Hope and Tears is a song about the Trail of Tears.
This was the trail traveled by the Cherokee and other Native American peoples when they were expelled from their homeland in the 1830s. They were forced to march hundreds of miles and thousands of people died along the way.

Hope and Tears

A song about the Trail of Tears

Words and music by Keith Sanford. Performance includes Keith Sanford on drums, percussion, keyboard synthesizers, and vocals.

On the trail I hear them weeping
On the frozen ground they sleep
From the stockades to Oklahoma
Wind is cold and snow is deep

But I hope in a song to be sung like a savior, that says
When the shadows fall, a light shines out a call for compassion and sorrow
Maybe we can be the people with hope for tomorrow

Heavy bags upon her shoulders
The’re no shoes upon her feet
There is a baby dying in her arms
Nothing more for them to eat

But I hope in a song to be sung like a savior, that says
When the shadows fall, a light shines out a call for compassion and sorrow
Maybe we can be the people with hope for tomorrow

Like a glimmer in the darkness
Like a whisper in the night
It’s not too late to hear the calling
Not too late to make it right

But I hope in a song to be sung like a savior, that says
When the shadows fall, a light shines out a call for compassion and sorrow
Maybe we can be the people with hope for tomorrow

A song about the Trail of Tears

The song, Hope and Tears, is about the Trail of Tears, which is a tragic story of oppression and cruelty in the history of the United States. The song also expresses a progressive faith perspective about a type of salvation that involves feeling sorrow and compassion for the oppressed, seeking deliverance for the oppressed, and in this way, becoming a people bringing hope for the future of the earth. From this faith perspective, it is important to remember the Trail of Tears, to feel the sadness of the tragedy, and to seek to understand something about what caused it. This gives us the depth of emotion and knowledge to motivate and guide us in addressing issues of oppression.

The setting for the story of the Trail of Tears.

The Trail of Tears took place in the 1830s, and to set the stage, consider what life was like in the United States at that time. This was a time in history when the United States included only 24 states, with all but two being East of the Mississippi River. It was a time when people spent most of their waking hours working, and most work was done on a farm or a plantation; a time when shoes were expensive and many went barefoot; a time when people rarely bathed; a time when it was common during winters for all members of a household to share beds in a single room around a single fire; and it was a time when fatal diseases were common, including yellow fever, malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis. At that time, most white people in the United States ascribed to a common ideal in which they believed that the United States should be a nation of “yeomen” farmers. This ideal involved an approach to farming where a man owned his own small plot of land for a farm where he lived with a wife and children, and where he grew his own crops and raised his own animals.

Although the Cherokee people once occupied a large section of present day south-eastern United States, by 1830, their territory had been reduced to a fraction of its original size. At that time, the Cherokee Nation was limited to an area covering the northwestern corner of Georgia, including southern parts of the Appalachian Mountains.

What caused the Trail of Tears?

To understand what caused the trail of tears, it is important to begin by considering and correcting two myths.

Myth #1: The Trail of Tears was primarily caused by a lack of cultural understanding between groups.

While there may have been cultural misunderstandings between white people and Cherokee people, these misunderstands cannot easily explain the Trail of Tears. One reason for this is that the Cherokee people were increasingly adopting more and more of white culture, and the more they assimilated into white culture, the more that white people sought to oppress them.

When George Washington was president, the United States pursued an approach toward Native American peoples called “civilization.” It was intended to encourage Native American people to adopt the culture of the white citizens of the United States with a hope that Native Americans would eventually desire to sell their land and assimilate into the United States. The primary rationale for this policy was that it was expected to prevent the United States from fighting costly wars over territory.

The Cherokee people mostly accepted and embraced this plan. By 1830, many spoke English. Many wore the same styles of clothing as white people. Many were Christians and many gave their children the same Biblical names that were used by white people. Although the Cherokee were traditionally a matrilineal society (where a husband joined the family of his wife, and women owned property), they largely adopted the gender roles of white people. A few owned slaves. To a large extent, they abandoned traditional approaches to hunting and adopted the white “yeomen” approach to farming.

Myth #2: The Trail of Tears was primarily caused because the Cherokee people lacked loyalty and respect for the United States.

It would simply be false to suggest that the Cherokee people lacked loyalty or respect for the United States. They had taken significant steps to prove themselves as faithful, trustworthy allies of the United States, and this was especially evident during the war of 1812. This war began when the United States declared war on Brittan, and during this war, the United States suffered several major military defeats. The situation was especially grave because the United States was also, simultaneously, attempting to fight several Native American tribes. In the south, the United States was at war with a faction of the Creek nation known as the “Red Sticks” (named after their red war clubs), who opposed assimilation of white culture and wanted to stop the United States from taking their land.

