Latest / Stuff You Should Know / History of the Trail of Tears, Part II
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
- 0:04Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
- 0:13Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
- 0:17Speaker 1: And this is part two of the Trail of Tears,
- 0:20Speaker 1: which we already did part one. If you haven't heard that,
- 0:23Speaker 1: I would strongly recommend you go listen to that one first. Yes, uh,
- 0:27Speaker 1: and just a fifteen second recap of part one. Um,
- 0:31Speaker 1: we earned eighteen thirty roughly, and uh, America is getting
- 0:37Speaker 1: along great with Native Americans and they say, why don't
- 0:40Speaker 1: we all just live together and we can all just
- 0:41Speaker 1: share wealth the end. Oh wait, that's not what was
- 0:45Speaker 1: happening at all. No Americans wanted more land Indians headland.
- 0:50Speaker 1: Americans felt that the Indians weren't putting it to good
- 0:53Speaker 1: enough use and used that to morally justify forcing them
- 0:56Speaker 1: to leave their land. That's right in the forum officially
- 1:01Speaker 1: of the eighteen thirty Removal Act. And uh, that's where
- 1:05Speaker 1: we pick up in the government said, you know what,
- 1:08Speaker 1: let's start off with future podcaster Chuck Bryant's tribe, the
- 1:14Speaker 1: Choco Tall. Are you Choco Tall? I have very uh
- 1:18Speaker 1: negligible amount of chocodall as long as it's not negligent. No.
- 1:24Speaker 1: In fact, I'm not exactly sure how much, but I
- 1:26Speaker 1: know my uh we but I think my dad did
- 1:29Speaker 1: my family tree at one point and I got some
- 1:31Speaker 1: chocd on me. I love Choctaw. Yeah, that's great. So
- 1:34Speaker 1: they picked the Choctall because they said, um, well they're
- 1:39Speaker 1: pretty friendly and we think this can be a good
- 1:42Speaker 1: um I mean, was it sort of a proof of concept?
- 1:44Speaker 1: That's what I how this could work. They said, how
- 1:47Speaker 1: about you guys go first? And the Choctaw said, okay, fine,
- 1:51Speaker 1: we'll sign this. We'll sign this treaty where we're going
- 1:54Speaker 1: to seed all of our land east of the Mississippi
- 1:58Speaker 1: to the federal government and in exchange, we're going to
- 2:02Speaker 1: get a sizeable amount of land in this new Indian
- 2:05Speaker 1: territory what you guys will later call Oklahoma. And the
- 2:10Speaker 1: Choctaw again, they they went largely willingly, even though they
- 2:16Speaker 1: were split internally, like all the tribes were to some degree, right,
- 2:20Speaker 1: but the the there were and there were three divisions.
- 2:23Speaker 1: In the Eastern division, which was led by Chief Mushila
- 2:26Speaker 1: tobi Uh. He basically said, you know what, we're not
- 2:30Speaker 1: gonna win this war. Let's just we'll just sign this treaty.
- 2:34Speaker 1: So he negotiated the treaty, and the Choctaw moved, and
- 2:38Speaker 1: as they were moving, they they the whole thing was
- 2:41Speaker 1: carried out, The whole Indian removal process was carried out
- 2:45Speaker 1: by the War Department, which in and of itself says something.
- 2:48Speaker 1: The fact that it's being carried out by federal soldiers
- 2:52Speaker 1: with guns and bayonets, um, rather than say, some other
- 2:56Speaker 1: civilian department. That in and of itself says a lot. Right,
- 2:59Speaker 1: that's going to form a certain type of um tension
- 3:05Speaker 1: to the whole thing. Yeah, it reminds me of the
- 3:07Speaker 1: great movie. Uh, Doctor Strangelove. There's no fighting in the
- 3:11Speaker 1: war room. It's one of the best lines from that movie.
- 3:15Speaker 1: So the Choctaw are going. Some of them said no,
- 3:18Speaker 1: I'm not going, and they were shackled and bound and
- 3:20Speaker 1: were forced to undertake this journey. Um. I think if
- 3:25Speaker 1: you if you look at the the trail that the
- 3:29Speaker 1: Cherokees took, I think it was like miles for them.
- 3:34Speaker 1: They were coming from the Carolinas and Georgia by way
- 3:37Speaker 1: of Middle Tennessee. I think. But the choctawer we're coming
- 3:42Speaker 1: from Mississippi and Alabama. It may have been a little shorter,
- 3:44Speaker 1: but regardless, the Choctaw were forced to march Um with
- 3:49Speaker 1: very little supplies, with very little care taken to prevent
- 3:52Speaker 1: them from dying, Um for several hundred, if not a
- 3:55Speaker 1: thousand miles out of their homelands to this new Indian
- 3:59Speaker 1: terror tory, and a lot of them did die on
- 4:01Speaker 1: the way. Yeah, And I get the feeling that the
- 4:04Speaker 1: you know, the ones dying were like the attitude as well,
- 4:08Speaker 1: that's just fewer people we have to worry about. That
- 4:11Speaker 1: is very astute. I think that that is kind of
- 4:14Speaker 1: the impression that it was kind of like you're you're lucky,
- 4:18Speaker 1: we're letting any of you move anyway and not just
- 4:20Speaker 1: exterminating all of you. Right, and again, like I pointed
- 4:23Speaker 1: out in the last episode, um, there was I think
- 4:27Speaker 1: in this other attitude that like, well, I mean, you're
- 4:30Speaker 1: you're American Indians. You can just it doesn't matter where
- 4:33Speaker 1: you're from. You can get along out there, Like it
- 4:35Speaker 1: doesn't matter that you're coming from the lush, green uh
- 4:39Speaker 1: southeastern what would become United States and moving out to
- 4:42Speaker 1: the Great Plains, which you know nothing about you don't
- 4:44Speaker 1: know how to succeed their farm there. Necessarily, they probably
- 4:47Speaker 1: could have figured it out because they had done so
- 4:50Speaker 1: all across North America for you know, eons, but um,
- 4:54Speaker 1: it was they weren't set up for success in any
- 4:57Speaker 1: way being relocated. So Choctaw died along the way out
- 5:04Speaker 1: of twenty thousand died in three waves of migration, and
- 5:09Speaker 1: the first group to arrive in Oklahoma found some reporters
- 5:13Speaker 1: waiting there and um, there too already, Yeah, there were
- 5:17Speaker 1: settlers and when the I'm sure when the eastern tribes
- 5:20Speaker 1: got there, they were like white people, know you promised, Um,
- 5:27Speaker 1: But when the when the first group, the first of
- 5:30Speaker 1: the three Choctall waves, and from what I understand, they
- 5:32Speaker 1: were the first ones to move under the Indian Removal Act.
