The Long Bitter Trail

1184 Words5 Pages
“The Long, Bitter Trail” By Anthony F.C. Wallace “The Long, Bitter Trail” in my opinion, was a very good book that taught me a lot I didn’t know until I read the book. The book is about how Andrew Wallace’s investigation of one influential decision involving the five civilized tribes of the Native American’s living in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee for years after the construction of the American Republic. Also the efforts Andrew Jackson, who was an Indian fighter and land grabber for a long time, while being president in 1830 signed the act allowing the eviction of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles. Wallace begins the book by describing who the people were who benefited from the diffusion of agricultural practices way before Columbus. He explains how the area east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes there’s a vast temperate land, with extensive forests and meadows that were among separate tribes of Indians. The southern tribes, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, and the Seminoles, all had more urbanized towns. They started making architectural advances, began having big elaborate ceremonies, unlike the northern tribes. We learn that the villages were composed of a number of large communal houses, each being occupied by a bunch of families. Men around these tribes would be in charge of tending the fields, fixing houses, also helped get food by going out and either hunting, fishing or even trapping animals. Woman were in charge of cultivating garden plots, plant, weed, and harvest the “Three Sisters,” which was corn, squash, and beans. They even harvested tobacco which they would smoke on ceremonial days. Just like today woman were still in the kitchen making food for the family, by preserving, preparing, and actually cooking the food. The European population was expanding, and the
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