The Cherokee, however, sided with the United States and many Cherokee men served in the United States army. A regiment of several hundred Cherokee soldiers served under Andrew Jackson, who at that time was a Colonel in the United States army. When Jackson attacked a Creek fort at a place called “Horseshoe Bend,” on the Tallapoosa River in present day Alabama, his Cherokee regiment made a bold and daring assault across the river. Their assault played a pivotal role in the battle and gave Jackson the advantage he needed to overtake the Creek fort in a decisive victory. Hundreds of Creeks were slaughtered, and subsequently, several Creek leaders offered their unconditional surrender and ceded a majority of Creek territory to the United States. Thus, the Cherokee were faithful allies who risked their lives to help the United States. (For this, Andrew Jackson was promoted to Major General.)

The Trail of Tears is best understood as an act of racism.

By 1830, Andrew Jackson had become president of the United States, and one of Jackson’s primary goals as president was a program of Indian removal. He pursued this program in spite of the fact that a regiment of Cherokee soldiers had given his career a decisive boost. He pursued it in spite of the fact that the Cherokee people had taken many steps to maintain a strong alliance with the United States. Jackson's goal was to remove Native Americans from land that was near the vicinity of the white people and relocate them to land west of the Mississippi. This included removal of the Cherokee people. This policy may be best understood as something driven by racism.

As I discuss in the post for the song "Red Lines," I define racism as something that has two components. The first component is that racism can only occur when there is a disparity or a power difference between two groups. The second component is that racism occurs when people either: (a) deny or remain unaware of the disparity, or (b) believe the disparity is appropriate, deserved, acceptable, just, good, or fair.

This defines racism as something more specific then a situation where someone merely hates people in a group, or is prejudiced against a group, or dehumanizes people in a group, or has negative stereotypes against a group. I define racism as specifically involving a power difference between groups because I have a theory that the power difference is a key component. It is the fuel that drives racism, a key factor that gives it power and sustains it, and it is the agent that preserves racism so that it gets passed down across many generations. When there is a power difference, people with privilege tend to view their privilege as their rightful possession and they tend to view those who challenge their privilege as being disrespectful and insubordinate. Thus, racism is the tool people use to justify their efforts to maintain privilege. Racism is not so much something that causes a power difference, but rather, it is something that arises out of a power difference when members of a group seek to establish their privileged status as something permanent.

In the 1830s, there was clearly a power difference. The white people in the United States had enough power to expel from the land the Native Americans who were living around Georgia, and many white citizens of the United States viewed it as their rightful and justified privilege to do so. They viewed violence against Native Americans as unpreventable, Indian removal as inevitable, and they justified a program of ethnic cleansing by claiming it would be good for the Native Americans who were to be displaced. This situation matches my definition of racism. There was a power disparity between two groups, and members of the privileged group believed it would be just, good, and fair to do whatever was necessary to enforce their privilege.

The strategy Andrew Jackson used for his program of Indian removal had several components.

First, Jackson supported the Indian Removal Act. This was a law passed in 1830 that gave the president power to offer Native Americans money if they would agree to relocate to land West of the Mississippi. The Cherokee Nation repeatedly declined these offers of money, but this was not intended to be an offer that could be refused.

To put pressure on the Cherokee people, Jackson supported the state of Georgia in passing several oppressive laws against the Cherokee Nation. The state of Georgia claimed to hold jurisdiction over Cherokee territory, and the state passed laws that abolished the Cherokee government, disallowed Cherokee people from voting, and disallowed Cherokee people from testifying against a white person in court. Although Georgia was violating terms of treaties that the United States had established with the Cherokee Nation, Andrew Jackson claimed the federal government was unable to intervene because it would violate Georgia’s state rights. Without federal protection, white people from Georgia began moving into Cherokee territory. This put the Cherokee in an impossible situation. They were expected to rely on the United States federal government for protection, but the federal government failed to provide this protection, and when the Cherokee people attempted to protect themselves, they were viewed as hostile and incurred retaliation.

An oppressive treaty can appear just when viewed through the lens of racism.

Despite the pressure, the elected leaders on the Cherokee National Council held fast and refused to give away their territory. However, a small faction of Cherokee people broke from the National Council and questioned the wisdom of this plan. Members of this faction realized that if they did not agree now to take the money and evacuate, eventually, the terms would change, and they would simply be forced to evacuate through acts of violence. Thus, they concluded they should take the best offer they could get and agree to relocate. In 1835, this faction negotiated a treaty in which they agreed to cede all Cherokee territory to the United States and move to land west of the Mississippi in exchange for five million dollars.

