Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Not Just A Number.


If I say the words, ‘Four Thousand’ what would it mean to you?
A figure that went down in history
But four thousand is the number of living souls that died
And those were everyone a Cherokee.

Driven out by white men from their peaceful mountain homes
When the Government had heard that there was gold
And all of that was started by a little Cherokee boy
Who sold a nugget to a trader wanting gold.

The word spread and the Government soon joined with greedy men
To drive the Cherokee from their homes
And day by day and night by night the wagons rolled along
While sick and murdered Indians fell, in droves.

The trail of tears is so well named for the tears were shed by all;
Mothers, Fathers, children as they fell
The long, long trail took several months and scattered Cherokee graves
Left four thousand souls on a foreign hill.

This history has been written by good and faithful men
Read round the world wherever people roam
My heart will well remember the bleeding trailing scar
Of those shallow graves scattered far from home.

So when you hear the words ‘Four thousand’ no matter where you are
Remember that Legislation was the key
That signed the papers, that sent the army, that gathered greedy men
That ended the life of four thousand Cherokee.


Wyn Barratt (Walela)

Jan 2011.

2 comments:

Marja Verschoor-Meijers said...

A political poem Wyn, I didn't know you could do that too. Wonderwoman!

wyn said...

I've written a few things on the Cherokee. I get really hot under the collar about what was done to them. It doesn't seem that long ago I was thrown in the school lake at high school for my far left views ! Fun hey?
I'm somewhere in the middle now. Old age!