Episode 5: THE PASSAGE OF SUATE STANDING DEER

that shield them from the great terrible sky. His people did not willingly leave the safety of their bows.

I can tell you how the world was cool and dark then, so the creator sent lightning that blazed a fire in a tree on a nearby island, And how even though many animals tried to retrieve it, none but the lowly water spider, who made a pot from clay and weaved a basket on her back, could bring the fire to the real people. That's what we call ourselves,

the ANDII. It was others that called his chakes. The elders told me many stories that I could tell you, stories that would teach you, Kadugi, how we work together for the betterment of all of us, and do the right paths each one must follow for balance. Peace and harmony. But these are not the stories you want to hear. You look at my hands like you already know what they've done. You want a blood story, Fine, I have one.

I'll tell you why I did what I did, and if you think I have done wrong, we will part ways with the knowledge that you have at least heard the truth. From the beginning, we were here and for thousands of years we had only two laws. One do not marry within your clan, and the other blood law. Blood law meant that if someone was murdered, their clan had the right, had the responsibility to murder someone in the offending clan. It was the way to restore balance.

Then the Europeans came. They brought diseases or plants didn't know how to cure. They brought weapons Our warriors didn't know how to fight, and they brought their God. They say they are made in their God's image, and so they say they should rule over every other living thing. Well, they are right, they are made in their God's image, and like their God, they are completely insane. They think the world belongs to them, the land, the water, life us.

We couldn't reason with them, We couldn't convince them they were wrong. Still, we tried to get along. Some of us adopted their ways. Men turned from hunting to farming, women from farming to domesticity. Sequoia created our system for writing. We began a newspaper printed in English and Cherokee. We formed a government with a constitution based on the invader's own. We even mentioned their god in it, and we codified what was already known, that the punishment for giving away

our land was death. The white politicians thought the more traditional conservative Cherokees would give up the land be nomad's hunt, and that the mixed bloods were the ones holding out to retain their power. They did not know that even the Cherokees, who learned their language and studied at their schools and worshiped their God, also wanted to remain. Georgia wanted our land. Gold had been discovered, after all. Jackson said, build a fire under them. When it gets hot enough,

they'll move. The Georgia Guard and their legislature provided the heat, and our people got burned. The state passed laws designed to force us away, and the Guard terrorized our people. But with all the theft and lies and brutality, there was hope. The Supreme Court decided that the State of Georgia did not have the authority over our affairs, that it had no right to extend its laws over the

Cherokee people. Just as Marshall wrote that the Cherokee nation was separate and sovereign, he pointed out that we were not savages, but legitimate Indian nations with our own traditions and institutions. That we were and had been treated in the past as equals. Our entire nation rejoiced to celebrate was short lived when he heard the decision. President Andrew Jackson reportedly commented, John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it. Now. Whether he actually said the

words or not hardly matters. His point of view was clear. The judgment meant nothing, and that is when some of our most capable leaders parted ways. Before this, John Ross and the leaders of what we called the Treaty Party agreed to fight removal at all costs. But now if the laws were in our favor and still not sufficient, what should we do? What did it mean to be a loyal Cherokee? What was better to leave our ancestral lends and live as we please? Away from the white man.

And if we did that, how long would it be before they came for these new lands? Or should we stay and fight and possibly die? Chief Frost thought a loyal Cherokee would never trade his homeland. Some others thought that giving up the land was worth saving Cherokee sovereignty

and identity against the degradations of the white settlers. I was twelve years old in eighteen thirty five, the year Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and Elias Budenot signed the Treaty of knew each Other and sold away our homeland. The United States knew the traders represented only a handful of Cherokees and had no authority to negotiate. Both sides went through with the charade. After the treaty was signed by the traders and ratified by one vote in the Senate,

there was nothing else to be done. We call it now no through Natoila, the trail where they cried, the trail of tears. And if you want to know why we did what we did, this is it. The knock on the door came at midday. My grandfather answered it. Thirty Georgia guard were waiting outside the house with guns. They told us we could take what we could carry. I watched my mom decide what we'd bring. When we left the house, they burned it down. My father walked

with his arm around my mother's shoulders. She cried into his chest. My sister cried alone. I watched my feet as I walked. I could feel the eyes of the soldiers on the back of my neck, and when they laughed, I knew they were laughing at me, at us. We were held in stockades for months. There was no roof, only large poles in the ground fencing us in. We starved,

people died, More people came and replaced the dead. We stayed like that for months, and then when the mud had dried and the temperatures lowered, they forced us to march.

What can I say to make you understand the devastation to know that you are leaving the place where your ancestors lived for thousands of years, To be forced to leave behind the bones of your grandfathers and grandmothers, to never again see good one the mother town, to leave behind your home and possessions, beets and livestock, to have it all given away by lottery to liars brutes, And of course the pain of the march itself hundreds hundreds of miles. It was the roughest on the young, the old,

and the sick. Babies were born and died, Aunties and grand fathers carried until they could be carried no longer, and then left by the side of the trail. And the coldest winter anyone had seen in years. Supplies limited. Disease spread, pneumonia, dysentery. The stench of sickness and death has never left me. At least four thousand people died on the trail, and there was nothing to be done about it but walk and survive. We met at the council house for the trial. There were one hundred of

us there. I was among the youngest. Three judges from the clan of each trader were present, The defendants were not. But what was the dispute. Didn't our laws say that whoever sells Cherokee land without counsel approval should be put to death. Weren't their signatures on the treaty? What was to debate? What more evidence was needed? Had Major Rich as he signed his mark on the Treaty of nu Echoda, said, I've signed my death warrant? What more should we have done?