This faction, however, did not have authority to represent the Cherokee Nation. Most Cherokee people were opposed to the treaty, and the elected leaders on the Cherokee National Council voted to reject it. Thus, the treaty was not legitimate. Despite this fact, the United States Senate voted to ratify the treaty, and the United States began plans to enforce it. The Cherokee were given notice that they had two years to vacate their property.

To the white people that held privilege and power, the oppressive treaty seemed legitimate. They viewed it as their justified right to take whatever steps were necessary to maintain their privilege and to enforce the treaty.

The tragedy of the Trail of Tears.

Most people in the Cherokee Nation did not heed the order to evacuate and they continued to live in their homes and farm their land. In the spring of 1838, however, the United States army began a process of removing people by force. Troops would surround a house so that no one could escape and then order everyone out with nothing more than the things they could carry. The Cherokee people were rounded up and placed in a series of stockades.

Due to poor planning on how to proceed after the Cherokee people were incarcerated, the Cherokee were held in the stockades for several months over the summer. Because of overcrowding, lack of provisions, and unsanitary conditions, disease was rampant in the stockades, and many people died. The forced march did not begin until the fall, with some groups leaving as late as December. It typically took about three to five months for a group to cross the trail, which was more than a thousand miles long. People lacked supplies for the journey. Many lacked blankets, adequate clothing, and shoes. Many suffered from disease contracted in the stockades. Moreover, the march took place mostly during winter months, and the weather that year was especially cold and harsh.

Best estimates are that about 16 thousand Cherokee were incarcerated in the stockades and that maybe a thousand escaped capture. Of those that were captured, about one fourth (that is, about four thousand) died before reaching Oklahoma territory.

The song Hope and Tears is about the importance of remembering tragic events like the Trail of Tears.

It is valuable to remember these types of events, to experience the sorrow, and to feel compassion for the victims. In this way, we can also learn about human nature, about the things that cause great evil on the earth, and hopefully use this information to make the world a better place. Although we cannot save the people who died on the Trail of Tears, maybe we can make things right in the future. In this way, “maybe we can be the people of hope for tomorrow.”

In addition to the events described in this post, what are other things you know about the story of the Trail of Tears or the program of violence and military conquest that was pursued by the United States in the 19th century to remove Native American peoples from their land?
Consider the way in which the story of the Trail of Tears is portrayed in this post. Are there ways in which it is the same or different from how you have viewed the story of westward expansion of the United States? Where have you learned about the story of westward expansion (in school, by reading books, watching television or movies)? In what ways is the portrayal in this post the same or different from how it has been portrayed in other sources? Is there anything you particularly like or dislike about the way it is portrayed in this post?
In the post, I make the argument that the Trail of Tears is not caused by cultural differences and not caused by the Cherokee lacking loyalty. In what ways do you agree or disagree with this argument?
I argue that the Trail of Tears is largely the product of racism, and that racism is driven by a power differential. I suggest that when people have privilege, they experience it as their justified right to hold their privilege. Thus, racism is the tool people of privilege use to justify taking whatever steps are necessary to maintain and enforce their privilege. In what ways do you agree or disagree with this argument?
If the above argument is true, then it would suggest that a key to reducing racism is reducing power differentials between groups. How effective do you think this would be toward reducing racism? Are there other components that are equally important, or more important than reducing power differentials? Do you think it is feasible to reduce power differentials and/or to reduce racism? If so, what are ideas you have about how to do this?

In the song, “Hope and Tears,” a key line is repeated at the end of each verse: “I hope in a song to be sung like a savior.” In the Christian tradition, Jesus is often described as a “savior,” and this tradition often emphasizes the importance of “salvation,” and of people being “saved.” Thus, from a Christian perspective, the song’s reference to a “savior” could be interpreted as a reference to Jesus. If this is true, then the line about, “a song sung like a savior,” could be a metaphor for Jesus’ message. In sum, the song could be interpreted as a song about salvation.

This interpretation, however, raises several questions. What exactly is meant by salvation? Presumably, salvation means that people are rescued from some calamity; but, from what calamity, exactly, are people being saved? How is salvation portrayed in the song, and how is this the same or different from other ways of understanding salvation? The following discussion will consider these questions.

I suspect most people today may presume that salvation refers to something that happens to people after they die. According to this viewpoint, people have an immaterial soul that separates from the body at death and either goes to heaven or to hell. In this context “salvation” simply means the same thing as going to heaven (or being saved from going to hell). However, this is not the only way to understand what salvation means.

