1,100 Cherokees camped there overnight on Jan. 13, 1839.

There are two markers at the site - a sign close to the street and a plaque attached to a set of large rocks west of the sign and south of the soccer stadium.

Bennett said he wishes the markers received more recognition, as they aren’t ver y noticeable from the road.

John McLarty, president of the Arkansas chapter of the Trail of Tears Association, thanked the UA students and staff who walked down to the markers from the union.

“Doesn’t it make a difference to be standing here than driving by?” McLarty said.

The Cherokees, who resided in states like Georgia and Alabama before the relocation, lived very modern lifestyles for the 1830s before they were forced to travel the Trail of Tears, McLarty said. They lived in log homes, used cast iron stoves for cooking instead of clay pots and published a newspaper.

The Cherokees were also progressive with sending representatives to Washington, D.C., to promote their causes, McLarty said.

“They sent people to D.C. all the time,” McLarty said.

Glenn Jones, vice president of the Trail of Tears, recalled how he tried to simulate the arduousness of the journey by walking down one of the current trails from Missouri to Benton County. Jones said he tried to dress in 19th century-style clothes and ate a breakfast meal that consisted of two pieces of bacon and a piece of corn bread.

By the time he reached Cross Hollow near Lowell, he was tired, hungry and cold. Jones said he did that as a response to hearing one scholar suggest the Trail of Tears wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be.

Jones said he also refuses to use or carry a $20 bill because it features a portrait of President Andrew Jackson, who initiated the removal of the Cherokees.

“I do not carry a $20 bill. Never,” Jones said. “I use every denomination except the 20.”

News, Pages 1 on 10/13/2009

Jeudi 20 decembre. Un matin comme les autres. 6h55. A gauche en bas, Boulevard des Grands Brules. Celebre pour son souvenir des victimes collaterales de certains accidents malheureux. Devant la fantastique avenue de Gaulle. Ah Charles … Au centre une piste cyclable qui cotoie un parcours zebre pour pietons. Et une signaletique claire : priorite usagers faibles ! A droite en haut au detour du regard un panneau de 20 m2 vantant les merites du dernier VW Tiguan. Un tout terrain « taille pour la savane urbaine » (sic). Grandiose, dixit soliloquant le cycliste du matin bravant les frimas de l’hiver taillant. Son pedigree ? « puissance et sobriete. Compacite et espace. Temperament et bonnes manieres » Pedrigree du 4x4 of course. Un fauve feroce et docile, somme toute. A La conquete de la cite comme on conquit la mythique Thule. Et capable de « repousser les frontieres » (re-sic). Caravelle a ses heures. Cynique, pitoyable, immoral, encore les 4x4 blablabla… s’indigne le citoyen non-lambda, plus que moyen. Le cyclo transi de froid sur son deux roues. Reve d’une autre route possible en s’engouffrant sur la chaussee. Protege par le sceau infranchissable des marques blanches sur la voie cyclable. Gauche. Droite. Gauche… haaaaarg. Le monstre VW en vrai cette fois, deboulant, pardon galoppant, klaxonnant, pardon rugissant. Tire-toi connard, hurle-t-il avec ses gros phares. Je reve, s’interroge a peine le cycliste solitaire. A deux centimetres pres de voler dans le decor. La VW s’arrete. Et la quoi ? Le chauffeur civilise gueule sur cet impotent et demeure deux-roues. Et de repartir furax. Le cyclo de rester interloque. Quand soudain s’eclaire la lanterne ! Jesus, Marie, Joseph. C’est une parabole de Noel. David et Goliath. La ville est un safari. Seule prevaut la loi de la jungle. Les gros bras gagnent a tous les tours et les courtes-jambes n’ont qu’a bien pedaler pour tenir la route et echapper aux predateurs. Les 4x4 sont les rois lions triomphants. Roule, creve et ressuscite ! Landaus, pietons, chaise roulante, usagers des transports en communs, velos, tous de la chaire a gazelle ! Tous du pate de Tiguan en devenir ! O Saint tout-terrain, toi qui regne sur la cite des « crash test dummies » ambulants, que ta conduite soit sanctifiee, que ta volonte soit faite sur tous les macadams, delivre-nous du mal distille par ces empecheurs de carburer a plein regime et pardonne les offenses de ces usagers insenses comme nous pardonnons a Kyoto ou Bali d’exister. Quel paradis que la route. Et le molosse de tabasser le cyclo. Evidemment. Et le cyclo de lui ceder la priorite de facto. Evidemment. Voire de se faire ecraser. Malheureusement. Dommage collateral dans la savane urbaine. En conclusion ? la 4x4 est un gros bac de metal heros compassion tandis que le cycliste est un zero inconscient. Alors au diable le cyclo ! Ta gueule, ecrase et engouffre toi ! Sur le tarmac l’enfer. Sous le tarmac la tombe. Apres le tarmac la resurrection. Dans la creche l’enfant dieu qui repose en paix sans savoir le jungle qui l’attend. Respect le fauve, youpie la pub, vive la vie.

Texte librement inspire d'une experience vecue et d'un billet d’humeur de Hugues Dorzee dans Le Soir. Le meme jour. Le 20/12/07