Eye-Witness Accounts - Songs

Back to the ANPA Trail of Tears Research homepage
Back to the Eye-Witness Accounts homepage

Choctaw Removal Song

Muriel Wright, the noted Choctaw historian, reported the following song, sung by the Choctaws who remained in Mississippi and in memory of their people who had departed to the West:

“Hinaushi pisali, Bok Chito onali, yayali.”

[I saw a trail to the big river and then I cried.]

Source: Muriel H. Wright, “A Chieftain’s ‘Farewell Letter’ to the American People,” American Indian 1 (December 1926), 7, 12.