Unto These Hills Cherokee Historical Drama
"Unto These Hills" is a historical drama that takes place annually in Cherokee, North Carolina, and portrays the poignant history and experiences of the Cherokee people from the 1540s to their forced removal in the 1830s. The play, written by Kermit Hunter, specifically recounts the suffering, resilience, and heroism of those who resisted removal, particularly focusing on a notable figure, Tsali, who is depicted as a protector of his people. This drama highlights the traumatic event known as the Trail of Tears, during which thousands of Cherokees were forcibly relocated to what is now Oklahoma, often under dire conditions that resulted in significant loss of life.
Staged since 1950, "Unto These Hills" features over 130 actors and attracts an audience of nearly 100,000 people each year during its summer performances. The drama serves not only as entertainment but also as an educational experience, shedding light on the complex relationships between Native Americans and European settlers, as well as the broader implications of American expansionism. Through its storytelling, the production aims to honor the memory of the Cherokee people and their enduring spirit, while fostering understanding and respect for their cultural heritage.
Unto These Hills Cherokee Historical Drama
Unto These Hills Cherokee Historical Drama
This is a movable event.
Something of the heartache, suffering, and heroism of the Cherokee people is captured in a historical drama presented every summer in the town of Cherokee, North Carolina, capital of the Eastern Band of Cherokees who live on the Cherokee reservation at the edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The drama, Kermit Hunter's Unto These Hills, records the history of the Cherokees' tragic relations with Europeans and Americans from the time of Hernando de Soto's explorations in 1540 to the Cherokees' forced removal in 1838-1839 from their native Smoky Mountains to the so-called Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) by way of the grave-strewn Trail of Tears. The title is taken from Psalm 121:1-2: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”
Although the Indian Territory was land that the United States government had set aside as a home for the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast (the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole), who were largely removed to it between 1820 and 1845, it was soon divided with western tribes. Later it was swallowed up entirely by Oklahoma when it became a state in 1907. Apparently forgotten was President Andrew Jackson's promise to the tribes that their land grants would last “as long as the grass grows, or water runs.”
The Cherokee who take part in North Carolina's annual drama-spectacle are descendants of the handful of Cherokee who escaped removal to the Indian Territory by hiding in remote regions of the Smoky Mountains. They and their descendants became known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee as distinguished from the larger group of Cherokee, who became unwilling residents of the Indian Territory under conditions of great hardship.
During the tide of westward expansion that settled the United States, while pushing the Native Americans farther and farther from their original lands, American settlers exhibited a lust for land no matter how acquired. Frontier fever was high in 1828, when Andrew Jackson, the champion of the frontier, was elected president. By then the so-called spirit of the frontier (which was far from unopposed in Congress and elsewhere) could be loosely translated as “move the Indians out by any means.”
One of the early steps of Jackson's administration was the enactment in 1830 of the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the president to initiate exchanges of real estate by which native tribes would be given land beyond the Mississippi in exchange for their eastern holdings. Although the act made no provision for the forcible removal of the tribes, it might as well have. State laws, particularly in Georgia (where many of the Cherokee lived), Mississippi, and Alabama, discriminated against the native tribes and blocked their access to legal recourse. The federal government, on the one hand, tried to induce the tribal nations to sign treaties giving up their eastern lands. On the other hand, it declared itself unable to protect the tribes against the abuses and repeated treaty violations made possible under state laws.
Under these pressures, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek more or less agreed to or were forced into removal between 1830 and 1836. In Florida, some of the Seminole successfully resisted relocation, and the ensuing Seminole Wars proved costly for the American government. The Cherokee, who next to the Seminole resisted longest, probably suffered the most. After a treaty bitterly opposed by most Cherokee was signed by a minority group, United States Army troops under General Winfield Scott were ordered to remove the entire tribe. Cherokee in Georgia, North Carolina, and neighboring regions were hunted down and herded into detention camps. Divided into 1,000 member contingents, they were moved to the Indian Territory during the harsh winter months of 1838 -1839. Some 17,000 Cherokees made the 1,000-mile trip to Oklahoma, most of them on foot since there were only enough wagons for children and the elderly or disabled. The arduousness of the journey and the Cherokees' grief at leaving their homes and farmlands was compounded by the army's lack of experience in moving large numbers of people and by unscrupulous suppliers who reneged on their contracts to supply the travelers' needs. Nearly one out of every four Cherokees died en route from the cold, of exposure, or of resulting diseases. As one contemporary source reported in the New York Observer, “They buried 14 or 15 at every stopping place…” and went “ten miles per day only on the average.”
The drama Unto These Hills, which has been staged annually at Cherokee since 1950, concerns those Cherokee who hid in the Smoky Mountains to escape deportation and the heroism of the Cherokee Tsali, who sacrificed his own life to keep General Scott from hunting his people down to the very last. The performance involves over 130 actors, and is staged almost daily from mid- to late-June until August, although the exact dates can vary from year to year. By the late 1990s, the drama and its related festivities had an annual attendance of nearly 100,000 people.