“The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live.” This is a quote from a Native American after the Trail of Tears. This quote not only shows us the hardships that they had to endure, but also the perseverance that they had to carry on and survive, but this is not even half of it. The Native Americans in the South were put through so much more. For example. there was a man named Washington Lee, who lived as a full-blooded Cherokee during of the Trail of Tears and passed his story down. When he was just a young boy he was driven from his home in Georgia and onto the Trail of Tears. Along the way he lost his father, mother, and sister, and never saw them ever again, not knowing if they had died or had got lost. …show more content…
Washington’s aunt tied one child to her back, carried one in her arms, and lead the oldest by hand. Since the conditions were so harsh, all three of them died before they reached Oklahoma. Everyone had to walk, whether you were two, 20, 70, or even 9 months pregnant, the only people allowed to ride in the government wagons were elderly who were too weak to walk. The only other exception was when you were so sick you couldn’t walk, which the soldiers just threw you in the back and waited until you died. There was no actual trail like you might think. Washington Lee speaks about how there was no path to walk, just wilderness, so men and women would have to go ahead of the wagons with axes and chop down the trees in front of them. The food was normally cornbread or roasted green corn, but Washington along with the other Native Americans rarely got any. So to make do, Washington Lee had to find food along the trail, which was very disgusting in addition to being scarce. He didn’t have any wells for water, so whenever he would get to a stream, whether it was clean water or not, he drank