No More Trail of Tears

Chipa Wolf: 'We need to honor each other with respect'

By Glenn Matlock
DACULA – Once upon a time a long time ago, in what is today a peaceful and prosperous suburban county, death came a calling.

It was a cold, dreary morning in October 1838. Men, women and children were dragged out of their homes and forced off their land. At the point of a bayonet, they were herded like cattle into stockades to be removed from Georgia and the southeast permanently.

Ignoring a ruling by the United States Supreme Court, the state of Georgia forced thousands of these families to leave their home, their land and most of their possessions behind and to endure a death march west. An estimated 70,000 Cherokee Indians living in Gwinnett County and around the southeast were targeted for removal.

It is recorded that as many as 4,000 Cherokee Indians perished on the march. The Cherokee had a name for it. They called it: “The Trail of Tears.”
The Trail of Tears isn’t some child’s Halloween horror story. It is recorded American history – the shame of which cannot be easily wiped away.

For their trouble, the Cherokee were given nearly 7 million acres of western desert and paid less than their land was worth. The Cherokee left with only what they could carry. They left behind their homeland and the graves of their ancestors.

Those gravesites known by local residents as Indian mounds are located throughout Georgia and in Gwinnett County. About a dozen were discovered nearly 16 years ago next to the proposed Apalachee Farms subdivision and the Trophy Club golf course outside Dacula city limits. Although some were damaged or destroyed, these few were saved and are now protected due to the efforts of one man – Chipa Wolf.

Mr. Wolf who freely points out he is only one quarter Cherokee and three quarters French, said he had been on several campaigns to draw attention to the desecration of Indian gravesites, when he heard that a developer was looking to build on Gwinnett County land that contained suspected Indian graves, Mr. Wolf said he felt like he needed to do something.

“When it came to my attention that this was happening right here in the place I had chosen to make my home – Georgia, I came over” he said.
Mr. Wolf met with then Commission Chairman Lillian Webb and the Board of Commissioners and Gwinnett’s Planning and Development Department. He was not exactly welcomed with open arms, he recalled. County officials basically wanted him to go away, he said.

“I approached them in a tasteful, respectful way to remind them that these sites existed. That’s all,” he said. “I asked please don’t bulldoze through them. I asked for an archeological survey. Not even an intensive one. I had already gone out there and had testimony from Amos Hutchinson [who was caretaker of the Elisha Winn House at the time].”

The historic Winn House located on Dacula Road next to the Trophy Club of Apalachee Golf Course was built in 1818 and was once the county courthouse and the center of early Gwinnett County life.

In an Atlanta Journal Constitution article dated Jan. 14, 1990, Mr. Hutchinson verified the existence of the Indian gravesites, as did former Gwinnett Historical Society’s then president Phyllis Hughes.

The late Mr. Hutchinson, who was 76 at the time, was born less than a mile from the Winn House.

“There have been Indian gravesites on this land for as long as I remember,” Mr. Hutchinson was quoted as saying in the article. “The graves, he said, were marked by “old field rocks.”

Some would like to dismiss the gravesites as merely rock set aside by local farmers to mark property lines or to build border fences. Mr. Wolf knew differently, he said.

“As a laymen I had probed enough graves to be able to identify a grave from a pile of rocks that farmers had stacked up. Those were real graves.”

Although Mr. Wolf would have probed the graves there were other Indian protestors who did not want the graves touched at all for spiritual reasons.
When he failed to generate any interest among county officials to preserve the site, Mr. Wolf changed tactics. On Nov. 11, 1990, he set up a tepee for an indefinite vigil at the Elisha Winn House.

“At first it was pretty lonely out there,” he said. “It was cold and the snow was coming down the day I put up the tent.”

When it seemed as if nothing was going to happen, the story about the fight to save Indian gravesites went national over the Associated Press wires.
“We had Indians coming from as far away as Canada, New Mexico, and Oklahoma – Cherokee of course,” Mr. Wolf said. “Not in droves but a few here and there. This was a time you understand before “Dancing with Wolves” when it still wasn’t cool to be an Indian in Georgia. Suddenly, we had people who were Indian or Georgia Indians who were not practicing and people who were not Indian at all helping out.”

