Riding the Trail of Tears: Exploitation of Suffering

In what follows C.C. examines Blake Hausman's novel Riding the Trail of Tears.

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An important topic addressed in Blake Hausman’s book Riding the Trail of Tears is the exploitation of suffering for commercial gain. The story takes place in a futuristic setting where the infamous Trail of Tears has been recreated as a virtual reality tourist attraction. Located in the Tsalagi Removal Exodus Point Park in Georgia, this virtual trail leads tourists on their own personal Trail of Tears so that they may experience the same sufferings Native Americans did back in 1838. The story follows Tallulah Wilson, a part Cherokee tour guide for TREPP, as she takes tour group 5709 on what is supposed to be a normal trip through the virtual Trail of Tears. However, the unexpected presence of Nunnehi from Native American legends in the virtual trail causes the ride to veer off into an unpredictable adventure. Hausman uses this idea of the virtual trail to criticize universal exploitation and trivialization of suffering for commercial gain.

Rather than create the TREPP as an accurate way for people to experience the authentic suffering of Native Americans, the ride is more catered to making the customers happy so that they will be willing to spend their money on the ride again. One example of this exploitation can be seen when Tour Group 5709 first enters the ride and notices that their genitals have increased in size. Hausman describes the motivation for this by writing, “It’s true. Everyone’s breasts and penises are slightly larger on the Trail of Tears. Anything to ensure customer satisfaction, regardless of historical inaccuracy, and body parts are always a welcome distraction for the average customer” (93). This quote shows that the TREPP’s main priority is customer satisfaction rather than historical accuracy. Instead of focusing on Native American history, the owners are more concerned with making money from this experience.

Hausman also uses the Misfits as a metaphor for how the TREPP is trivializing the suffering of past Native Americans as a way to make profit. This can be seen in Irma Rosenberg’s conversation with the Misfits. After entering the Trail of Tears, Irma is separated from tour group 5709 when she exits the first cabin and somehow ends up in the Misfit stockade. After meeting the Misfits there, she begins to learn a little bit about them, despite their elusiveness in answering her questions. When Irma asks the Misfits why they can’t just leave, they tell her, “We are targets. We were programmed to be killed, then brought back to life…We always begin again after we die…just to be killed again” (119-120).

This shows how the suffering of Native Americans on the Trail of Tears has been trivialized, as their suffering has simply become a recurring event in a typical theme park attraction, like some kind of haunted house. Hausman voices his opinion on this exploitation of Native American suffering through Irma, when she says “That’s just terrible…That’s worse than being dead. That’s worse than life in death” (120).

This trivialization of an important event in Native American history can also be seen in Tallulah Wilson’s journey through the virtual Trail of Tears. The soldiers who capture Tour Group 5709 are described as “unflattering caricatures who spit and grunt. They are archetypal antagonists” (177). Once again, historical accuracy is ignored on the ride in order to provide the customers with what they believe they should be seeing. This happens again during the death of Corn Grinder. During her death scene, Hausman writes, “Now, if the scene were truly authentic, she would scream in Cherokee. But translation is critical to customer satisfaction in such pivotal moments of the Removal, so Corn Grinder screams in English” (177-178). This shows how the creators of the virtual Trail of Tears have no reluctance in changing history to suit their customer’s needs.

Hausman also uses Tallulah’s personal reactions and feelings on the Trail of Tears to demonstrate how the TREPP has trivialized the sufferings of Native Americans. Tallulah has ridden the virtual Trail of Tears so many times that she has become essentially desensitized to the brutal violence inflicted upon these virtual representations of her ancestors. She is no longer affected in any way by the sufferings of these virtual Native Americans, as it has become something she sees every day. For example during Corn Grinder’s death scene, Hausman writes, “Tallulah, naturally, is unphased by the death of Corn Grinder” (178).

This is seen again in Tallulah’s indifferent attitude during Danny’s death scene in the stockade, which demonstrates how accustomed Tallulah has become to this violence. Tallulah is not even surprised, as Hausman writes, “Tallulah doesn’t need to ask Mandy for any further details. She’s seen it all before” (226). Tallulah even goes so far to tell Mandy “Relax…It’s just a game” (226). This demonstrates how the TREPP’s transforming of the Trail of Tears into a tourist attraction for commercial gain has completely trivialized the experience of Native Americans. In this way, people who ride the virtual Trail of Tears multiple times eventually become apathetic to the sufferings of Native Americans in the past and think of it as “just a game.”

This idea of trivializing the Trail of Tears by turning it into a tourist attraction for commercial gain is a major theme throughout Hausman’s story. His criticism appears to target anyone who exploits a group of people’s suffering as a way to make money. However, whether Hausman feels this way about similar tourist attractions, such as Nazi concentration camps and other such locations, is uncertain.

C.C.

Riding the Trail of Tears: Naming and Native America

In what follows Y.L. shares some initial thoughts on Blake Hausman's novel Riding the Trail of Tears.