- 5:35Speaker 1: But when they got there, there were some reporters there
- 5:37Speaker 1: that said, you know, how, how was it basically one
- 5:41Speaker 1: scale of one to ten. And one of the Choctaw
- 5:44Speaker 1: chiefs who who it was exactly was lost to history
- 5:47Speaker 1: was either Chief Nitta Catchy or Chief John Harkins, and
- 5:51Speaker 1: one who described it as a trail of tears and death.
- 5:55Speaker 1: And that's where the Trail of Cheers ultimately got it's
- 5:57Speaker 1: its name from was an an unknown Choctaw chief who
- 6:03Speaker 1: were the was among the first to arrive in Oklahoma. Yeah,
- 6:07Speaker 1: and you'll hear um a lot of names in this
- 6:11Speaker 1: part two, like Chief John Harkins, and you're like, wait
- 6:14Speaker 1: a minute, that doesn't sound like a very American Indian name.
- 6:17Speaker 1: And these are just great examples of how unculturated some
- 6:21Speaker 1: of these factions of tribes had become like they were
- 6:24Speaker 1: speaking English, they were had English names, and um still
- 6:29Speaker 1: being removed. Yeah and again traded extensively white people. A
- 6:33Speaker 1: lot of them were Christian Um, some of them fought
- 6:36Speaker 1: alongside the federal government, and yes, they were still being removed,
- 6:40Speaker 1: all right, So the Trail of Tears was kind of
- 6:43Speaker 1: coined there, although it wouldn't like you said earlier in
- 6:46Speaker 1: the first episode that the the the Cherokee Trail of
- 6:50Speaker 1: Tears is sort of what most people think about is
- 6:52Speaker 1: the official Trail of tears. But regardless, this reporter got this,
- 6:56Speaker 1: blasted it out, and the whole world sort of is
- 7:00Speaker 1: now privy to these stories of this atrocity going on.
- 7:03Speaker 1: So you might think, well, they probably just tried this
- 7:06Speaker 1: once then and got so much blowback that they said Yeah,
- 7:10Speaker 1: this is does not look good for us. Um, so
- 7:12Speaker 1: we should kind of stop it. Yeah that's not how
- 7:14Speaker 1: it went. No, not how it went at all. No,
- 7:16Speaker 1: the the whole process ground on. I think there was
- 7:19Speaker 1: kind of a probably a sense among the pro removal
- 7:24Speaker 1: factions in Washington saying like just died out of its
- 7:30Speaker 1: way less than we thought it was gonna be, you know,
- 7:32Speaker 1: an acceptable amount of casualties. Basically, so um and um.
- 7:36Speaker 1: With with the white Americans as well, the idea was
- 7:41Speaker 1: ultimately Indians are gonna be free from encroachment by whites
- 7:46Speaker 1: out there in Indian territory. The War Department is tasked
- 7:49Speaker 1: with making sure that happens. The War Department did not
- 7:52Speaker 1: do that, and in fact, when they got out west,
- 7:55Speaker 1: they found the same type of harassment and encroachment that
- 7:59Speaker 1: that they experienced east of the Mississippi as well. Well,
- 8:04Speaker 1: maybe worse too, because not only were white settlers west
- 8:06Speaker 1: of the Mississippi encroaching, they, like we talked about in
- 8:10Speaker 1: episode one, there were already plains Indians. They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
- 8:13Speaker 1: whoa who who are these people? You know, I know
- 8:16Speaker 1: they look like us, but we're different, you know. And
- 8:20Speaker 1: the White settlers, like what are you talking about, Like,
- 8:22Speaker 1: we're encroaching on your land too, So it was it
- 8:25Speaker 1: was not friendly in any way, you know, this arrival. Plus,
- 8:30Speaker 1: also after the War of eighteen twelve and um the
- 8:33Speaker 1: Seminole Wars, the US didn't have any European powers on
- 8:38Speaker 1: the continent any longer, which meant two things. One, the
- 8:42Speaker 1: Indians weren't a useful buffer between the US and say
- 8:45Speaker 1: the British, they didn't need. They weren't needed in that
- 8:49Speaker 1: respect any longer, which put them in a very shaky position.
- 8:53Speaker 1: And then secondly, there was no European power that the
- 8:57Speaker 1: Indians could ally themselves with to check a Erican aggression
- 9:01Speaker 1: against they had done with both Britain and Spain. So
- 9:03Speaker 1: after that and during this Indian removal process, part of
- 9:07Speaker 1: the reason why it was so rough and brutal was
- 9:11Speaker 1: because there was no reason outside of anything moral, to
- 9:16Speaker 1: check American aggression in this process. Yeah, so things got worse.
- 9:21Speaker 1: A bad situation got worse. Right here in Georgia again
- 9:25Speaker 1: with the Cherokee Nation, they held these lotteries between eighteen
- 9:29Speaker 1: o five and eighteen thirty two. They had seven lotteries
- 9:32Speaker 1: basically where you could Uh, a white male could, if
- 9:36Speaker 1: you're over eighteen years old, could buy a lottery ticket
- 9:39Speaker 1: for four bucks about a hundred dollars today, and that
- 9:42Speaker 1: would give you a chance if you were picked to
- 9:44Speaker 1: buy a hundred and sixty acre tract of land that
- 9:48Speaker 1: was not theirs, right, That kind of says it all. Yeah,
- 9:52Speaker 1: And those those a lot of those parcels still exist.
- 9:55Speaker 1: You can trace the the land parcels back to the
- 9:59Speaker 1: original lot today. We call them subdivisions. Yeah, you know, yeah,
- 10:04Speaker 1: he said about three quarters of these parcels in Georgia
- 10:07Speaker 1: you can still trace backs. That's amazing. So the Chickasaws
- 10:10Speaker 1: were up next, Chuck. They were sick of being harassed
- 10:13Speaker 1: and um by white settlers and said, we're out of here.
- 10:17Speaker 1: We'll we'll we'll take the government up on its offer.
- 10:20Speaker 1: Here are all of our lands east of the Mississippi.
