Part of our summer vacation intersected several times with the historical landmark known as the Trail of Tears. If you are not familiar with the Trail of Tears, it is a conglomeration of routes American Indians were forced to travel in the 1800s when United States soldiers, organized by Andrew Jackson, forced the Indians off their land and onto reservations in the Mid-West.
I had hoped we could stop at a site of the Trail of Tears and have a brief family discussion about it. Our first crossing was in Arkansas. Then, we encountered art in a museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. The art depicted hundreds of ribbons pinned onto a painting of Andrew Jackson mounted on a horse. The ribbons were to depict the suffering he caused. My daughter commented that even the horse had a sad appearance in the painting. The painting was a rendering of an original painting of Andrew Jackson on horse, in which he and the horse were depicted as stately and bright.
That night, we stayed at a house in Dongola, Illinois, and as it turned out, we were about a half mile off what is now designated as one of the original routes. There is probably little doubt they crossed the land on which we slept that night. About a mile away from the house was a cemetery in which a national historic monument had been placed for the Trail of Tears.
The forced migration brought horrific suffering on the American Indians.
In our family discussion, I reminded the family that events such as these occur when we attempt to categorize people and view certain categories as less than ourselves. Early European settlers in the colonies encountered a people unlike themselves. While early efforts may have been peaceful and cooperative, expansion west presented many problems because the land was already occupied.
The unfortunate result was a designation of the American Indian as less than the early settlers, who were often refined and followed a more skilled way of life. In the art museum, depictions of wealthy settlers illustrated a life of luxury, while paintings of American Indian settlements depicted a people who lived a very rudimentary lifestyle off the land. The settlers wore layers of luxurious clothing, while the American Indians had essentially no clothing. The Victorian homes of the settlers were huge, while American Indians lived in crudely constructed tipis.
While learning from tragedies such as the Trail of Tears should help us prevent repeating it, we are bound to repeat history any time we categorize people and view certain categories as less than or different from ourselves. This, after all, was the fuel for slavery in the 1700s; the Holocaust; the genocide in communist Russia and China; ethnic cleansing around the world; eugenics and abortion; and martyring Christians. Even today, we hear terms such as “deplorables” and critical race theory. All these concepts have common results – mass horror.
Any time we can label a category of people different from or less than ourselves, we have laid the foundation to justify exacting horrors upon them. Categorizing people is based on the idea that certain categories are barbaric. Yet the real barbarism is manifested in those who justify the oppression and extinction of others. It is evidence that the people behind such oppression are devoid of morality, which is the only true barbarism.
In the 21st century, we are not as removed from this barbarism as we might want to think. It is by a moral standard which enables us to view all people as having the right to live in freedom and to express themselves differently from ourselves. It is a moral standard which limits our actions and restrains us from oppressing and murdering people.
When we move away from the moral standard, we are bound to repeat the worst of history. The real tragedy is when we go so far as to justify acts of horror, suffering, and violence on those who are not like us. We should instead be quick to call out ideologies which categorize people and call it for what it is – the absence of morality. Here in the 21st century, we are closer to repeating the Trail of Tears, genocidal communism, and the Holocaust than we may want to think. The need for morality is greater than it ever was. The need for evangelism is greater than it has been in my own lifetime.
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