The Teardrop Monument

The Teardrop Monument. . , Long before the first Europeans, Woodland Indians followed the buffalo trace later known as Pound (Sounding) Gap. The gap was a freeway between Kentucky and Virginia. Several Woodland Tribes were known to inhabit the region. They are gone now but their blood still courses through these very mountains and their voices can be heard upon the wind. This teardrop represents their trials, tribulations, and triumphs as the American Indian continues their fight to preserve, protect, and perpetuate cultural values, beliefs, stories, and traditions through education. , We still remain! , , We still remain , Thunderbolt Warriors Society , , adjacent granite marker: , The Teardrop , This teardrop represents the beginning time of European contact with the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, North America, and the tears that fell in the name of the New World. Millions of Indigenous were slaughtered for the prospects of gold and treasures, food and furs, and ultimately their homes and lands. , This teardrop represents the 1800’s conquest westward into new lands and territory. The many battles between the U.S. and Tribal Nations to acquire lands forced Indian Nations to continually migrate, losing food sources, homelands, and life. , This teardrop represents the Removal Act, the trail where we cried, the Trail of Tears. Woodland Indians corralled and held for months in the most inhospitable conditions were forced to say goodbye to their ancestral homelands and removed west of the Mississippi River to a new Indian territory. Each march took several months under extreme weather from hot to cold. Starting in 1830 and ending in 1839, thousands of elders and children perished. The tears fell like rain. , This teardrop represents the many indigenous people who fought for this country, our ancestral homelands, despite not being considered citizens of America before June 2, 1924. , This teardrop represents the tears cried by Indian children ripped from families and taken to Indian boarding schools. Many families were torn apart and never mended. Thousands of children never came home. , This teardrop represents the continuation of tears that flow for our missing and murdered Indian women/men/people, MMIW–MMIP, the harsh reality of our mothers and fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, and cousins lost with no clues to find them and no return home. , Today tears from all Tribal Nations flow in pain and sorrow in the memories of massacres like The Wampanoag, considered first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts; Ywahoo Falls, Kentucky, a key location for the Woodland Indian underground railroad led by Thunderbolt Warriors who were slaughtered by Franklinites; and Wounded Knee, South Dakota. These massacres are but few over the past 500+ years. , Despite the knowledge of being survivors of what is considered the largest mass genocide of a race of people in the recorded history of world, we shed tears of happiness as well. , We still remain. , We are resilient, strong, beautiful, and caring. We hold to our core traditions and culture, and through this, the tears of our ancestors, we have cultivated seeds of our growth. , Today we as the Thunderbolt Warriors Society and American Indian Movement, AIM, fight for our people in ways of education and preservation to protect our elders who connect us to our ancestors, and our children who connect us to those who will come. , We must always remember our past to understand the present in which we are living. This gives the power to create a better future world for all generations to come. , Rain Ironknife Moore , Leader–Thunderbolt Warriors Society , Director–AIM Indian Territory TN , American Indian Movement–AIM. , When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. , , Tecumeseh