- 10:23Speaker 1: We'll take some land west of the Mississippi. And the
- 10:26Speaker 1: government said, great, here's a treaty, let's sign it. Uh,
- 10:30Speaker 1: slape each other on the back, maybe have a cigar,
- 10:32Speaker 1: and that's that. And the Choctawk got or the Chickasaw
- 10:36Speaker 1: got out to Indian Territory and found they didn't have
- 10:40Speaker 1: any land out there. Yeah, they had to negotiate with
- 10:43Speaker 1: the Choctaw who'd gotten out there a year or two earlier,
- 10:46Speaker 1: to buy some of their land. Talk about a raw deal, Well,
- 10:50Speaker 1: it is a raw deal. And it's interesting that some
- 10:52Speaker 1: of the um I mean, I don't think word was
- 10:56Speaker 1: getting back, but you could see a little bit of
- 10:58Speaker 1: the wisdom of well, hey, the writings on the wall,
- 11:02Speaker 1: So at least we can get out there early and
- 11:04Speaker 1: claim some land of our own. And that's what happened.
- 11:07Speaker 1: You know, the Choctaw had claimed this land, and then
- 11:09Speaker 1: the Chickasaw had to come out there and deal with them.
- 11:11Speaker 1: Well I think I think no, I think they they
- 11:14Speaker 1: had been given actual territory by the federal government, but
- 11:19Speaker 1: they they it didn't pan out. They hadn't actually gotten
- 11:23Speaker 1: that land, right, I mean, it wasn't, like you said,
- 11:25Speaker 1: the War Department just sort of wash their hands of it.
- 11:27Speaker 1: All right. So then you also have the Seminole as well, Right,
- 11:31Speaker 1: the Seminal took a different tax. They they were definitely
- 11:35Speaker 1: the ones that were the biggest thorn in the side
- 11:38Speaker 1: of the Indian removal process. Yeah. Sure, So you remember
- 11:41Speaker 1: back in I think eighteen seventeen, eighteen eighteen, Andrew Jackson
- 11:45Speaker 1: fought the First Seminole War. He did not win the
- 11:47Speaker 1: first Seminole War. The Seminoles were still there, and although
- 11:52Speaker 1: he did get a lot of land from the Spanish
- 11:54Speaker 1: in Florida, the Seminoles ultimately came out on top. The
- 11:57Speaker 1: Second Seminole War took play when the UM when the Seminoles,
- 12:02Speaker 1: a very small faction that were prepared to leave, went
- 12:07Speaker 1: against the wishes of the tribe in general, and negotiated
- 12:10Speaker 1: secretly with the federal government to see the land and
- 12:14Speaker 1: the seminal. The rest of the Seminole tried said no,
- 12:17Speaker 1: they didn't represent us, we're not leaving in. The federal
- 12:20Speaker 1: government said, oh yeah, well we're gonna come down and invade.
- 12:23Speaker 1: And the Second Seminole War UM went from eighteen thirty
- 12:27Speaker 1: five to eighteen forty two. Yeah, man, seven years, that's tough. Yeah.
- 12:31Speaker 1: Thousands and thousands of people died. It was a war,
- 12:34Speaker 1: straight up war between the Seminoles and the federal government.
- 12:37Speaker 1: And again the Seminoles won. Yeah. You said here that
- 12:41Speaker 1: the UM in today's dollars, the government spent about two
- 12:45Speaker 1: billion dollars fighting the war. About a billion billion dollars. Okay, yeah,
- 12:51Speaker 1: sorry about that. Um So, that's number two. The Third
- 12:54Speaker 1: Seminal War was from eighteen fifty five to eighteen fifty eight,
- 12:58Speaker 1: and that was the last attempt of the US to
- 13:01Speaker 1: say please get out of here all, not please, but
- 13:05Speaker 1: get the heck out of here. And that failed. And
- 13:08Speaker 1: so eventually the Seminole got paid pretty good money the
- 13:12Speaker 1: holdouts there for their land. So you know, I mean,
- 13:16Speaker 1: if there's a success story and all of this the Seminoles,
- 13:21Speaker 1: but yeah, it it also resulted in the deaths of
- 13:24Speaker 1: a lot of people. Yeah. Uh So this next part
- 13:28Speaker 1: is sort of sets up to play out over kind
- 13:32Speaker 1: of the remaining years of the Trail of Tears. And
- 13:34Speaker 1: there are important names in here that, um you should
- 13:37Speaker 1: take note of, So get out your pad and pen exactly,
- 13:41Speaker 1: don't literally take a note, especially if you're driving. Um So,
- 13:46Speaker 1: the Cherokee they they sort of did a similar thing
- 13:48Speaker 1: that the Seminoles did, when a small group of people
- 13:52Speaker 1: make this treaty that the rest of the tribe doesn't
- 13:55Speaker 1: necessarily agree with. And this time it was called the
- 13:58Speaker 1: Treaty of New Ecatoa. I thought it was Atkatoa at
- 14:02Speaker 1: first two but then I stopped and realized, I think
- 14:05Speaker 1: it's etoa Eta. I think, so all right, we'll go
- 14:08Speaker 1: with Echtowa. I like that better anyway. Uh So, they
- 14:11Speaker 1: were about twenty Cherokee leaders that um and the names
- 14:16Speaker 1: they were headed at this point at Chief John Ridge,
- 14:20Speaker 1: his brother Major Ridge. Uh stand, how do you pronounced
- 14:24Speaker 1: that last name? I think W A t I E.
- 14:28Speaker 1: And alias Buddha no um. And again a lot of
- 14:32Speaker 1: these names are very Anglo because they had assimilated at
- 14:35Speaker 1: this point, and Glow or French. Well, yeah, some of
- 14:38Speaker 1: them were Budinos. I think definitely French. Um. So they
- 14:44Speaker 1: were about twenty of them and all though, and those
- 14:46Speaker 1: were the most notable, and they became known as the
- 14:49Speaker 1: Treaty Party. They were the ones that met with federal
- 14:50Speaker 1: agents negotiated this treaty where they would give up this
- 14:53Speaker 1: land in exchange for you know, kind of the same
- 14:56Speaker 1: old story, the cycle that happens again and again and again.
- 14:59Speaker 1: So imagine if you were a Cherokee and you were like,
- 15:02Speaker 1: we're not leaving, We're staying. We're gonna fight this in
- 15:04Speaker 1: the courts. We're gonna, you know, take our guns to
- 15:07Speaker 1: him if we have to. We're not leaving our land.
- 15:10Speaker 1: And you find out that twenty twenty Cherokee leaders went
- 15:14Speaker 1: secretly behind the back of the rest of the Cherokee Nation,
- 15:17Speaker 1: the other eighteen thousand members of the did the Eastern
- 15:21Speaker 1: Tribe and secretly negotiated away that land that you had
- 15:25Speaker 1: just vowed to protect and never leave. There's a lot
- 15:28Speaker 1: of anger, yes. So the ones that decided that they
- 15:32Speaker 1: were going to stay were led by Chief John Ross.
