It's been plaguing me ever since beginning this daunting task -- what did a stockade look like, what did it smell like, what was it like to live there?
No problem. Just hit Google. Right?
Not hardly.
Well, maybe if I were talking about a generic stockade, the kind I picture when I think of the word. The kind of stockade that is synonymous with "fort". The kind I visited many times growing up in Texas. Fort Parker, for one.
However, the kind of stockade I'm writing about is different. I think.
Here's what I know for sure: 1) the stockades were built in the late 1830's in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee to temporarily house the Cherokees and other tribes who were being removed to the west in 1838 and 1839.
2)They no longer exist.
3)There are scanty recollections of life inside the stockades from survivors via diary entries or oral histories (these are more often told by survivors' children). However, because the time period inside the stockade was a short compared to the vast and more traumatic experience of the Trail of Tears, little info really comes out through these sources.
Unfortunately for me, a lot of my story takes places within those stockade walls.
So I'm faced with a decision, as a writer: do I make things up, based on the knowledge I have? Call it "artistic liberty"? I'm really not comfortable doing that.
At the same time, I can't allow my writing to come to a grinding halt because I don't know whether every person within the stockade was allowed to have a blanket or not. Or because I don't know how the campsites were laid out within the stockades -- a neat little grid, or mass of humanity? Were the Cherokees allowed to have knives? That's important to know for my birthing scene.
However -- today I happened upon the Georgia Trail of Tears website, where I saw that Dr. Sarah Hill has done extensive research in locating where the stockades once stood in Georgia. I downloaded her report and it was very helpful (and mind-boggling!) as to what the stockades looked like, how many Cherokees might have filled their walls, how long they stayed, and an idea of what the supplies were. Now as to who received those supplies, the army or the Cherokees, is another question.
I'm hopeful now that some of my questions might find answers!
Labels: 1838, army, Cherokees, Dr. Sarah Hill, Georgia Trail of Tears, historical fiction, stockades, supplies, writing
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