After the men were found guilty, a committee was appointed to plan the executions. Numbers were put in a hat, one for each person present. Twelve were marked with an X executioner. The hat smelled of horses and sweat. My hand shook as I pulled my lot, and my father and I both pulled an axe. He looked at me with sad eyes. And it'll be okay, he said. I

tried to say, but my mouth had gone dry. In the very early morning of June twenty two, eighteen thirty nine, three separate groups of Cherokees rode out to assassinate Elias Budnot Major Ridge and his son John Ridge. A group of about thirty rode out to Park Hill and hid in the trees near the house that Budnut was building. Two members of the group Budenot for medicine. It was his job to dispense it to the people in the

area as they want to get it. One of the men stamped him in the back, and the other split his skull open with a tomahawk. Another group ambushed Major Ridge near white Rock Creek. Five bullets entered his body and he fell face down into the creek. Our group arrived at John Ridges, just before dawn. I wanted to go inside, but my father told me to stay on my horse. He and three others crept quietly into the bedroom. One of the men had a gun. Justice would be quick.

Those of us outside waited to hear the blast and to write off, but minutes passed and nothing had happened. I dismounted and walked towards the house. Before i'd taken six steps, John Wedge's body flew out the front door and landed hard in the dirt in front of me. Only he wasn't dead. He tried to get up, but my father ran out the door and tackled him and me both. I grabbed one of John's legs and held on as tight as I could. I could hear John's

wife screaming from the house. Then two shadows flitted past me and pushed her back inside. I could still hear her pleased, but they meant nothing to me. All of my energy was devoted to holding on to his leg. Bridge was talking, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. My dad had started war whooping. Maybe he remembered how persuasive John Ridge could be. Maybe he didn't want to hear the screams of pain. He motioned for the rest of us to join in. I tried, but I couldn't.

The others had now surrounded us and were circling him, jumping and yelling. Others were helping hold him down now and there was a high pitched scream that split through the whooping, and the leg went still. Then I opened my eyes. A knife was lodged in his heart. I slowly got up and dust myself off. My dad helped me back on my horse. I was woozy from the effort of holding on, and we rode off. Justice had been served. I'm anxious to complete my journey. Are you

satisfied now? Well, I don't care if you are. You wanted a blood story, and you got one. I didn't leave anything out, and if I did, it's because I'm old and that was a long time ago. Why are you looking at my hand again? I told you. I grabbed his leg, I held it down. I wasn't even supposed to do that. I was supposed to stay on my horse, but Dad was in there too long and I thought something might have happened. So I got off

and walked toward the house. And that's when I got knocked down, and that's when I held onto bridges legs so he couldn't kick anyone or get up. Stop looking at my hand. There's nothing on it.

much blood. Why is there blood on my shirt? It really was only a small cut, and my whole arm is wet. Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it, but I was trying to give the knife back. But I feel in the knife and the knife went into his gut and I heard him scream like I heard so many others scream and wail and cry. He gave away our lands. He gave away our lands. So I stabbed him again and again and then again, at one for each sacred place he threw away in the name

of their God and their power. But he still cried. So I stabbed him and the throne and his blood went everywhere, and I kept stabby until someone pulled me off him, and I yelled my war cry, and as one we picked up his dead body high above our heads, and we held him up, and without anyone saying so, we threw him down on the ground and stomped on him, one stomp for each of the one million steps we took away from our home. When we were done, we

mounted up and rode to Joseph Lynch's place. He'd prepare a feast from a beef he'd harvested in preparation for our arrival. My father rode ahead of me and didn't look back. When we got to the farm, I ate till I was full, and after a while I walked over to the shade of a large tuniper tree and I threw up that's it. That's the story. Are you satisfied now?

We did so. You asked us to cast away our idols and worship your God. We did so, and he was right. We did so. And what was it for? The white man has severed his relationship with his soul, and he is at war with himself. His soul calls to him from this side, but he can't hear. This is how he became the oppressor of the earth, always taking more and more and unsated hunger. This is the only way he could allow himself to commit these unspeakable

horrors against us and the earth. Madness cannot negotiate with madness, you cannot defend against it. The invisible weapon of the white man. His madness spreads like a curse, his savagery and bloodluss spread. His fear becomes your fear. His self loathing becomes your self loathing. His savagery becomes your savagery. His hatred and rage get lodged in your heart like pellets and powder. The more we tried diplomacy with the white Man, the more our own madness grew, until we

were also at more with ourselves. It is said that we are not allowed to journey on to the next level until we learn particular lessons in this one. If that is true, then the thing I have learned is this. There was nothing that the Treaty Party or the Ross Party could have done to prevent our tragedy. There is no cure for the white man's selfishness and greed. There is no medicine for this madness. But one day this madness will destroy him, and when there is nothing of

earth left to devour, he will devour himself. I hope the great Spirit lets me see it. Until then I will wait here.

infants will be massacred. I will pass over this land again and again, then again and again, walking with these men, women, children, taking long before their time, and will carry their stories with me long after they have crossed the threshold to the next beyond. These souls plucked from life too early, are the heaviest. They weigh on the people on the land itself. They leave their whispers and the wind, and wear grooves and the stone as they make their passage.

The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman.

Our supervising producer is Josh Than.