History and Gratitude

I have recently returned to trying to trace the trail of Chief Johnson through his early life, with little more success than before. Some of this is due to the areas in which he was born and raised. There were no parishes there to supply church records, the U.S. Census didn't get around to the Oklahoma and Indian territories until 1890, and prior to the 1870s, many people in those areas never went through formal wedding ceremonies, meaning that, even if they lived as husband and wife for decades in common-law marriages. there are no marriage licenses on file. Birth certificates? If lucky, there is a record in a family Bible or a church register; if not, the chance of finding an official birth registration is slim outside the largest cities of the region. Death certificates are equally hard to come by; for instance, the state of Texas didn't start requiring all Texas counties to issue death certificates until 1903.

Even if any records were kept, they often fell victim to fire and war, as happened with the archives held in official buildings in the Cherokee Nation's capital of Tahlequah, which were lost during the Civil War. If there were ever records of Chief Johnson's Cherokee mother or her marriage, they were probably casualties of a conflict that tore the Cherokee people apart as bitterly as it did whites in the eastern states. Poor storage conditions also led to loss of documents that might have supplied written history. For most people whose activities did not bring them to the attention of those newspapers that still have archives available, time was a river that carried them into oblivion, at least so far as human memory is concerned.

Although my search hasn't turned up much in the way of hard facts, it has introduced me to a nineteenth-century world much different from the one I now inhabit---and, frankly, a world that brings home to me how soft and spoiled I am. Consider just these facts, which informed the worldview of periodicals of the time:

• At least three in every ten children didn't make it to adulthood, and most of the lost children died before the age of five.
• Diseases such as malaria, cholera, influenza, measles, and smallpox were part of life and caused much early mortality. There were no vaccinations available for most of these maladies.
• Accidents involving horses were commonplace, due both to the animals' skittish or aggressive behavior and to human negligence, recklessness, and cruelty. Modern medical care probably could have saved many victims but was not around then.
• Infected wounds were another constant hazard in an age without antibiotics or antiseptic agents. A small cut picked up during the course of a day's work on the farm or in one's trade could be fatal if blood poisoning set in.
• Weather-related delays in transportation and services as well as destruction caused by storms and deaths related to temperature extremes (particularly cold) were commonplace.
• Racial and sex-related attitudes that would be considered shocking today were widespread among people at all social levels and from varied ethnic backgrounds.
• Cities struggled with sanitation problems similar to those seen in developing countries today, with disposal of human and animal waste being a constant issue. Contaminated water and associated disease were common.

There is a great deal more that could be said, but I for one am very glad to be living now, with the necessities of life readily available, a greater range of opportunities available to me as a woman, and a wide array of comforts and amusements available on even a modest income, including everyday luxuries that a king could not obtain in the pre-World War I world. If history teaches nothing else, perhaps it should teach gratitude for having what we do instead of whining about what we don't.