7.
As you stood on top of that mountain and heard that echo ring, you
took that one last breath and let your spirit soar.
~ R.I.P. ~ Grams, Gramps and Daddy ~ You are finally free ~
Ella Blanche Taylor Thomas Jackson
Riggsbee Riggsbee
May 26, 2002 February 20, 1993
David Jackson Riggsbee
August 21, 2012
8.
Works Cited
Native American Apache Warfare. (2013). Retrieved from Penn State:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/cdf5034/apachewarfare.html
Barnard, J. (2008). When did people first come to North America?
Retrieved from Science on NBC News:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26819601/ns/technology_and_science-
science/t/when-did-people-first-come-north-america/#.UYblC8rheSo
Weiser-Alexander, K. (2013). Native American Legends The
Cherokee Trail of Tears. Retrieved from Legends of America:
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-trailtears.html
References
Editor's Notes
There are many ethnic groups I belong to and these include Native American, Austrian, Slovakian and Irish. Even though, I am equally proud to be a part of them all, I am intrigued by my Native American Heritage. But what is more intriguing is that I am Apache and Cherokee Indian.
It all began many years ago, before the Europeans came to America. North American Indians, who were once referred to as Stone-age people, were the first to discover America. It has been said by experts that the stone-age people were the first Indian ancestors to have arrived in America more than 14,000 years ago. They arrived in Alaska, by passage on the narrow channel of open sea called the Bering Strait that is connected to Siberia and may have come from Asia. As the last Ice Age approached, the American Indians gradually spread throughout the North American Continent (Barnard, 2008).
After the Mexican- American War, American settlers continued to push their way into the Apache lands with uneasy collaboration and penetrated the Chiricahua territory and in search for gold in Pinos Altos. This collaboration happened from 1848 to 1851, by which caused the Chiricahua tribe to be physically hurt. The peaceful existence that the Apache tribes once knew came to an end. The Apache Indians began to retaliate (Native American Apache Warfare, 2013).
The authorization of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by President Andrew Jackson was the beginning of the Trail of Tears and almost the end of the Cherokee Indian. What is now known as Calhoun, Georgia, was once known as the Cherokee Nation which was ruled and founded in 1820. In 1827, a written constitution was drafted to declare the Cherokee Nation to be a sovereign and independent nation and a law that forbade the sale of the Cherokee land, would be punishable by death. This all changed when gold was discovered and thus a beginning of an end. In 1838, a fraudulent document called the Treaty of New Echota was written promising the Cherokee nation $5,700,000 but they were forced from their homes. Although many died during the movement toward the west, 1000 Cherokee managed to escape into the North Carolina Mountains, where the Eastern Band Cherokee, which continues to exist in North Carolina today (Weiser-Alexander, 2013).
My ancestors have endured discrimination and racial slurs for many decades, from being called savages, to redskins (which the term referred to as when the bloody bodies of Indians were gathered and put on a wagon), and the ever misconstrued movies about American Indians.
