Life story of her grandfather, Washington
Lee, Cherokee Indian
In 1838, my grandfather, Washington Lee, came to the
Territory and stopped at Westville. He was driven from his home in
Georgia over the Trail of Tears with all the other Cherokee Indians
and while on the trail somewhere he lost his father and mother and
sister, and never saw them any more. He did not know whether they
died or got lost.
The Cherokees had to walk; all the old people who were
too weak to walk could ride in the Government wagons that hauled the
food and the blankets which they allowed to have. The food was most
always cornbread or roasted green corn. Some times the men who had
charge of the Indians would kill a buffalo and would let the Indians
cut some of it and roast it.
The food on the Trail of Tears was very bad and very
scarce and the Indians would go for two of three days without water,
which they would get just when they came to a creek or river as there
were no wells to get water from. There were no roads to travel over,
as the country was just a wilderness. The men and women would go
ahead of the wagons and cut the timber out of the way with axes.
This trail started in Georgia and went across Kentucky,
Tennessee and through Missouri into the Territory and ended at
Westville, where old Fort Payne was. Old Fort Wayne was built to
shelter the Indians until some houses could be built.
Aunt Chin Deanawash was my grandmother’s sister and she
came from Georgia on the Trail of Tears. Her husband died shortly
after they got out of Georgia and left her to battle her way through
with three small children, one who could not walk. Aunt Chin tied
the little one on her back with an old shawl, she took one child in
her arms and led the other by the hand; the two larger children died
before they had gone so very far and the little one died and Aunt Chin
took a broken case knife and dug a grave and buried the little body by
the side of the Trail of Tears.
The Indians did not have food of the right kind to eat
and Aunt Chin came on alone and lived for years after this.
