Don Wildman

They are then faced with the choice to either remain in the region and take U.S.

citizenship or move west.

How is that debate, I imagine, it must be a debate, handled by this nation?

And that whole discussion is being done with a gun to your head.

The march that we're talking about, and I want to remind people, the Trail of Tears, many people misunderstand this, is not just one thing, it's many things.

It's at least five major events within which there are stages.

And the Choctaw, as we've explained, are the first of those major migrations that are forced upon Native nations.

But even within that migration, there are different stages.

So it begins in 1831 and moves to 1833, this time period that we're talking about.

15,000 Choctaw of a total population of roughly 20,000.

So the majority of the Choctaw Nation makes the move.

5,000 stay behind.

Under what circumstances do they stay?

A man named George W. Harkins, who was a district chief of the Choctaws, summarized the views of many of his people in his farewell letter to the American people.

There's a famous excerpt from this, if you wouldn't mind reading it.

And I want to underscore one phrase there.

So it's the autonomy of the nation that is the priority versus staying and assimilating as were Americans' expectations of Native Americans.

accounts we have from the victims of this Trail of Tears are relatively scarce, and this is intentional.

Many of their children did not wish to pass down the stories of these horrors because of the starting anew, trying to guard their children from these stories, right?

Absolutely.