Author notes

57

jazzy

on Jan. 24, 2012

"It is with considerable diffidence that I attempt to address the
American people, knowing and feeling sensibly my incompetency; and
believing that your highly and well improved minds would not be well
entertained by the address of a Choctaw … We were hedged in by two
evils, and we chose that which we thought the least. Yet we could not
recognize the right that the state of Mississippi had assumed, to
legislate for us. Although the legislature of the state were qualified
to make laws for their own citizens, that did not qualify them to become
law makers to a people that were so dissimilar in manners and customs
as the Choctaws are to the Mississippians. Admitting that they
understood the people, could they remove that mountain of prejudice that
has ever obstructed the streams of justice, and prevent their salutary
influence from reaching my devoted countrymen. We as Choctaws rather
chose to suffer and be free, than live under the degrading influence of
laws, which our voice could not be heard in their formation.
Much as the state of Mississippi has wronged us, I cannot find in my
heart any other sentiment than an ardent wish for her prosperity and
happiness.
I could cheerfully hope, that those of another age and generation
may not feel the effects of those oppressive measures that have been so
illiberally dealt out to us; and that peace and happiness may be their
reward. Amid the gloom and horrors of the present separation, we are
cheered with a hope that ere long we shall reach our destined land, and
that nothing short of the basest acts of treachery will ever be able to
wrest it from us, and that we may live free. Although your ancestors won
freedom on the field of danger and glory, our ancestors owned it as
their birthright, and we have had to purchase it from you as the vilest
slaves buy their freedom."
George W. Harkins 'Farwell Letter to the American People'  1832 (regarding the Trail Of Tears)