The Cherokee were not ignorant savages, as some may have believed, but a highly sophistocated people. By 1825 they owned numerous and flourishing cities. They had a written language in which nearly 100% of the tribe was literate. They had a written constitution, based on the Constitution of the United States, their own schools, postal system, judicial system and a newspaper. They manufactured cotton and woolen clothing, cultivated farms and orchards, and carried on considerable trade with adjoining states. They maintained public roads and operated a brisk river trade.

But progress had been at a high price for the Cherokee. The tribe had ceded some of their South Carolina holdings to the white colony at Charleston in 1721. They had been persuaded to sell large portions of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee to an English land company in 1775. Despite the British government's promises to safeguard Cherokee land, the preserve was being devoured by the frontiersmen of the time. The tribe lost the remainder of their land holdings in North and South Carolina as well as most of Tennessee after the Revolutionary War due to their siding with the British.

In 1798, the Treaty of Tellico was signed by the U.S. Government and 39 Cherokee chiefs, binding the United States to "continue the guaranty of their (the Cherokee) country forever." At that time these lands consisted of approximately 43,000 square miles of land which had been reduced to around 15,000 by the year 1819. However, in 1802 the state of Georgia had ceded "unoccupied" western portions of their state which make up what is now the present states of Alabama and Mississippi to the U.S government in what was known as the "Georgia Compact." As a provision of this land cession, the United States would, at it's own expense, remove all indians from Georgia. Some of the Cherokee, having anticipated the loss of their homelands as early as the middle 1700's had already migrated to west of the Mississippi River. By 1815 there were nearly 3,000 Cherokee in what is now the state of Arkansas. The tribe was divided into the Western Band of Cherokee and the more numerous Eastern Band.

In 1828 the Cherokee had elected a new chief, Guwisguwi, also known by the English name of John Ross. This was an office he would continue to hold for 40 years. The Cherokee took their case against removal to the courts going as far as the Supreme Court in 1830, led by Chief John Ross. By this time the state of Georgia had extended their own state laws over the Cherokee and their nation. One of the "laws" was a ban against the indians mining gold which had been discovered on indian land earlier that same year. After the first lawsuit failed, a second suit went to the Supreme Court in 1832, this time under the direction of Reverend Samuel Worcester, a Vermont missionary who lived in the Cherokee nation. The suit was a success. The Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, declared that "the laws of Georgia can have no force" in the removal of the tribe. Despite the ruling by the Supreme Court, the federal government continued to pressure the Cherokee to remove. Then President Andrew Jackson sided with Georgia, as he had received much of his own support from western territories due to his reputation as an Indian fighter. Many Cherokee had fought beside him against the Creek Indians in 1814, and Jacksons own life had been saved by a Cherokee Chief named Junaluska.

A small group of about 500 Cherokee met with a U.S. commissioner in December of 1835 and signed a treaty ceding the last of the Cherokee land in the East to the United States. The remainder of the Cherokee were angry and bitter over this unrepresentative treaty. The treaty itself passed ratification in the U.S. Senate by only one vote, and then only after a close and bitter dispute, attesting to the support by many for the Cherokee Nation. Chief John Ross refused to recognize the treaty stating "It was made by a few unauthorized individuals and the Nation is not a party in it." Chief Ross circulated a petition among the 17,000 Eastern Cherokee which was signed by nearly 16,000 of them repudiating the treaty. The petition was ignored. Under the stipultions of the disputed, but still ratified treaty, the entire Cherokee Nation was to remove within 2 years.

General John E. Wool, who was sent to oversee the removal and prevent any trouble, asked to be relieved of his command on moral grounds after what he saw. He is quoted as saying, "If I could--and I could not do them a greater kindness--I would remove every Indian tomorrow beyond the reach of the white man, who like vultures, are waiting, ready to pounce upon their prey and strip them of everything they have." By the time the 2 year deadline arrived in May of 1838, only about 2,000 of the tribe had left their land behind to migrate west.

