A Tribute to the Trails of Tears Tee "Rifles & Bibles"

Spending a long day with Cherokee Natives during the Pow Wow Weekend in TN, Red Mountains,  I became inspired to design a Tee specifically for what happened in that time to them people that slipping from what it seems further and further into history.

Although, Natives have a "reserved" place for their own little existence, National Park's and historical state sites shouldn't be the one addressing Native tales because often what you hear is the one sided version of "history" rather than.

Listening and eventually soaking in the feeling of "disturbance" that I could even hear from Elder Natives who just sat their silent, unspoken.

I felt obligated: Rifles and Bibles. For the weapons used and for the mission of why they came to "explore" and settle on lands already settled in.

This Tee pays a tribute to not only the Cherokee Trails of tears but all Indigenous natives in Melanin populated areas worlwide who have been or are currently being displaced for their own people and land wealth.

Here's a few images from my trip... 

John Ross was elected Principal Chief of The Cherokees despite having only 1/8 Cherokee Blood.

 

Hundreds of "Indians" were Christianized and educated.

This is Brainerd Cemetery where nameless missionaries and some nameless natives rest. TN

In 1838, the first detachment of Cherokee captured by the GA Guards were forced to depart Ross Landing, Chattanooga, TN. 

 

"All of the suffering and the difficulties of the Cherokee People were charged in the accounts of Ridge"...

18 hundreds Census

Walini, 1888. A "Normal" Cherokee looked like this before the forced race intermixing with settlers of the old and Indigenous of the New.

Cherokee Farmstead

This is Sequoyah, often depict as a "White" Native although this is in dispute. Many says he was full blood native and others say he was a Half English man named George Gist, son of a Virgina Fur trader. As you can see from the Farmstead images, a Native then wouldn't look like him unless he was of mix races or as in many cases, the portrays usually "whitened". Whatever the case maybe, he came up with the "Indian" syllabary and with missionary Boudinot, the Indian-English newspaper.

Wounded Knee Massacre with settler guard

Native Land sold to new settlers...

Paying respect and taking it all in...