- 15:36Speaker 1: He was a very powerful chief um in the East
- 15:40Speaker 1: for decades. He had been negotiating to that point fairly
- 15:45Speaker 1: successfully with the federal government, saying, okay, if you're going
- 15:50Speaker 1: to if you're gonna take this land, we're gonna sell
- 15:52Speaker 1: it to you, and you're gonna pay through the nose
- 15:54Speaker 1: for it. Even though they still gave him a pretty
- 15:58Speaker 1: fair price, like four dollars and something per acre when
- 16:01Speaker 1: the going rate was about fifteen. But this was this
- 16:05Speaker 1: was much more money twenty million dollars I think in
- 16:08Speaker 1: in eighteen thirties dollars than um then the government was
- 16:14Speaker 1: prepared to spend, which was zero. It was no, you
- 16:18Speaker 1: give us the land and you you can move out
- 16:20Speaker 1: west instead. So they were negotiating a treaty or John
- 16:24Speaker 1: John Ross was with the blessing of the Cherokee Council
- 16:28Speaker 1: and the Cherokee people as a whole. And one of
- 16:31Speaker 1: the other um parts of that that negotiation was that anyone,
- 16:36Speaker 1: any Cherokee would be recognized as a full U. S. Citizen. Yeah,
- 16:41Speaker 1: it sounds like he had like a couple of different
- 16:43Speaker 1: versions of the offer. One as you can have all
- 16:45Speaker 1: this land for twenty million bucks, or you can have
- 16:49Speaker 1: some of it for four million bucks, let us keep
- 16:51Speaker 1: some and whoever wants to stay can become full citizens
- 16:55Speaker 1: with all the rights afforded to a full citizen. So
- 16:57Speaker 1: he was actually in the middle making what was, you know,
- 17:02Speaker 1: not a bad deal for his people, know, and again
- 17:04Speaker 1: and he had the full the blessing of the Cherokee
- 17:06Speaker 1: Council to do this. Yeah, And did he not know
- 17:09Speaker 1: at all that the Treaty Party was doing this from
- 17:12Speaker 1: what I understand, No, it was a secret, secret negotiation
- 17:15Speaker 1: and they were happening concurrently. So the the John Ross
- 17:20Speaker 1: faction was negotiating for about four bucks an acre, the
- 17:23Speaker 1: the Treaty Party negotiated for about a dollar five and acre,
- 17:27Speaker 1: or about five percent of the value of the land.
- 17:30Speaker 1: And they the government said we'll go with you. Guys.
- 17:34Speaker 1: They signed the treaty. Uh. The Cherokee when they found
- 17:38Speaker 1: out about it, um, basically signed a petition saying that's
- 17:43Speaker 1: an illegal treaty. We don't we don't condone that. They
- 17:46Speaker 1: got something like seventeen thousand signatures. They're only eighteen thousand
- 17:50Speaker 1: Cherokees in the East. And the Senate still ratified it. Yeah,
- 17:55Speaker 1: they said, that's just very Let's see all those names,
- 17:58Speaker 1: it's very impressive. Uh, let me rip that into shoot
- 18:00Speaker 1: two pieces, and we're gonna ratify this. Uh, and it
- 18:04Speaker 1: becomes a federal statute. And um, this kind of is
- 18:08Speaker 1: what really set everything in motion for the final removal
- 18:11Speaker 1: of the Cherokee. Yeah, you Cherokee now have three years
- 18:14Speaker 1: to vacate your land. And uh, if you don't, well
- 18:19Speaker 1: let's just say you should vacate your land within three years.
- 18:21Speaker 1: Is what the federal government said. But they still, for
- 18:24Speaker 1: the most part, didn't leave. And we'll take a break
- 18:26Speaker 1: here and we'll talk about that process after this. All right,
- 18:52Speaker 1: So we're back. Um, the treaty had been signed in
- 18:57Speaker 1: against the will of the Cherokee people. They had three
- 19:00Speaker 1: years to get I was gonna say, get out of Dodge,
- 19:02Speaker 1: But man, why do I keep saying that? Get out
- 19:05Speaker 1: of Cherokee? And then I was about to say they
- 19:08Speaker 1: had three years to play ball, but they'd be like,
- 19:10Speaker 1: what does playball mean? Well, it hadn't been invinited yet either,
- 19:15Speaker 1: Get with the chuck. Three years later, only two thousand
- 19:19Speaker 1: of the eighteen thousand had migrated west. And so President
- 19:24Speaker 1: Martin van Buren, who's as we saw earlier, kind of
- 19:28Speaker 1: just continue to carry out Jackson's policies. Yeah. Jackson was
- 19:30Speaker 1: a two term president, and the Van Buren presidency just
- 19:34Speaker 1: made it twelve basically, yeah, twelve years. Yeah. Uh. He said,
- 19:38Speaker 1: all right, well, here's what we're gonna do, because Jackson
- 19:42Speaker 1: is telling me I have to do this. We're gonna
- 19:44Speaker 1: send in federal troops and you hold outs in Georgia
- 19:47Speaker 1: and the Carolina's um. We have a general named Winfield Scott.
- 19:51Speaker 1: He's gonna bring about seven thousand men in there, and
- 19:55Speaker 1: he's going to ask you nicely to leave, and that
- 19:57Speaker 1: he doesn't want bloodshed all while tapping on his side,
- 20:01Speaker 1: are on us hip exactly, which is basically what happened. Yeah,
- 20:04Speaker 1: he had a he had a quote here you want
- 20:05Speaker 1: to read that he read a statement he said, the
- 20:08Speaker 1: blood of the white man or the blood of the
- 20:10Speaker 1: red man, may be spilt, and if spilt, however accidentally,
- 20:14Speaker 1: it may be impossible for the discreet and humane among
- 20:16Speaker 1: you or among us, to prevent a general war and carnage.
- 20:20Speaker 1: Think of this, my Cherokee brethren. I am an old
- 20:23Speaker 1: warrior and have been present at many a scene of slaughter.
- 20:26Speaker 1: But spare me. I beseech you the horror of witnessing
- 20:30Speaker 1: the destruction of the Cherokees. In other words, don't make
- 20:34Speaker 1: me kill all of you. And let's think about what
- 20:37Speaker 1: we will. We have seven thousand men behind me. Yeah,
- 20:41Speaker 1: and think about where this came from. Like this was
- 20:44Speaker 1: we want your land. You have to leave. That's that.
- 20:49Speaker 1: And now it's gotten to the point where we're going
- 20:51Speaker 1: to kill you if you don't leave. And when they
- 20:56Speaker 1: came and forced them to leave finally, uh and eighteen
- 21:01Speaker 1: thirty eight, at gunpoint, they said you have to leave now.
