Trail of Death Reflections – Personal and Our Great Grandmother’s
By Robert L. Pearl and Sister Virginia Pearl, great grandchildren of Et Equa Ke Sec
From Potawatomi Trail of Death – 1838 Removal from Indiana to Kansas, written and edited by Shirley Willard and Susan Campbell, Fulton County Historical Society, 2003.
We have traveled the Trail of Death from beginning to end, three times in the past 14 years. Each time it has been a deeply spiritual experience. Some outstanding reflections from the 1988, 1993 and 1998 Caravans are as follows:
People all along the way would come up to us and apologize to us who had ancestors on the original Trail of Death. They would ask forgiveness in the name of their own ancestors who were farming the land in 1838 when the Potawatomi walked along their creeks and rivers. Some would apologize for the Indiana and the United States governments that had proposed and executed the removal.
One profound experience was with Marvin Puzey from Fairmount, Illinois. Marvin was in his 80s in 1988. He told us how his grandfather would take him down by the river to show him the tracks of the Indian removal. His grandfather would say, “It was a mile long of Indians and it was wrong. They were so hungry they dipped their hands in the barrels of spoiled molasses outside the molasses plant, even if the rats were in the barrel.” Marvin said, “It was terrible – please forgive our ancestors who done such a terrible thing to your people. I have tried to help the teachers in the schools here, to teach the truth about the mile long of Indians.”
We would have tears of remembrance.
Remembrances of how all of the people would turn out all along the way always put us in awe. Crowds came out in Springfield, Jacksonville, Exeter, and many other places. Each time we have come, the Jacksonville, Illinois, High School band has come out to greet us. It is recorded in the history that in 1838 when the Potawatomi walked through Jacksonville that some very wise band director led his band to play for the tired and suffering Indian families in order to lift their spirits. The band truly lifted our spirits each time we have come.
Memories of classrooms of children who would come to the curbs to meet us and welcome us to their villages with their teachers and school administrators. This all allowed all of us to become more aware of the injustice of the removal. The injustice of driving the Indians west of the Mississippi River so white Europeans could settle in the Potawatomi territory.
We give Shirley Willard and her family credit for their original research and her unflinching efforts to communicate the truth of the atrocities of 1838. This has happened by the way she planned the Trail of Death Commemorative Caravans, during the reenactments of the Trail of Death every five years, and the follow up media awareness. Hats off to Shirley Willard, her husband Bill and their son and her staff. Our hears are forever grateful for your courage and love. Our family has adopted her family into our Band.
Other memories that loom high are our visits to the wee town of Exeter. The City Dads invite the whole county each time we come and roast three hogs to feed us all. It is a highlight of the trip. We are asked to bless the infants. Then five years later when we come, those children are in school and then pre-teenagers ten years later. What a gift these young families are to us.
One day when we were in Sidoris, Illinois, a student, Clint Kolb, came up to us and gave us an arrowhead he had found where the Potawatomi had set up an overnight camp in 1838. He said, “This belongs to your folks. I saved it for you until you came, and the land belongs to you also.” Clint was coming from his high school basketball practice. What wisdom he has for one so young. Thank you, Clint.
Allen Switzer from Covington, Indiana, told of how his great grandmother’s parents let her go down below the hill from their home and play with the Indian children the night they camped on their farm in 1838. No doubt our great grandmother played with his grandmother. What a neat connection!
Through the years as we were growing up, our mother, Florence Doyle Pearl, would often tell us about her Potawatomi grandmother Et equa ke sec, who had been on the “long walk.” That was what Mother called what we know today as the Trail of Death. I think she knew the term Trail of Death but it was too harsh to repeat those words, and too fresh n the hearts of the adults. Mother would speak of the Long Walk, and the “hardships” of the walk from Indiana and their Michigan homes to the Sugar Creek Mission in Kansas, and of the first winter at Sugar Creek. She would tell us about the cliffs. There were cliffs nested under the small hills beside the banks of Sugar Creek. Her family hung der hides onto the overhanging cliffs for shelter. That was the “New Home” until a more stable shelter could be built. She also mentioned how scarce the deer and rabbits were that first winter.
On the bright side, mother would always bring to or awareness that our grandmother had been taught her prayers by a very holy sister whose name was Mother Rose Phillippine Duchesne, while she was at Sugar Creek. When Mother Rose Duchesne was beatified, it was a deep delight for all of us. Yes, a Sister who had taught our great grandmother was on the way to be honored as a Saint in heaven. I can remember Mother’s joy.
The Jesuits and the Religious of the Sacred Heart provided Potawatomi translations for the hymns and prayers used in church services, and taught Potawatomi in their schools. There was a compassionate thrust to how the faith was conveyed. It seemed that Mother’s memory of the suffering were eased through prayer and sacrifices. The offering of the sufferings of the past “long walk” and the hard winters of Sugar Creek led the Potawatomi to the promised land of St. Marys, Kansas, a Potawatomi Reservation in 1848.
As we now remember, Mom did not desire to go to Sugar Creek where the Long Walk had ended and where her grandmother had spent ten years of her early life. Perhaps the suffering of the Trail had been so great and also because death had knocked at the door of her grandparents and several cousins during those Sugar Creek years. Perhaps it was not easy for her to think of taking a trip to such a place. Mother always taught us to live our lives “through Indian eyes,” that is, to protect our mother Earth so she would nourish those for the next seven generations following us.
Going on the Trail of Death Caravan brings forth for us the presence of all who suffered. At each dedication of a marker, the suffering seems to surface and for a brief moment we experience tears of gratitude. Gratitude for the faith and courage of ever Potawatomi, those who died on the Trail, and those who survived.
We are especially grateful for the beautiful Indian maiden, Et equa ke sec, our great Grandmother, whom we came to know as Grandmother Theresa Living. We are told that she received her name “Living” because she was one of the few children who survived. We give thanks to Grandmother, as a survivor, for her courage. We thank God for our faith, our heritage, and our family which has come to us through Grandma Theresa. May God grant that future generations see life “through Indian eyes.”