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I really enjoy reading the book Riding the Trail of Tears, and taking a virtual ride on the Trail of Tears, because the book engages me in an interesting story and provides me a good insight of the real history of the Trail of Tears in a completely new way. The author, Blake M. Hausman, incorporates the elements of futurism and surrealism into the story, we can imagine that maybe several years later, the digital ride of The Trail of Tears might be achieved, as people are immersed in the clash of technology, electricity, digitalis, and Internet in the daily life. The story seems virtual, but do lead you into a real bloody history of Indian removal.

As the story takes place in virtual-reality, we enter a machine that takes us to 1838 and gives us a chance to experience the Trail of Tears the way it happened then, only digitally. It is an adventurous ride, made even more stimulating by technical problems and by the sudden appearance of Nunnehi people. In addition, we are also presented with the protagonist Tallulah Wilson's personal struggle, the reoccurring strange dreams, her love and anger for her dead father, and whether feel offended by the Jeep Cherokee.

The whole story is told by two main trip lines: Irma Rosenberg’s encountering with a bunch of programmed Native people, and the rest of the group 5097’s trip. At the beginning of the virtual trip, as grandma Irma Rosenberg straps into the Chairsuit, she steps into another room-from inside of the First Cabin to the inside of a roofless log compound, where she meets approximately a thousand Native people who don’t even own their names. The fact that these Native people don’t have names provokes Irma’s curiosity, since she thinks that it may be a barrier for people to communicate with each other. Irma distinguishes people by appearance. However, as the Giant Hat said “One cannot be a target if one has no name,” as well as Indians Hat said “Someone can be conquered by our enemies, but once you have become no one, they can no longer conquer you.”(118) Why would the Natives discard their name ?

Name is a significant symbol and identity of individuals living in the society, and makes people’s existence in this world meaningful. In order to survive, the Natives that Irma meets would rather choose to abandon value, dignity, and even the right to own a name, though reluctantly. A tone of sadness and blueness flows from the description of these Natives, as Indians Hat said, “We‘re targets. We were programmed to be killed, then brought back to life.”(119) “We always begin again after we die, just to be killed again.” This implies that as a whole notion of American Indian, their fates are totally controlled by others, no matter in the game or in the real world. These people are highly marginalized as their mission is to die in different round of the virtual game, at the same time, in order to fit white people’s desire of occupying North Carolina, American Indians were kicked off from their homeland. They had names before, but their names are getting dangerous to them as they were exposed to the whites’ empowerment. I wonder what experience makes American Indian people non-named? Just as Irma thought “That’s worse than life in death,” the Trail of Tears must be even worse and cruel than what I thought. It’s a bullied-to-death.

In terms of name, the book not only talks about name itself, but also the meaning it reflects. The discussion about Jeep Cherokee were provokes by Spencer, one of the group member, who is a college student. Spencer, with a sudden realization, asked whether American Indians are offended by the Jeep Cherokee. It seems that “Cherokee” hasn’t drawn much attention to people before. Well, it’s hard to tell whether the name cross the line of culture or religion, but it is controversial and not ignorant. This group of tourists is further listing names like “Ford Semite”, “Hummer Hassid”, “Chevy Mexican”, “Chevy Jew”, “Mercury Mullah”, and “Plymouth Puritan”, while they are laughing and entertaining about all these weird names (145). It may seem that among all of the “religion”-related car names, Jeep Cherokee is not especially offensive. However, in each society, only Cherokee is struggling to get rid of marginalization. Mullah, Mexican, Puritan are all existing as a mainstream culture in different society, so none of them will be used for car name.

A name sometimes works as a symbol that is related to spiritual sustenance. When Irma asked where to go to all the Natives she met, they advocated North Carolina. Yankees Hat noted that “It’s beautiful there” without ever been to there. Irma wondered “How do you know how nice it is if you’ve never been there yourselves?” “We know,” answered Indians Hats. “We all know.” Irma said “You know, Tallulah Wilson called it the motherland too. She called it the motherland, she absolutely did.”(124) These natives were told to forget their own names, but they do remember and long for their motherland----North Carolina. North Carolina, not only a name, but a heaven, an expectation, and a homeland, symbolizes hope, which is more crucial than their names. This part is also an implication of the result of the tragic Trail of Tears：The Natives are living in the imagination of their motherland.

The story include the narrator’s personal experience on the studying the Trail of Tears. The narrator complains about the insufficient evidence that she could find regarding the events and facts. The narrator, Tallulah, concluded that the Trail was intentionally undocumented and that the quotations were anonymously concocted post-Removal by writers who melded shards of memory in the fires of nostalgia (173). The fact that the material for such a big historical event is inadequate makes me feel sympathetic for the Cherokee and whole American Indian people. Their names should be engraved into the human history, and their miserable experience should be documented specifically in the historical reference even in the Anglo-dominant society for the reason of respecting history. Nonetheless, the real situation depresses us.

In my perspective, the TREEP program of digital ride in the story gives people a warning: Don’t forget the tragedy of The Trails of Tears that Native Americans suffered. What we should do is to give them names, give them credits for the miserable episode in human history, and give their culture living space in American.

Y.L