Our staff readers have prepared this list of discussion questions for those reading Trail of Tears. Use these if you are starting your own book club, or just keep the questions in mind as you are reading the book. Next week, we will be introducing our staff readers. They will begin posting their own thoughts on these questions…and we hope you will join the conversation!
1. In Trail of Tears, the Cherokee Nation worked hard to assimilate into the European cultural norms of the new Americans. In present day America, many Indian Americans have chosen to assimilate into the modern cultural norms that have grown from the melting pot that is the United States. Many, however, choose to live on reservations, living life according to the values of their people and their history.
Are there indigenous groups or immigrant groups that have never fully assimilated into your culture? Is it necessary that they do?
2. In the Cherokee communities, marriages began and ended simply, a Cherokee woman had more rights and power than European women and marriages were allowed across racial barriers. Today these are becoming cultural norms around the world. Were the Cherokee ahead of their time or has our society today regressed?
3. In the book, the acquisition of land and territory is a central theme. The Moravians explained it best in the book when they said, “Land, the prime need of the white man. It always starts with land…” Why do you think land is the source of such great conflict and intense emotion?
4. “An initiation ceremony, welcoming Ridge to manhood, was held.” The Cherokee people had very specific steps that had to be taken in order to be considered a man. Does this initiation into manhood, or rite of passage, still happen today in your country?
5. On page 220, author John Ehle quotes then U.S. President-Elect, Andrew Jackson, saying “Build a fire under them. When it gets hot enough, they’ll move.” What is your reaction to this quote and U.S. President Andrew Jackson’s involvement with the relocation of many American Indian tribes?
6. At one point in the book, Major Ridge has a moment of introspection, asking himself, “Have I come to this…from the place I began, from where my mother and father left me, from the going to water and the first stickball game, the hunts preceded by polite prayer, the killing of whites, the killing of Indians, even Cherokees, the thefts of slaves, the horse stealing? Have you, Major Ridge, grown into this different person, and are you growing, changing still? I scarcely know you.” Do you think the sacrifices and struggles that Ridge and the Cherokees endured were worth the “progress” made to advance the Cherokee society?
7. With little time for the Cherokee to plan and prepare, they were removed from their homelands to Oklahoma. It is estimated that approximately 17,000 Cherokee were forced to make this mass migration. Did the government take into account all of the arrangements that would need to be made to move this many people safely and smoothly? If you were given a short amount of time to leave your home and move to an unknown place, how would you feel? What would you take with you?
8. What other marches/relocations come to mind in history? Why have we not learned from our past?
Tags: Global Book Club, John Ehle, Trail of Tears
1. My father was raised Amish; my mother was a Swiss Mennonite. My walk of faith is like neither of these sects, nor the cultures that went with them. Any person in the U.S. who does or doesn’t follow their heritage makes a choice. All choices attach value to something, so you will always gain / lose something valuable.
2. The fact that all cultures practice some sort of marriage / covenant proves the power of its existence whatever the norms of the day or peoples. I don’t know that progress or regression are an issue so much as the wonder that marriage exists and remains.
3. The White Man saw possession of land as imperative to self-rule and independance. Own the land and you have identity and provision. Without it you are at the mercy of others.
4. We have the legal age, drinking age, and so forth…but no over-all practices.
5. I think Andrew Jackson was a flawed human with flawed reasoning, and in this case, terribly inhumane and even genocidal reasoning. The Indians could have built a holocaust museum about his era.
6. There is much to appreciate, but to judge it? They saw what they saw and so moved.
7. The intent was to take, to displace and to do so in a way that seemed somewhat reasonable. It was not. I would be grieving and I would trust God. I would take things to remind me of who we were and to build anew.
8. The march of the animals into the ark. The march of Israel from Egypt. The march of Europenans fleeing from Nazi / Communist oppression. The march of boys to (forced) wars in Africa, Europe, the U.S….marches to freedom and marches to death. As long as people believe they have power by taking the same from others there is survival, not learning. Only when changes are brought to empower, help and serve is there learning.