INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' DAY IN CHEROKEE

There's nothing like the Smoky Mountains in Fall.

This past week here in the U.S. we celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a holiday updating the long inaccurate and inappropriate “Columbus Day” meant to honor the “discoverer of America.” The problem with that was that Christopher Columbus didn’t really discover America (indigenous people had been living here for centuries and, besides, Leif Erickson had sailed from Europe before, too) and what followed Columbus’s landing wasn’t exactly something to celebrate for the folks living here, either.

So, Indigenous Peoples’ Day has a better ring to it. Here in Western North Carolina, the indigenous Cherokee exert a subtle presence over the land those of us of European descent have overtaken. Somehow that’s inevitable, not only because so many of the features of the landscape—mountains, rivers, towns—have Cherokee names, but also because the Cherokee lived in such close association with the environment that their spirit can still be felt here if you take the time to listen for it.

I spent the day after Indigenous Peoples’ Day in modern-day Cherokee country, across the old Quallah Boundary, west of my home in Marshall, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the town of Cherokee next door. Signs were written in both English and Cherokee (one of the first written Native languages), billboards advertised local Native crafts and businesses and, of course, Unto These Hills, the play written about the Trail of Tears.

Even folks who aren’t from this area are familiar with the story of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, passed by slim vote in Congress under the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Not only the Cherokee, but members of all Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chicasaw, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole) from Michigan to Louisiana and Florida were subject to removal across the Mississippi under the act, to “Indian territory” (Oklahoma).

Seminole leaders fled into the swamps of Florida and largely avoided removal. Cherokees under the leadership of Junaluska (who had once saved Jackson life in battle) and others resisted by legal means since many were educated and owned farms and businesses. But they were betrayed by three others, who signed over their land for a promised sum of $5 million in the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. Despite the fact that the Cherokee Nation as a whole rejected the treaty, some 16,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed from their homes two years after Congress ratified the treaty in 1836. Four thousand died on the way to Oklahoma, a trip made mostly in winter, with little food. They were buried in unmarked graves, far from home.

A small band of Cherokee families owned land around the Oconoluftee River in Western North Carolina under earlier treaties and, after a special appeal to the North Carolina legislature, was allowed to stay behind. Another group of 300-400 led by a man named Tsali hid in the mountains and avoided capture during the removal. Tsali was eventually captured by Federal soldiers but negotiated to allow his people to stay. All in all, about a thousand Cherokee remained in Western North Carolina (or returned from Oklahoma) to serve as the ancestors of what is today the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, who live centered in around Cherokee, NC.

On an earlier trip to Cherokee, I visited the excellent Museum of the Cherokee Indian, which is part history, part art museum. When I was much younger (like 12), I visited the living history Oconoluftee Indian Village, a recreation of a Cherokee village of the 18^th Century. I guess you could say I’ve always been fascinated with Native culture.

I didn’t set out to visit Cherokee for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. That was just a happy coincidence. Hubby and I spent the weekend in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, home of Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park—our first getaway that wasn’t related to family since COVID. Turned out it was a perfect fall weekend, with the leaves turning, the sun shining, the breeze just crisp enough. The crowds at Dollywood were a little overwhelming after all this time in isolation, but I love people-watching, so I got my fill of that. We ignored the rides and concentrated on the music (which was top-notch), the crafts and the food. Then we came back through the mountains, which were stunning.

The trip left us more grateful than ever to live in this wonderful place, once and still the home of the Cherokee.

Cheers, Donna

 

WAITING FOR THE STORM

Today is a beautiful, sunny day in Western North Carolina. The sky is a hazy blue, dotted with cottony white clouds sailing lazily by. There’s enough of a breeze to stir the leaves and take the edge off the heat, but not enough to lift the flag in front of the courthouse. The river level is low in downtown Marshall; the blue heron that hunts in the shallows a hundred yards downstream from the dam stands on the rocks with just enough water to cover his feet.

But in 24 hours, or maybe 36, everything in my part of the world will change. The clouds will sweep in, the barometric pressure will drop, and the rain will fall in sheets. The wind will begin to howl, bending the trees, breaking them or maybe ripping them from the ground. The forces of Mother Nature will attack the structures built by mere human creatures—houses, fences, barns, bridges, storefronts, vehicles, electric lines—and in some cases those structures will fail. Creeks will overflow; steep slopes will give way. And before Hurricane Florence, having just hit the North Carolina/South Carolina/Virginia coast as a Category 1 storm, is over, many of the residents of those states will have reason to look back at this day as The Time Before.

In the distant past, our ancestors who lived in the paths of destructive storms had no warning whatsoever that something was on its way to ruin homes, crops and lives, especially if they lived many miles from the ocean, as we do in Western North Carolina. I suppose if you live on the coast, you have rough surf to give you some indication that a storm out at sea is coming closer. But this far inland, the sun shines right up to the day before the hurricane hits, and in the days before The Weather Channel, before radio and telegraph or even good roads and a fast horse, no one could predict that disaster would strike seemingly out of nowhere. 

The most devastating flood in the area’s history occurred in 1916, when the French Broad River went over its banks after several days of sustained heavy rain. One theory is that two hurricanes came through the area, one right after the other. But weather records for the time are spotty, so no one really knows. 

The Flood of 1916 in the French Broad River Valley near Asheville NC

Of course, predictability is relative, even with all the tools we have at our disposal in this technologically delirious time. Meteorologists have only a vague idea, really, what the impact of Florence will be; where it will go; how long it will stay. We’ve already been lucky to some extent in that the storm lingered longer than expected in the Atlantic, meandering slowly over the water, dissipating in strength while it grew in size. At this writing, the hurricane has hit the coast at Wilmington NC as a Category 1 storm, when just days ago, it was feared to hit as a Category 4. Still, most coastal residents heeded warnings and evacuated. The loss of life is likely to be less than it could have been—certainly something to be thankful for.

We are taught, as writers, to set the beginning of our stories at the precise moment when everything changes for our protagonists. Sometimes it’s not so easy to identify that moment in a swirl of plot possibilities. But today, on this sunny day, waiting for the inevitable onset of the storm, so many of those moments loom large. And we can only pray for happy endings.

Cheers, Donna