Mr. Wolf praised the Gwinnett Historical Society for its support.
“They exhausted their energy to make it known that these were real gravesites, he said.

The vigil at the Winn House lasted 55 days and nights during an ugly winter. Under pressure, and with the support of the developer, who agreed to pay for the survey, an archeological survey was finally conducted.

Former Gwinnett County Planning and Development Director Don McFarland said he visited the site in 1990. The two tracts under review were the area around what is now Hamilton Mill subdivision and Apalachee Farms with Apalachee Farms and the adjoining golf course, being the site with the most obvious collection of suspected Indian gravesites.

“The survey noted that there was some 40-50 acres [around Apalachee Farms] where there was anything,” Mr., McFarland said. “They never found much of anything around Hamilton Mill. At Apalachee Farms, we did not see any wholesale destruction of the mounds. Those portions of the project were eventually protected by the county and likely forcing a realignment of the golf course.”

Since some or the Indians involved could not say for certain if the graves were Cherokee or Creek, or how old they were, and since a number of Indian protestors didn’t want any disturbance on the site to allow for firm verification, doubts remained.

“We could never say for sure if it was a burial site,” he said.

However, Mr. McFarland did not dispute there were likely graves in the area. He said there is tremendous evidence that the Cherokee and other tribes lived in Gwinnett long ago.

“When I worked for Precision Planning, our crews gathered arrowheads from every development we ever touched in [Gwinnett County],” he said.

In fact, there is at least one major Indian rock formation in Gwinnett County that has never been made public in order to prevent it from being dug up and destroyed by souvenir hunters, Mr. McFarland said.

Gwinnett County commissioners eventually required the developer to work around the Indian mounds. They also set aside a 40-acre preserve around the Winn House, which also contains Indian burial sites.

Mr. Wolf said he views his time in Gwinnett almost 17 years ago as difficult, but successful in bring the issue of grave desecration to light.

“Out of it hopefully came some positive resolve for everybody including the developer,” Mr. Wolfe said. “I don’t think the developer was an evil man and I hope that he didn’t take us to be evil. I do know that we were dealing with an issue that had never been contested in the state of Georgia before. And I think some positive things came of it.

“For one thing, our Indian community in came together [as a result of the vigil at the Winn House],” Mr. Wolf said.

“Some people have said to me ‘why don’t you take care of your elderly and the sick and addicted among the Indians?’ Mr. Wolf said. “That’s good, but alcoholism and drug addiction, where does it come from, but from low self esteem. If people are mocking you and demoralizing your culture, which is all you have to make you feel good about yourself, how can you fight addiction. For me it was important to fight that sort of poor stereotypical imagery.”

In the end, preserving Indian gravesites is all about respect, Mr. Wolf said.
“[The various races and religions] We can honor each other with respect,” he said.

Editor's Note: Although he was the one who initiated the protest that eventually gained national attention, Mr. Wolf disagrees that he alone was responsible for helping change county policy.

Mr. Wolf offers a big thanks and names the following people and organizations for their assistance:

Marvin & Phyllis Hughes - Gwinnett Historical Society

Cleto "Humpjiidra" Montelongo - Cherokee

Ken Rhyne - Tuscarora

Aron Two Elk - Lakota

Ruby Wolf - Lakota

Dawn Arneach - E.B. Cherokee

Lloyde Arneach - E.B. Cherokee

Diana Council - Resident

Wilma Mankiller - W.B. Cherokee

Deputy Chief John Ketcher - W.B. Cherokee

Mike Hancy - Seminole-Lakota

Billy Mills - Lakota

Dennis Banks - Ojibwa

Cathryn Nash - resident

Snowbird Indian Community

Diamond Brown - E.B. Cherokee

Chico Dulak - Lakota

As well as hundreds of other local residents and even a few presiding county commissioners.

article used by permission from The Neighborhood News.