Customer Reviews

The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My family watched the DVD last night and it is a great film. It is everything we expected it to be. It really evokes some strong emotions (my daughter started crying), and it delivers this legacy of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw tribes and other indian people of the area in a frank, straight forward manner.



Wes Studi does a wonderful job, and speaks the Cherokee language eloquently as the story of the Cherokee trail of tears unfolds in a long over-due examination of this Cherokee legacy. James Earl Jones' presence is a strong statement in itself, not to mention his unique way of making almost anything interesting and he adds a feeling of authenticity to the film. The closed captioning is a definite plus and the beauty of the scenery in the Cherokee's ancestral homelands was breathtaking.



A big thanks go to the Cherokee Tribe and to Rich-Heape Films, Inc. for granting Public Performance Rights to schools and libraries. I will be sending a copy to my sister today. She is the principal at the Wakpala Indian School in South Dakota. She puts the videos and music into the School Library system where they are made available to the students who check them out like they do books.

This is just the type of film I want to show my university students. It's so difficult to bring home the sufferings of Native American people. We have been seen as savage war mongers who tried to ebb the tide of civilization. I am not a Cherokee, I am a Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape. I teach a history course on the impact of colonialism on indigenous people. This film saves me a lot of lecturing and makes it easier for me to move around the continent and around the world in my discussions. This film forms the basis of what I'm trying reveal, whether I talk about Australian Aborigines, Africans,the Chinese, East Indians, Aztecs, Maoris or Hawaiians. Thank you guys for putting it out there.

This is an excellent film for anyone interested in learning about the history of the tribes that were removed from their ancestral lands.

It is comprenhensive and has some excellent scholars and credible historians providing great detail as to what led to the historical atrocity known as the Trail of Tears.

Many people died during the summer of 1838 and it seemed few cared about this. No one attempted to really stop it which is the sad part about it.

It is believed that at least 4,000 Cherokee Indian people died during the removals to the west. This is a historical fact that few people seem to be aware of.

It is a sad reality that must be faced and restituion is most certainly due to those involved in this genocidal aspect of American history.

I find it almost amazing to know that this occurred less than 200 years ago and that so very few people seem to know or care about what happened. Genocide is ugly but is has a face that will never go away.

At last a really good resource for all of those interested in The Trail of Tears and related issues. This is a must for anyone who wishes to understand more about what the trail really means and the injustice and suffering that it represents. An excellent product that successfully raises awareness about this important period of time - highly recommended. I am not Cherokee or even from the United States but I think that this is a story that we could all learn from.

Iam sending all of my relatives a copy. Iam a registered Cherokee (Western-Tahlequah)tribal member. This film is the best I have ever seen. I'am still shocked at how the US Gov't knowingly betrayed us for our land and gold, and put small-pox in our blankets to kill us off. US gov't has never changed. Hearing the Cherokee language spoken was a wonder to me, as I had never really heard it before. This is a best-gold star film.

This was a good movie/documentary. I liked the usage of the Cherokee language because I am studying it and it's nice to hear it spoken in fluency. The mixture of history, scholars, and family oral stories is done well.

Very informative and gives an accurate depiction of fact pretaining to injustices induced on my people, the Cherokees.
I would recommend all Native American people to watch this
Trail of Tears CD so this part of our history will not be forgotten.

Produced and directed by Chip Richie, The Trail Of Tears: Cherokee Legacy is an engaging two hour documentary exploring one of America's darkest periods in which President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 consequently transported Native Americans of the Cherokee Nation to the bleak and unsupportive Oklahoma Territory in the year 1838. Deftly presented by the talents of Wes Studi, James Earl Jones, and James Garner, The Trail Of Tears: Cherokee Legacy also includes narrations of famed celebrities Crystal Gayle, Johnt Buttrum, Governor Douglas Wilder, and Steven R. Heape. A welcome DVD addition to personal, school, and community library Native American history collections, The Trail Of Tears: Cherokee Legacy is strongly recommended for its informative and tactful presentation of such a tragic and controversial historical occurrence in 19th century American history.

This DVD gives a general overview of the story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. It is a documentary and uses actors to portray some historical characters and you can hear comments from some people who could be termed 'experts' in this area. I liked being able to hear from an ancestor of John Ross and the past leader of the Cherokee nation, Wilma Mankiller, as well as the present principal chief, Chad Smith. Atleast he was the chief at the time of the film.
There were also other university people and Cherokee tribal members who gave some thoughts and anecdotes. The program was hosted by Wes Studi, one of my favorite actors, who did a part of the narration, speaking in his own native tongue, Cherokee! I liked that part. James Earl Jones, who is part Cherokee, does the general narration.
The DVD wasn't quite what I expected, some of it seemed a little low-budget to me, but it's a good overview of an American story that should be told. So I recommend it for that.

I am a Cherokee from Oklahoma now living in Colorado. In this movie, what you will get is not a classic western but the tragic truth about a people that regardless of their ability to adapt, to welcome their distant neighbours and indeed to welcome and to even embrace progress clearly displaying this adaptability to change were nevertheless out of greed driven out of their own homeland and nearly driven to extinction only to once again, adapt to change and once again, many are succeeding.