I Can't Imagine the Agony of Removal

We Came West With the Indians

 

“I can’t imagine the agony of removal.”

 

  These words, spoken by a Chickasaw citizen in a historical video about the tribe’s removal from their ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi River, struck a deep chord. It was part of a series documenting the Chickasaw people’s painful history of displacement, a story told through the voices of Chickasaw citizens and historians. Titles like “The Last Tribe to Remove; Making Oklahoma Home” and “The Plight of Removal and Our Indomitable Spirit”framed the narrative as one of survival and resilience. But it was the video titled “Imagining the Agony of Removal”that held my attention, not for what it said, but for what it left out.

 

   After watching nearly, a dozen of these videos, I couldn’t help but notice the glaring absence of the enslaved people who also walked that trail of tears. The “agony of removal,” the trauma of displacement, the heartache of leaving behind sacred burial grounds and family, was not theirs alone. Yet, their suffering was unacknowledged. Their survival, their indomitable spirit, was omitted from the story altogether. The Chickasaw people weren’t the only ones forced west, so were the enslaved people they owned.

 

   The narrator’s words in “Imagining the Agony of Removal” echoed with painful irony when viewed through the lens of those whose voices remain unheard:

 

“I can’t imagine being ripped from my home.”

“I can’t imagine what my ancestors had to go through, whenever the concept of removal came to them.”

“I can’t imagine leaving the land of my ancestors because my ancestors were buried there, because burial sites are important.”

“We didn’t know what it was going to be like in Indian Territory.”

 

   For those brought west in bondage, these statements weren’t hypothetical, they were lived realities. Their stories are not matters of imagination, but brutal truth.

 

   Jordan D. Folsom, a Choctaw Freedman, preserved one such story, the story of his grandmother Sylvia, in his family’s oral tradition. Sylvia’s experience brings into focus the humanity that’s been erased from the official narratives of removal.

 

   “She was a young woman with one child living in Alabama when she, with a bunch of slaves, was put upon the auction block and sold to a slave dealer,” Jordan recounted. “Sylvia, with Abe Radford and his young wife, Elizabeth, were all sold to the same dealer, who was bringing slaves to the Indian Territory and selling them to wealthy Indians.”

   When the narrator spoke of the unimaginable pain of being ripped from home, Jordan’s account made it visceral: “Sylvia’s mother was there and was crying, but it did no good, they were just chattels and were sold, regardless of what any of the relatives said or did.”

 

   Sylvia was fortunate, if such a word can even be used, to keep her young son. But not for long. Jordan recalled how Sylvia’s little boy died shortly after their arrival in Indian Territory, after they had been sold to Dr. Henry Folsom, a Choctaw. Sylvia’s grief was layered upon the trauma of removal, compounded by the loss of her child and the crushing weight of her continued bondage.

 

   Jordan’s account preserves what the official history chooses to forget. His family’s story reveals that the trauma of removal was not exclusive to the Chickasaw or Choctaw citizens. The enslaved people they brought west were equally torn from their homes, separated from family, and forced to leave behind their dead, knowing they would never return.

 

   Historian Grant Foreman is often credited with understanding the trauma of removal. But Jordan’s account makes it personal. “Sylvia was permitted to keep her little boy,” Jordan said, “but that was the last she saw of her mother.” How can anyone truly grasp the depth of that loss? How can we understand the heartbreak of holding your child’s hand as you’re dragged from the only home you’ve ever known, knowing you’ll never see your mother’s face again?

 

   But the story does not end there. Sylvia survived. Dr. Henry Folsom, the man who bought her, would father her only other child after her arrival in Indian Territory. Sylvia’s pain and resilience lived on through her son Jordan, and then through his son, Jordan Jr., the keeper of the family story. Their legacy is part of the removal story, too, a truth that cannot remain buried beneath the dominant narrative.

 

   The Chickasaw and Choctaw nations remember their removal with sorrow and pride, mourning the loss of their homeland while honoring the strength of their survival. But there remains an uncomfortable truth that has yet to be fully reckoned with: their survival came at a cost paid, in part, by those they enslaved.

 

   It’s not hard to imagine Sylvia’s agony, because her story is part of the removal story. It’s part of the legacy of Indian Territory. It’s part of American history.

 

   Imagine you were Sylvia, watching your mother weep as you’re led away. Imagine you were Jordan, hearing the story of how your grandmother’s life was shaped by both the agony of removal and the brutal reality of slavery. Imagine you were Jordan Jr., determined to preserve the truth, even when the official story refuses to tell it.

 

Imagine the agony of their removal.