Samuel Cloud Samuel Cloud was a Native American who experienced the Trail of Tears when he was only nine years old. He recalls that there were "white men in uniforms [that rode] up to [their] home". The men took Samuel, his family, his friends, and his neighbors. He remembers feeling fear and frustration as they were "gathered together and told to walk at the points of a bayonet." Then the soldiers stuffed them into a pen like a heard of cattle and kept the, there for months without food or blankets. Because of the conditions, Samuel's father passed away. Soon after, they found out the soldiers had taken over their land and they were going to have to evacuate to the west. As they walked, white settlers came our and watched them as they passed. Although he didn't understand why, he knew that this was happening to him because of them and "[he] wished it were them walking in [that] misery and [he] were watching them". This also resulted in the death of his mother and know Samuel was the only one left in his family; He was alone. Samuel witnessed many people die because "[a]ll [the settlers] ever saw was the color of [their] skin" and they did not accept that. Samuel's story is extremely important because it shows evidence of how violent things were at this time in the eyes of a child. How it greatly effected his life and how he viewed things as he grew. Also, many times in the United States we hear the story in the eyes of the settlers, and it doesn't tell us what terrible thing we put these people through to acquired the land.
John Ross John Ross, who was born in 1790, was the son of a Scotsman and a mother who was 3/4 Scottish and 1/4 Cherokee. He and his family lived in a Cherokee village, and as a child he saw a lot of inhumanity in the village from both other Indian tribes and American settlers. He grew up to be elected the "Principal Cheif of the Cherokee Nation in 1828, a position he would hold until his death in 1866". He fought in many wars with the Cherokees including the War of 1812, the Creek War of 1813-14, and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend as an aid to Americans but even then the settlers never saw them as "true Americans". A few years later, in Georgia during the time of the Indian Removal Act, Ross became the leader of part of the tribe that fought against it. He and others also challenged the ruling of the removal and won, but Georgia did not listen and went ahead with it anyway. They fought back with many letters and treaties that Ross helped to write, yet he and the Cherokee were still forced to evacuate. In a letter, he expressed that the Cherokees were "denationalized; [they were] disfranchised. [They were] deprived of membership in the human family!" He was one of the many Native Americans who walked the Trail of Tears along with his wife that died during the trip along with many others. Some people say there were hundreds that died as a result, while others say there were thousands because "[a]long the 2,200 mile journey, road conditions, illness, cold, and exhaustion" were common. His many experiences during this genocide are important in showing just how terrible the genocide of the Native Americans was and still is and provides a great example of how one can help in a situation like this.