The Traveler

Issue date: 10/15/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Maggie Carroll Indigenous Peoples Day was celebrated Friday, Oct. 12. Students and other members of the community walked to the Cherokee Commemorative Plaque to participate in an observation of the alternative to Columbus Day.

Indigenous Peoples Day began at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 12, at the connections lounge in the Union. Attendees learned about the Trail of Tears and the history of American Indians.

Trail of Tears is the name for the journey of the forced removal of the Cherokee people in 1838 from their homelands to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The UA Honors Film Association sponsored this Indigenous Peoples Observance Day as a replacement for Columbus Day, traditionally celebrated on Oct. 8.

"This particular recognition was a challenge to the traditional Columbus day," said Frank Scheide, an associate professor at the department of communications. There should be alternative perspectives related to the Native American people, he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared no foreign government could be physically located within the borders of the United States. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

"It was a theft," Scheide said. Government people wanted to take valuable lands from the Native Americans, so they forced them to leave their lands by treating them as foreign tribes, he said.

The Trail of Tears was named after the idea of remembering the "'trail where they cried' for the Cherokees and other removed tribes," according to Cherokee.org. This journey caused more than four thousand deaths of Cherokee people because of hunger, exposure and disease.

The historical marker of the Trail of Tears is located at the intersection of Sixth Street and Garland Avenue near the UA entrance. As a part of the forced removal act, the marker records the story of the journey of one of the Cherokee peoples who passed through the frontier village of Fayetteville.

"It is a very sad chapter of our history," Scheide said. "I think we need to realize, as people living in this area, that this is part of our history," he said.

The UA Honors Film Association has sponsored the observance day every year. This year's event was also sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology, the Native American Symposium and the Anthropology Club.

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