The U.S. government resorted to force. Seven thousand soldiers under the command of Major General Winfield S. Scott entered the Cherokee Nation to physically carry out the removal. General Scott made a heartrending plea to the Cherokee to remove without resistance stating"...I am an old warrior, and have been present at many a scene of slaughter, but spare me, I beseech you, the horror of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees." Chief John Ross had forbidden his people to forcefully resist despite the fact that many of the Cherokee were prepared to defend their land and home to the death. That the removal was as non-violent as it was, can be attributed to the efforts of these two great men. A small band of Cherokee who refused to comply with the removal escaped into the Smoky Mountains where their descendants still live today.

There were 13 stockade forts which had been set up at key areas to be used as collection points and detention centers. Squads of armed and mounted soldiers swooped down on the Cherokee cabins, homes, and farms, often surprising the inhabitants in the middle of the night. The Indians were taken prisoner and quickly marched off at bayonete point to the nearest concentration camp. Hot on the heels of the soldiers was a band of white rabble who quickly looted the Indian homes, ransacking, burning and even plundering graves.

The first group of 800 Cherokee began their journey by way of riverboat in June, quickly followed by four more detachments in the next few weeks. They were to travel up the Tennessee River to the Ohio River, then to the Mississippi River and eventually the Arkansas River to reach their destination. When news of the soaring death rate reached Chief Ross, he pleaded with General Scott to allow the Indians to oversee their own removal. Scott agreed to the proposal provided that all detachments would be on their way no later than the end of October. The Cherokee made arrangements with private contractors to transport the remaining 13,000 people on an overland route, which would allow them to find game for food along the way.

No sooner had the first group set out than trouble began. The estimated time to make the journey was 80 days at the longest, however in not one case did any detachment manage to complete their journey in less than 4 months. The detachments traveled west, in wagons and on foot, making progress of about 10 miles per day. Heavy rains had turned the primitive roads into mud, miring wagons axel deep. The weary travelers had to repeatedly drag the wagons free. At each stop along the way, they would bury their dead, sometimes 12 or 15 at one time. River crossings were the most dangerous obstacles. Profit-hungry contractors of the detachments often overloaded the inadequate ferries. The rivers were swollen by the unseasonably heavy rains and choked in places with ice of early winter, compounding the problem. On one Mississippi crossing, a ferry loaded to twice it's capacity sank in the middle of the river with only a few survivors.

Once across the Mississippi River the roads were even worse, with only trails to traverse through river bogs and wet-bottomed prarie. The early winter was a killing enemy to the travelers. In addition to the cold, they faced malnutrition. Those who were weakened by the hunger were easy victims of smallpox and cholera. Every stop along the way was littered with new graves. Many who were too ill to continue to travel were left behind because the march could not stop to wait for them. Few that fell behind ever made it to the end of the journey. They fell victim to either wild animals or to the even more viscious desperados who frequented the area, robbing and murdering along the trails.

When the last contingent of travelers reached their destination in March of 1839, and the tally was taken the results were startling. Of the nearly 17,000 Cherokee who began the journey westward, about 4,000 had died. Not one single family had escaped without a loss. Thus this journey and the forced removal became known as "Nunna daul Tsuny" to the Cherokee, which translates into "Trail Where They Cried." We know it best as the "Trail of Tears."

According to a legend, the mothers of the tribe shed so many tears along the way that the chiefs prayed for a sign which came in the form of a flower. The flower would grow wherever a mother's tears would fall. The flower is white, for the mother's tears; has 7 petals, one for each of the 7 clans of Cherokee which made the journey; and a gold center, for the gold that was taken from the Cherokee lands. It is called the Cherokee Rose and ironically it is the state Flower of Georgia.


The painting at the top of this page is "Trail of Tears" by Robert Lindneux.
The Woolaroc Museum

My information sources for this page was the book "Trail of Tears" by Lillian Morris and Philip Proctoer, which was copyright in 1970 by Mankind Publishing Co. and from research in various encyclopedias and history textbooks.

If you would like to learn more about the "Trail of Tears" than I have provided here, I would like to suggest you visit this site: North Georgia History, Native Americans in North Georgia.

You may click HERE to return to my Native American Pages.