I was preparing to put together an entry for April's Sense of Place workshop events on Art in the Hill Country, when I encountered a series of photographs downloading from my camera that had been taken the day after my previous blog entry, while I was on a Hill Country Montessori field trip to sites associated with the Cherokee Trail of Tears. I felt inspired, perhaps even obligated, to share a few words about our journey on March 13th. After all, the Chattahoochee River which bounds the Hill Country was once a treaty line, with the Creeks living on the south side and the Cherokees across the river. Indeed, I can easily imagine many Cherokee traders passing through the Hill Country, on their way to trade in the Creek villages.I am only an armchair historian, but I am intrigued by the experiences of the Creeks and Cherokees. Next year, our Sense of Place Workshops will include further exploration of the Creek Trail of Tears -- an event precipitiated by Chief William McIntosh. As I described in a January blog entry, McIntosh signed off on the cession of remaining Creek lands in Georgia at the Treaty of Indian Springs in 1825. Short-term, his signature earned him ownership of a one square-mile reserve (the park we visited in January); longer-term, it earned him a much smaller bit of land sumounted by a stone shaped somewhat like a turtle, now lichen-encrusted. He was assassinated (or executed, depending upon one's point of view) by furious Creeks who had no intention of giving up their lands to the Georgians. (At one point, McIntosh, working on behalf of the US government, had even tried to bribe Cherokee leaders to agree to a similar treaty. As a result, McIntosh had been sent on his way south in disgrace, with a warning never to return to the Cherokee lands.)
While the Creeks (particularly the Upper Creeks, living in Alabama) were keen to maintain their traditional ways, the Cherokees adopted the accoutrements of Western culture. On the eve of the Trail of Tears, most Cherokees were living in agricultural communities, living in cabins or even mansions (with black slaves), had developed their own system of writing, and had even drafted a constitution modeled upon that of the United States, with a capital at New Echota. On our school trip, we visited New Echota (where a number of structures have been reconstructed, including a print shop and the Cherokee legislative and judicial buildings). But first, in the morning, we visited Spring Place, the former home of Chief James Vann (and afterwards, his son, John Vann).
At the time of his death in 1809, Chief Vann was the wealthiest of the Cherokee aristocracy. He lived in a fine brick mansion, ran an extensive cotton plantation worked by slaves, drank heavily, and on more than one occasion is known to have beaten one of his wives. What is equally problemmatic, to me, is that his house carries practically no traces of his Cherokee origins and culture. Only in the symbolism of the yellow sunflowers decorating the panels over the fireplace mantle can his native roots be read in the architecture.
Elsewhere, the house layout, woodwork, and furnishings (there to evoke original pieces that might have been there) all bespeak a wealthy Southern planter. There is even a compressed block of tea from China (eyed curiously by students in the photo below), which would have been a great luxury indeed in the first decade of the 1800s in Georgia.
There is even a stunning "floating staircase" that graces the central hallway....
But on the stairway landing, between the first and second floors, there is a mark burned into the wood back in 1838. It is a reminder that the owners of that house were, ultimately, just so many savages to be sent out West. The house was given away to a white Georgian in a land lottery, and he showed up to claim "his" home. A member of the Georgia Guard threw a burning log onto the staircase in order to "smoke out" the occupants. John Vann and his family were permitted to take their things with them, but they had to give up their plantation home and take the Trail of Tears, too. 
After touring the house with a well-meaning novice tour guide, we wandered the property. Outbuildings included examples of how moderately well-off and "poor" Cherokees would have lived at the time. The students ran around for a while to burn off excess energy built up on the long drive from the Hill Country, dashing off to the area around a spring house ruin, then starting up a game of tag. Then we got back in the van (Vann?) for the half-hour drive to New Echota.
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