- 21:06Speaker 1: And and it was not gather your stuff and leave,
- 21:09Speaker 1: it was stop what you're doing and leave. Most of
- 21:13Speaker 1: the people um were not able to get their supplies together.
- 21:18Speaker 1: Some were able to grab blankets, A lot of them
- 21:21Speaker 1: were barefoot um and they were herded out of their houses. Yeah,
- 21:25Speaker 1: you said there was one case where there were these uh,
- 21:28Speaker 1: there was a small child who had died. Uh at
- 21:30Speaker 1: the night that they were preparing for burial, and they
- 21:34Speaker 1: turn guns on them and said no, no no, no, you
- 21:36Speaker 1: can't even do that. Get out, And they had to
- 21:38Speaker 1: leave this body of a child behind by itself. Plus
- 21:43Speaker 1: they also had to suffer the um in dignity of
- 21:46Speaker 1: watching white settlers loot their houses as they were being
- 21:49Speaker 1: marched away. Oh yeah, the people that have been encroaching
- 21:52Speaker 1: all these years had free reign at this point. It
- 21:54Speaker 1: was open season. So the the the federal government had
- 21:57Speaker 1: built thirty one posts around the Caroline and is in Georgia,
- 22:00Speaker 1: which were basically like temporary holding stations before the forced
- 22:04Speaker 1: migration began. And like a third of the people who
- 22:08Speaker 1: died during this um removal process among the Cherokee died
- 22:13Speaker 1: in these posts. They died of exposure, they died of hunger.
- 22:17Speaker 1: There's like disease ripping through these things. It was just
- 22:20Speaker 1: a terrible situation even just to start. Yeah, and you know,
- 22:25Speaker 1: as far as what's going on today, regardless of how
- 22:27Speaker 1: you feel about deportation, just look into deportation facilities. Are
- 22:33Speaker 1: they pretty bad? I mean it wasn't you know, people
- 22:38Speaker 1: weren't dying of aren't dying of cholera. But just go
- 22:42Speaker 1: look it up. Make your own judgment. I'll say that, Okay,
- 22:45Speaker 1: I don't want to get too political here. Um, all right,
- 22:48Speaker 1: So there are a couple of routes here that the
- 22:50Speaker 1: Cherokee took to get to Oklahoma. Basically, you could go
- 22:54Speaker 1: on a boat or you can walk. Right, Maybe if
- 22:58Speaker 1: you're old and frail, you might be in a wagon,
- 23:02Speaker 1: but basically you're gonna walk. Yeah. The draft animals were
- 23:05Speaker 1: for carrying supplies. The wagons were just for the elderly
- 23:09Speaker 1: and maybe like little little little kids. Um, but yeah,
- 23:13Speaker 1: you're gonna have to walk in Again. A lot of
- 23:15Speaker 1: these people were removed from their homes with and not
- 23:17Speaker 1: giving even enough time to get their shoes. So they
- 23:20Speaker 1: were walking barefoot twelve miles. Yeah, and I think about
- 23:24Speaker 1: fifteen thousand by foot in about three thousand. We're fortunate enough,
- 23:28Speaker 1: I guess you could say, to go by steamship. Yeah.
- 23:31Speaker 1: And we should say also that the experience of this
- 23:34Speaker 1: is not it's not the same for everybody. Right, there
- 23:37Speaker 1: were plenty of very wealthy Cherokees who who arranged for
- 23:41Speaker 1: their own passage west, including one guy, rich Joe Van.
- 23:47Speaker 1: He was I don't know where he made his money,
- 23:49Speaker 1: but he was a wealthy Cherokee who um traveled privately
- 23:54Speaker 1: on his own steamship. Yeah. I mean, if he owned
- 23:57Speaker 1: a steamship, he's doing pretty well. Sure. Uh. And again
- 24:00Speaker 1: you point out in the article this is it's just
- 24:03Speaker 1: another reminder of how uncultured some of these Native Americans
- 24:06Speaker 1: have become at this point. And they were still like, now, man,
- 24:10Speaker 1: you're ostensibly living like a wealthy white person, but you're
- 24:15Speaker 1: still Indians. To get out right them again, the overlooked
- 24:21Speaker 1: group in this too seems to be the African American slaves. Um. Again,
- 24:27Speaker 1: some Cherokee's owned slaves, and the slaves were made to
- 24:31Speaker 1: to go on the Trail of Tears with them as well. Yeah,
- 24:34Speaker 1: or forced to. Um, you know. The ones who didn't
- 24:37Speaker 1: have to go west were forced to relocate from all
- 24:39Speaker 1: over the colonies, largely down south to support the cotton industry.
- 24:44Speaker 1: That was a big deal. Um. So this land that
- 24:47Speaker 1: opened up immediately became like cotton land, and it created
- 24:53Speaker 1: the biggest agricultural economy in the world. The American South
- 24:57Speaker 1: had the biggest, largest, most robust agricultural economy in the
- 25:01Speaker 1: entire world during this period as a result of this
- 25:04Speaker 1: land opening up. But part of that required this slave
- 25:07Speaker 1: labor and so um, the slave trade increased dramatically during
- 25:13Speaker 1: this period as well. So the the forced removal of
- 25:17Speaker 1: Native Americans led to a forced diaspora of African Americans
- 25:22Speaker 1: into that land that had just been vacated where they
- 25:25Speaker 1: were forced to work, which is, Yeah, it's an overlooked
- 25:28Speaker 1: part of history for sure. I mean, we all understand,
- 25:32Speaker 1: we know about slavery, and we know that it happened,
- 25:35Speaker 1: and that was in the South or whatever. But this
- 25:37Speaker 1: this period was where it just steps up exponentially as
- 25:42Speaker 1: a direct result of the forced removal. Yeah, I mean,
- 25:46Speaker 1: like hundreds of thousands of acres of land all of
- 25:49Speaker 1: a sudden that needed tending to um, millions of acres,
- 25:53Speaker 1: millions of millions of acres, Yeah, which is a lot
- 25:56Speaker 1: of hundreds of thousands. Be like does of acres about
- 26:02Speaker 1: forty million dozen? Uh So back to the the westward
- 26:08Speaker 1: trail of tears Um. This first migration was in the
- 26:13Speaker 1: summer of eight and I don't know if anyone out
- 26:17Speaker 1: there has ever walked from Georgia to Oklahoma at all.
