The heavy doors of mahogany are dominated by a life sized Jesus in full frontal relief. He stands in sandals, draped in a pleated garment reminiscent of a late Roman consul. Elbows bent, his hands are extended in welcome. Jesus’s left hand is so close to the door handle that thousands preparing to come in have instinctively grasped his hand instead.

These exquisite “Christ Doors” lead visitors into the main building of the Simpsonwood Conference and Retreat Center in Norcross, on the Chattahoochee River some miles above Atlanta, Georgia.

My wife Mary and I were there in October 1997 with 55 others for an Elderhostel built around three themes: 

• Atlanta, 
• the Cherokees and 
• Television (especially Atlanta’s CNN). 

What stays with me  from that week is the abiding dignity and attractiveness of the Cherokee Nation.  One cool evening we sat in Simpsonwood’s rustic chapel and listened to Elderhostel Coordinator Ms Vi Tasker tell  the story of the 227 acre site. We were, she said, on land claimed 200 years ago by the Cherokees, seized from them in the 1830s by the State of Georgia, carved into counties and surveyed into plots: two of which plots now make up Simpsonwood. In 1974 Miss Lou Anna Simpson gave her land to grateful Atlanta Methodists.

Also bringing Simpsonwood’s long dead Indian owners back to life was Margaret Kelley’s course on Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee writing system, and his place in Cherokee history. This witty schoolteacher and former Tarheel now lives in Ringgold, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga. 

Ms Kelley’s course sketched Georgia history from the days of its chartering by King George II and founding in 1733 by James Edward Oglethorpe.  A drive by the Killoughs 50 miles north to Dahlonega reinforced Margaret’s picture of the State of Georgia’s relentless destruction of Cherokee human rights. For Dahlonega, well within Cherokee boundaries, had been the focus in 1828  of America’s first gold rush. It was not  long thereafter that Americans’ greed for gold  pushed the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears far westward across the Mississippi River and into Indian Territory. Chief Justice John Marshall denounced the Georgia land grabs. President Andrew Jackson declined to enforce the Court’s decision. General Winfield Scott escorted his 13,000 to 16,000 unhappy charges westward.

Before the Simpsonwood elderhostel I knew scattered bits and pieces of Cherokee history. My family has been in Texas since the 1830s and all good Texans learn that that Republic’s first President, Sam Houston, had been adopted by the Western Band of the Cherokee nation, given the name Raven and lived among them. During my teaching year in Oklahoma I visited the five capitals of all the “civilized” tribes. I counseled Indian students about possible careers in the U.S. Foreign Service. 

Our elderhostel teachers at Simpsonwood and our trip to the former gold fields at Dahlonega then shook fragments of memory into a new pattern   Also helpful was John Ehle’s 1988 book, TRAIL OF TEARS:THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CHEROKEE NATION.

There were admittedly some good guys and good gals: the missionaries and their families.  But prime candidates for villains were President Andrew Jackson and the leaders of the State of Georgia. Nor were earlier office-holders of the United States Government morally blameless, either. For at all times even the best of the Great White Fathers at least condoned a policy of bribing venal chiefs to make possible massive American land grabs.

Georgia arrested and jailed Moravian missionaries dwelling among the Cherokees. At flank speed many Cherokees became Christians and adopted American culture, farming, technology and printing. The Cherokees gave themselves a constitution modeled after that of the United States. But they went the Americans one better by formally invoking God in its text. The Cherokees proclaimed non-violence when the end of  their independence came nearer and nearer. But their meekness could not hold on to lands they had inherited or won in what are now parts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina. No amount of religious conversion, prayer and decent behavior could save the Cherokees when faced by the lust of white Christians for Cherokee land and gold.  The Cherokees tried to survive by  assimilating and adapting  American culture and values. The Americans, however, thought inter-racial peace was possible only by removing Cherokees utterly from their sight. 

The beautiful Christ Doors now welcome all visitors to Simpsonwood. The retreat center’s current owner, the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, is sorrowfully aware how its peaceful riverside estate was wrested from the Cherokees in anything but Christlke fashion. By telling the Cherokees’ glorious but unfair and tragic story with respect and regret, the Church consciously tries to make amends for the deeds of Christians in the past. 
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for Asheville TRIBUNE