One idea about salvation that was widespread in Jewish culture at the time of Jesus was the idea of an apocalypse. In this apocalypse, God would intervene to overthrow oppressive and evil rulers and governments, and God would establish a new kingdom on earth that would be good and just, thereby bringing an end to much of the oppression, pain, and suffering that existed in the world. Many Jewish people believed that this apocalypse would be ushered in by a powerful person who would judge and destroy evil powers and vindicate all those who were oppressed.

Importantly, this type of apocalypse does not involve immaterial souls that separate from physical bodies, and it does not involve souls going to a place that is different from earth. Instead, it is an event expected to happen in time and space on the physical earth. People continue living on a physical earth in physical bodies, but the earth is governed by a new, divine power which destroys evil and establishes justice.

Today, some scholars argue that Jesus most likely proclaimed exactly this type of apocalypse. These scholars doubt that Jesus himself ever proposed the idea of salvation involving immaterial souls going to heaven or hell, and these scholars suggest this idea was something that Christians developed after the time when Jesus was alive. On the one hand, it is important to note that ideas can still be inspired by God even if they developed after Jesus was alive. On the other hand, it is informative to consider how the ideas of salvation proposed by Jesus might contrast with ideas that developed latter. It can illustrate the extent to which salvation is a complex concept and how it can take on different meanings in different contexts.

There are several passages in the Christian Bible that can be interpreted as reflecting an apocalyptic version of salvation. For example, Jesus is frequently quoted as referring to an imminent “kingdom” of God, or “kingdom” of heaven, and he teaches his disciples to pray to God saying, “Your kingdom come.” A good example of apocalyptic language comes from the book of Mark where Jesus is quoted as saying:

But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven . . . Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. (Mark 13: 24-27 and 30, NRSV).

This passage uses language that matches the language commonly used at the time of Jesus to describe an apocalypse. There is a good chance that people would have assumed Jesus was talking about an apocalypse if they heard him using this type of language. Of course, I do not know for certain if this was what Jesus said, or if I accurately understand what he meant by it (and the passage above is an English translation of a Greek text of a second-hand account of events that occurred several decades earlier in a place where everyone spoke Aramaic). But regardless, it is valuable to consider the point of view portrayed by an apocalyptic version of salvation. On the surface, the first thing most modern readers may notice is that this version of salvation proposes a miraculous cosmic event that seems incompatible with our modern, scientific understanding of how the world works (and moreover, it proposes as “imminent” an event that has not yet occurred in over 2,000 years). At the same time, if we look a little deeper, we may find that it also portrays an important perspective on exactly what salvation means. This perspective is something that is still relevant today and still worth considering.

Aside from the miraculous cosmic elements, what is the perspective of the apocalyptic version of salvation? According to this perspective, salvation takes place on earth and its key feature involves the ending of oppression. It is a salvation focused on compassion for people who are weak, powerless, and marginalized. It is a salvation where power hierarchies get turned upside down, and where people of privilege lose their power and are no longer able to oppress and exploit others.

In the Christian Bible, Jesus is often quoted as saying things consistent with this concept of salvation – that is, a salvation that primarily involves the ending of oppression. For example, Jesus is quoted as saying, “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew, 20:16, similar to Luke 13:30, NRSV). The book of Luke describes Jesus giving a sermon where he says,

Blessed are you who are poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh. (Luke 6: 20-21, NRSV)

This passage can be interpreted as expressing hope for a type of salvation focused on delivering people from oppression. It is a type of salvation that destroys the power structures that lead to privilege, and where people no longer perpetrate the types of cruelty that cause tragic events such as the Trail of Tears.

One the one hand, it might not be possible to eliminate oppression completely from the earth. On the other hand, it is certainly possible for people to work together to promote this type of salvation, to reduce oppression, to seek justice, and to show compassion for others. Moreover, this seems to have been a core part of Jesus’s message. Many passages in the Christian Bible describe Jesus as calling people to take active steps to promote this type of salvation on earth. For example, Jesus calls people to give food to the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to show hospitality to the stranger, to clothe the naked, to aide the sick, and to show kindness to the prisoner (e.g., Matthew, 25: 31-46). Jesus calls people with privilege to relinquish their claims of power, to sell their possessions, and to give to the poor (e.g., Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, and Luke 18:18-30). These types of actions are things that reduce oppression, and importantly, they are also often described in these passages as things that bring salvation.

This brings us back to the original question. Is the song, “Hope and Tears” a song about salvation? It depends on what is meant by salvation. It is not a song about souls separating from bodies and going to heaven. However, it is a song about people having compassion and about a hope that people will take steps to reduce oppression and cruelty on earth.