- 26:22Speaker 1: I wonder if that's like a thing hike the Trail
- 26:26Speaker 1: of tears. Uh jeez, I don't know. I bet somebody does,
- 26:30Speaker 1: probably like in an awareness campaign or something. I could
- 26:34Speaker 1: see that. Um, so that it was in the summer heat.
- 26:37Speaker 1: It's it's not forgiving in any way. UM. A lot
- 26:42Speaker 1: of people died on that first wave. And I don't
- 26:44Speaker 1: think we mentioned that. Chief John Ross, he was the
- 26:47Speaker 1: last of the Cherokee of his group to to leave,
- 26:51Speaker 1: to pick up and leave. Yeah, the federal government was
- 26:55Speaker 1: doing such a disastrously bad job of overseeing this migration
- 27:00Speaker 1: that John Ross went to General Scott and said, please,
- 27:04Speaker 1: if we're going to migrate, let me oversee the remaining
- 27:08Speaker 1: migrations because you guys are botching this. And Scott actually said, okay, fine,
- 27:14Speaker 1: you can oversee the migrations. Despite Andrew Jackson angrily writing like, no,
- 27:20Speaker 1: there's a terrible idea, Do not do that. You can't
- 27:22Speaker 1: let the Indians oversee their own forced migration, you dummy,
- 27:26Speaker 1: Scott still did it. He stood up to the political pressure. Um.
- 27:30Speaker 1: And so the Trail of Tears historically, what you think
- 27:33Speaker 1: of the official trail of tears started at the Rattlesnake
- 27:38Speaker 1: in Rattlesnake Springs, Tennessee, which is where he said, Is
- 27:42Speaker 1: that middle Tennessee. I think it's middle like around Memphis.
- 27:45Speaker 1: Maybe is in Memphis in the center, Memphis, West Nashville.
- 27:49Speaker 1: Then I think it's around Nashville. Okay, Tennessee is uh
- 27:52Speaker 1: you know, my family's from Tennessee and your chop taw
- 27:57Speaker 1: Well Mississippi, uh, before Tennessee, but mainly from West Tennessee,
- 28:03Speaker 1: which has got probably more in common with Arkansas than
- 28:08Speaker 1: like Nashville. You're like, maybe you've heard of my cousin.
- 28:12Speaker 1: He was falsely accused of killing some boys back in
- 28:14Speaker 1: the eighties. Oh, the Memphis Three. No, not a cousin,
- 28:18Speaker 1: but they were in Arkansas, West Memphis, Arkansas. It's confusing. Um,
- 28:24Speaker 1: it's not that confused. Well, I mean West Memphis, Arkansas.
- 28:28Speaker 1: You hear Memphis, you generally think of Tennessee. That's the
- 28:30Speaker 1: east Memphis. We should do a show in Elvis, are we? Well,
- 28:37Speaker 1: we do one on grace Land. Yeah. And I think
- 28:39Speaker 1: that's when I pointed out to that God Bless my
- 28:42Speaker 1: dear departed grandmother, but she was of that camp like, oh, Elvis,
- 28:46Speaker 1: he's poor thing. He just his doctors killed him. And
- 28:49Speaker 1: I was like grandmother. He was a big fat junkie,
- 28:52Speaker 1: died on the toilet. Made some great music though. Um.
- 28:57Speaker 1: All right, So Elvis Aside Rattlesnake Springs, Tennessee is where
- 29:00Speaker 1: the Trail of Tears, officially the route kind of began. Um.
- 29:04Speaker 1: And it went through And this is something that I
- 29:07Speaker 1: never considered it went or you know it. Let's take
- 29:09Speaker 1: a break. That's a good little teaser there, and we'll
- 29:12Speaker 1: talk about, um, the impact it had on these towns
- 29:16Speaker 1: that it went through. All right. I teased that I
- 29:41Speaker 1: had never realized this. But um, the old story you
- 29:45Speaker 1: heard about white people lining up in their towns to
- 29:48Speaker 1: watch the Native Americans passed through and shed a tear
- 29:51Speaker 1: for them, which is bunk. Or maybe one person did,
- 29:54Speaker 1: probably yeah, Um, but it had a big like you
- 29:59Speaker 1: can't move eighteen thousand people, and that was just the
- 30:02Speaker 1: Cherokee without um. You know, there's a big economic boon
- 30:07Speaker 1: that can happen when you go through a town of
- 30:09Speaker 1: that many with that many people. And they went through many, many,
- 30:12Speaker 1: many towns. The government spent two and a half two
- 30:16Speaker 1: point one five billion dollars in two thousand fifteen money, um,
- 30:21Speaker 1: moving the Cherokee and all of that was for things
- 30:24Speaker 1: like supplies and stuff like that. So the entire um,
- 30:29Speaker 1: I think Arkansas, I think it was Arkansas. Their entire
- 30:34Speaker 1: agricultural economy shifted from the cotton boom that was going
- 30:37Speaker 1: on in the rest of the South to growing corn
- 30:40Speaker 1: strictly to supply the federal government for this migration. Yeah.
- 30:46Speaker 1: The Trail of Tears itself had its own economy, right,
- 30:49Speaker 1: it's own moving portable economy. Yeah. A lot of cottage
- 30:53Speaker 1: industries grew up where um, you know, peep townspeople would
- 30:58Speaker 1: get into like porting, ferrying, helping carry supplies, or moving
- 31:03Speaker 1: people across bodies of water. Um. Some were exploitive, not surprisingly,
- 31:08Speaker 1: Like there were people who said, well, this is my land,
- 31:11Speaker 1: and I'm going to charge each of you a fee
- 31:12Speaker 1: for crossing over it, and then an exit fee when
- 31:15Speaker 1: you get to the other side kind of stuff, you know. Yeah,
- 31:18Speaker 1: and some of the town's would, I guess, despite the
- 31:21Speaker 1: fact that it would could have been a bit of
- 31:24Speaker 1: a temporary economic boom, refused to even let it happen,
- 31:29Speaker 1: Like you can't have passage through my town, even though
- 31:31Speaker 1: it's easier on you. You got to go around this
- 31:35Speaker 1: entire town. Yea cape gerro Doe. UM did that in Missouri.
- 31:38Speaker 1: They said, it's way easier to cross the Mississippi through town,
- 31:43Speaker 1: but there's another crossing two miles up and it's treacherous,
- 31:46Speaker 1: but you've got to take that one. So some of
- 31:49Speaker 1: this was documented by UM white soldiers who were overseeing.
- 31:53Speaker 1: I guess from the War Department. Um, should we read
- 31:56Speaker 1: a couple of these accounts? Well, yeah, I think we should.
