Cherokee Rose - The legend is that when gold was found in Georgia, the government forgot its treaties and drove the Cherokees to Oklahoma. One fourth of them died on the journey west. When the Trail of Tears started in 1838, the mothers of the Cherokee were grieving and crying so much they were unable to help their children survive the journey. The elders prayed for a sign that would lift the mother's spirits to give them strength. God, looking down from heaven, decided to commemorate the brave Cherokees and so, as the blood of the braves and the tears of the mothers dropped to the ground, He turned them into stone in the shape of a Cherokee Rose. The next day a beautiful rose began to grow where each of the mother's tears fell. No better symbol exists of the pain and suffering of the "Trail Where They Cried" than the Cherokee Rose which grows wild along the route of the Trail of Tears into eastern Oklahoma today.
The Cherokee legend - More than 100 years ago, the Cherokee people were driven from their home mountains when the white men discovered gold in the Mountains of Tears. Some of the people came across Marengo County in West Alabama. They travelled south so they would not have to climb more mountains.
It was early summer and very hot, and most of the time the people had to walk. Tempers where short and many times the soldiers were more like animal drivers than guides for the people. The men were angry at the treatment of their women and children, and the soldiers were harsh and frustrated so bad things often happened. When men get angry they fight and men were killed on the trip. Many people died of the hardship. The trip was hard and sad and the women wept for losing their homes and their dignity. The old men knew that they must do something to help the women not to lose their strength in weeping. They knew the women must be very strong if they were to help the children survive. After they had made cap along the Trail of Tears, the old men sitting around the dying campfire called upon The Great One in Galunati (heaven) to help the people in their trouble. They told Him that the little ones would not survive to rebuild the Cherokee Nation. The Great One said, "Yes, I have seen the sorrows of the women and I can help them to keep their strenth to help the children. Tell the women in the morning to look back where their tears have fallen to the ground. I will cause to grow quickly a plant. They will see a little green plant at first with a stem growing up. It will grow up and up and fall back down to touch the ground where another stem will begin to grow. I'll make the plant grow so fast at first that by afternoon they will see a white rose, a beautiful blossom with five petals. In the center of the rose I will put gold to remind them of the gold which the white man wanted when his greed drove the Cherokee from their ancestral home." The Great One said that there will be seven leaves, one for each of the seven clans of the Cherokee. The plant will be strong and spread and will take back some of the land they had lost. It will have thorns to protect it. The next morning the women saw the plant beginning and growing up and up spreading over the land. They watched a beautiful blossom form and forgot to weep, feeling beautiful and strong. As the plant spread and marked the path of the brutal Trail of Tears the women saw that the plant would indeed take back much of the land of their people.
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