- 31:59Speaker 1: This one in particulars from John G. Burnett, who in
- 32:02Speaker 1: eighteen ninety, as he was an old man dying, he
- 32:06Speaker 1: was interviewed by a newspaper for his experiences because he
- 32:10Speaker 1: had been a soldier along the trailer tears with the Cherokee.
- 32:13Speaker 1: All right, I'll read one of these, Um. I saw
- 32:15Speaker 1: the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes and
- 32:18Speaker 1: driven at the bayonet point into the stockades, and in
- 32:22Speaker 1: the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning,
- 32:25Speaker 1: I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep in the
- 32:27Speaker 1: six hundred and forty five wagons and started toward the west.
- 32:31Speaker 1: One can never forget the sadness and solemnity of that morning.
- 32:35Speaker 1: Chief John Ross led him prayer, and when the bugle
- 32:38Speaker 1: sounded in the wagons started rolling. Many of the children
- 32:41Speaker 1: rose to their feet and waved their little hands goodbye
- 32:44Speaker 1: to their mountain homes, knowing they were leaving them forever.
- 32:47Speaker 1: Many of these helpless people did not have blankets, and
- 32:50Speaker 1: many of them have been driven from their home barefooted.
- 32:53Speaker 1: On the morning of November seventeenth, we've encountered a terrific
- 32:56Speaker 1: sleet and snowstorm with freezing temperatures. And from that day
- 33:00Speaker 1: until we reached the end of the Fateful journey on
- 33:02Speaker 1: March eighteen thirty nine, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful.
- 33:06Speaker 1: The trail of the exiles was a trail of death.
- 33:08Speaker 1: They had to sleep in the wagons and on the
- 33:10Speaker 1: ground without fire, and I have known as many as
- 33:12Speaker 1: twenty two of them to die in one night of
- 33:14Speaker 1: pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold and exposure. Among this
- 33:18Speaker 1: number was the beautiful Christian wife of Chief John Ross.
- 33:22Speaker 1: This noble hearted woman died of martyr to childhood, giving
- 33:25Speaker 1: her only blanket for the protection of a sick child.
- 33:28Speaker 1: She rode thinly clad the blinding sleet and snowstorm, developed pneumonia,
- 33:33Speaker 1: and died in the still hours of a blique winter
- 33:35Speaker 1: night with her head resting on Lieutenant Gregg's saddle blanket.
- 33:40Speaker 1: So clearly some of the soldiers were kind of haunted
- 33:44Speaker 1: with the task that they were given. Yeah, because this guy,
- 33:47Speaker 1: John Brunette, was on the trail in eighteen thirty eight,
- 33:49Speaker 1: this is eighteen ninety. He's still giving this impassioned like
- 33:51Speaker 1: account of it, you know. Man, Um, there was another
- 33:55Speaker 1: witness who's who estimated that the Cherokee buried fourteen or
- 33:59Speaker 1: fifteen of a people at every stopping place. And this
- 34:03Speaker 1: was along this mile trail, which they did about ten
- 34:07Speaker 1: miles a day by foot. And as a result, about
- 34:10Speaker 1: four thousand of the seven thousand, seventeen thousand Cherokee who
- 34:15Speaker 1: uh moved during this migration died along the way. Yeah.
- 34:20Speaker 1: And again, um, just like the cycle all Uh. When
- 34:25Speaker 1: they got there, they were not met with open arms.
- 34:28Speaker 1: Remember the old settlers that we talked about from the
- 34:31Speaker 1: very beginning, the very first ones to go out west. Uh,
- 34:35Speaker 1: they did not take kindly to their arrival. No, because
- 34:37Speaker 1: remember they formed basically a different tribe of Cherokee out there. Yeah,
- 34:41Speaker 1: like they were their own tribe that you know, I said,
- 34:45Speaker 1: you know what, all bets are off is our land.
- 34:47Speaker 1: So when they showed up, the Eastern Cherokees were like, yeah,
- 34:50Speaker 1: but there's a lot more of us than there are
- 34:53Speaker 1: of you guys. So we're we're in charge now. Yeah.
- 34:57Speaker 1: And I think one of the more interesting things, you know,
- 35:00Speaker 1: we mentioned when I said to take note with that
- 35:03Speaker 1: new Achitoah Treaty with those twenty um, what was it
- 35:07Speaker 1: twenty or so twenty leaders leaders that that signed this
- 35:10Speaker 1: treaty against the will of John Ross. Those I mean
- 35:14Speaker 1: that stuff was like in stone. Now, this faction that
- 35:18Speaker 1: was created with that carried through for decades and decades
- 35:23Speaker 1: and and and that same line carried over yeah out
- 35:27Speaker 1: west as well. Right, So allegiances formed between the treaty
- 35:31Speaker 1: party supporters and the John Ross supporters, and ultimately John
- 35:36Speaker 1: Ross was able to consolidate power out there, and he
- 35:38Speaker 1: became the chief of all of the Cherokees now that
- 35:43Speaker 1: they were all out west, the the combined tribe. Yeah.
- 35:47Speaker 1: And once once he consolidated power, he gave it a
- 35:50Speaker 1: day or two and then he said, okay, it's time
- 35:52Speaker 1: to have the treaty party members killed. Yeah. He he
- 35:55Speaker 1: had vengeance on his mind for sure, So he dispatched. Uh.
- 35:59Speaker 1: And one night on June nine, he dispatched some assassins. Um.
- 36:05Speaker 1: They went and found the principal signers. We mentioned Major Ridge,
- 36:09Speaker 1: his brother John Ridge, and Elias Budino. They all died
- 36:13Speaker 1: that night, but stand Watti interestingly escaped. And I don't
- 36:19Speaker 1: think we said you know, we said it. Um. That
- 36:21Speaker 1: faction and that divide between the nation was going on
- 36:25Speaker 1: for decades. It lasted into the Civil War, and the
- 36:28Speaker 1: new Etchetowa supporters supported the South, the others opposed to
- 36:32Speaker 1: the North. So the divide between the Union and the
- 36:35Speaker 1: Confederacy also fell along that new etchetoa Treaty party and
- 36:40Speaker 1: John Ross supporters line still and they fought each other
- 36:45Speaker 1: as Confederate and Union soldiers. Yeah. And actually stand Watty
- 36:50Speaker 1: became a general in the Confederacy. Yes, he survived the
- 36:53Speaker 1: assassination attempt. Uh. He got out because he was warned
- 36:57Speaker 1: by the Reverend Samuel H. Worcester maybe Worcestershire. Uh. And
- 37:04Speaker 1: he was I think we mentioned him earlier. He was
- 37:06Speaker 1: a missionary who originally filed that suit against Georgia on
- 37:09Speaker 1: behalf of the Cherokee that went to the Supreme Court,
- 37:12Speaker 1: and um he was he warned Watty. Watty got out,
- 37:16Speaker 1: went on to fight in the Civil War, and he
- 37:18Speaker 1: was the last general to surrender in the Confederacy, the
- 37:22Speaker 1: last one, not the last Cherokee general, the last general
- 37:26Speaker 1: of the Confederacy to surrender. So he very interesting story there.
- 37:31Speaker 1: So overall, Chuck, between eighteen thirty and eighteen fifty, I
- 37:34Speaker 1: said it was a decade earlier. I think the eighteen
- 37:37Speaker 1: thirties were the worst of it. But between those those
- 37:40Speaker 1: twenty years, the US government moved more than one hundred
- 37:44Speaker 1: thousand Native Americans east of the Mississippi to the west
- 37:48Speaker 1: of the Mississippi. And not just the five civilized tribes,
- 37:51Speaker 1: not just the southeastern or Eastern churches, northern tribes, like
- 37:55Speaker 1: basically everyone who was living east of the Mississippi between
- 38:00Speaker 1: Canada in the Gulf of Mexico was pushed away across
- 38:05Speaker 1: the Mississippi. And it was the first big massive movement
- 38:09Speaker 1: of of Native Americans to what would be basically a
- 38:13Speaker 1: sweeping motion by the by America, by the federal government
- 38:18Speaker 1: from one edge of the coast to the other, trying
- 38:20Speaker 1: to sweep the continent clean of Native Americans. And at
- 38:24Speaker 1: first it was here, you go to this other area
- 38:26Speaker 1: where Native Americans are, and you can deal with it.
- 38:28Speaker 1: And then eventually they started running more out of land
- 38:31Speaker 1: more and more, and extermination became more of a policy
- 38:36Speaker 1: than than removal. Yeah, because remember we had said that
- 38:40Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson said, well, the Mississippi River is clearly going
- 38:43Speaker 1: to be our western border. Um. They went on to
- 38:46Speaker 1: later say, remember when we said that, we would kind
- 38:50Speaker 1: of like all the land and we're gonna take it.
- 38:54Speaker 1: And in response, finally it was two thousand nine, I
- 38:58Speaker 1: think before any official oology was proffered for um the
- 39:04Speaker 1: Trail of Tears, and it wasn't just the Trail of tears.
- 39:07Speaker 1: It covered everything, anything that had ever been done to
- 39:10Speaker 1: Native Americans by the federal government was summed up with
- 39:13Speaker 1: an apology for quote the many instances of violence, maltreatment,
- 39:18Speaker 1: and neglect inflicted on Native people's by citizens of the
- 39:21Speaker 1: United States. Back to business. Yeah, and that was drafted
- 39:27Speaker 1: UM a few years part of that by Kansas Senator
- 39:29Speaker 1: Sam brown Back and UM signed into law by President
- 39:34Speaker 1: Barack Obama and then I guess another. The closest thing
- 39:40Speaker 1: to an apology that Georgia ever gave was back in
- 39:44Speaker 1: nineteen six Uh, Georgia adopted the Cherokee rose as the
- 39:49Speaker 1: official state flower, and according to Cherokee legend, the flower
- 39:53Speaker 1: grew from the tears of the mothers who cried for
- 39:56Speaker 1: their children along the way, and the flowers still grows
- 39:59Speaker 1: along that official trail of tears today, all the way
- 40:02Speaker 1: into eastern Oklahoma. Yeah, and that trail is protected um
- 40:08Speaker 1: federally for now at least. So that's trailer tears man,
- 40:13Speaker 1: tough one, tough too. Yes. Uh. If you want to
- 40:18Speaker 1: know more about the trailer tears, just type those words
- 40:20Speaker 1: into your favorite search engine and start learning. And since
- 40:24Speaker 1: I said start learning, it's time for listener mail. Uh.
- 40:28Speaker 1: This is a correction about the Holy Roman Empire. Hey, guys,
- 40:32Speaker 1: I know you'd like to get things right even after
- 40:34Speaker 1: the facts, so I thought i'd help you out a bit.
- 40:36Speaker 1: Listening to the Death Tax episode picked up on something
- 40:39Speaker 1: you said in this and at least one of the
- 40:41Speaker 1: recent episode when you mentioned the Holy Roman Empire. It's
- 40:44Speaker 1: pretty clearly referring to Rome during the early part of
- 40:46Speaker 1: the first millennium. Ce, but it's actually an incorrect moniker
- 40:50Speaker 1: for that state. The Holy Roman Empire is it's referred
- 40:53Speaker 1: to in history, was a collection of Central European traditionally
- 40:57Speaker 1: Germanic U states UH, briefly some of Italy early on,
- 41:02Speaker 1: under a loose rule by the Holy Roman Emperor, not
- 41:04Speaker 1: the Pope who was the ruling papals who was ruling
- 41:07Speaker 1: the papal states when the Holy Roman Empire was in
- 41:10Speaker 1: its early existence. Origins of the Holy Roman Empire began
- 41:13Speaker 1: in the ninth ninth century, followed by the division of
- 41:17Speaker 1: Charlemagne's Frankish kingdom into the three partitions given to each
- 41:22Speaker 1: of his three sons, the easternmost, eventually becoming the Holy
- 41:25Speaker 1: Roman Empire UH. Without getting into too much specific history,
- 41:31Speaker 1: I'll tell you that it's roughly one thousand year run
- 41:34Speaker 1: is filled with fascinating events and political structure unique in
- 41:37Speaker 1: world history. Catholic Reformation and the Thirty Years War impacted
- 41:41Speaker 1: and influenced heavily the political structure of the Holy Roman
- 41:44Speaker 1: Empire and his member states for one, and Chris ort Loff, buddy,
- 41:50Speaker 1: you are a student of history. Clearly very well done,
- 41:55Speaker 1: and thank you for that nice name dropping of Charlemagne
- 41:58Speaker 1: to Chris if you want to school it's like Chris,
- 42:01Speaker 1: did we love that kind of thing, especially if it's
- 42:03Speaker 1: nice and pleasant. Uh. You can tweet to us. I'm
- 42:07Speaker 1: at josh um Clark and at s Y s K podcast,
- 42:10Speaker 1: Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook and its
- 42:14Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know on Facebook right. You can send
- 42:17Speaker 1: us both an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff
- 42:20Speaker 1: Works dot com and as always, joined us at our
- 42:22Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
- 42:29Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
- 42:32Speaker 1: it how stuff Works dot com