"Being Indian is mainly in your heart. It's a way of walking with the earth instead of upon it. A lot of the history books talk about us Indians in the past tense, but we don't plan on going anywhere... We have lost so much, but the thing that holds us together is that we all belong to and are protectors of the earth; that's the reason for us being here. Mother Earth is not a resource, she is an heirloom."

David Ipinia, Yurok Artist, Sacramento, CA

"There is no such thing as 'part-Cherokee.' Either you're Cherokee or you’re not.

It isn't the quantity of Cherokee blood in your veins that is important, but the quality of it . . . your pride in it. I have seen full-bloods who have virtually no idea of the great legacy entrusted to their care. Yet, I have seen people with as little as 1/500th blood quantum who inspire the spirits of their ancestors because they make being Cherokee a proud part of their everyday life."

Jim Pell: Principal Chief of the North Alabama Cherokee Tribe

Various articles from websites about the history of the Trail of Tears in the Removal Cherokee Nation from their homelands.

I have gathered together various websites that discuss the history of the Trail of Tears and the removal of the Cherokee Nation from their homelands. I have included links to these websites as you should also visit them and support them as they have much more information on their blogs and sites about the Cherokee and traditions, other histories, etc.

Cherokee Removal - The Trail Where They Cried
nu na hi du na tlo hi lu i

Cherokee Removal-Trail of Tears

Compiled by Barbara Shining Woman Warren

(Taken from Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, Comprehensive Management and Use Plan, US Dept of Interior, National Park Service, published 1992. The quotations have been added to the original document)

"There were ten million Native Americans on this continent when the first non-Indians arrived. Over the next 300 years, 90% of all Native American original population was either wiped out by disease, famine, or warfare imported by the whites."

By 1840 all the eastern tribes had been subdued, annihilated or forcibly removed to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi.

The discovery of the New World by European explorers caused endless problems for American Indians, whose homelands were gradually taken from them and whose cultures were dramatically altered, and in some cases destroyed, by the invasion.

The first contact between southeastern American Indians and Europeans was the expedition of Hernando de Soto in 1540. De Soto took captives for use as slave labor, while others were abused because the Europeans deemed them savages. Epidemic diseases brought by the Europeans spread through the Indian villages, decimating native populations.

Over the next two centuries more and more white settlers arrived, and the native cultures responded to pressures to adopt the foreign ways, leading to the deterioration of their own culture. During the colonial period Indian tribes often became embroiled in European colonial wars. If they were on the losing side, they frequently had to give up parts of their homelands.

After the American Revolution the Indians faced another set of problems. Even though it took time for the new government to establish a policy for dealing with the Indians, the precedent had been set during the colonial period. The insatiable desire of white settlers for lands occupied by Indian people inevitably led to the formulation of a general policy of removing the unwanted inhabitants.

Political leaders including President Thomas Jefferson believed that the Indians should be civilized, which to him meant converting them to Christianity and turning them into farmers. Many other whites agreed, and missionaries were sent among the tribes. But when the transformation did not happen quickly enough, views changed about the Indian people's ability to be assimilated into white culture.

"We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for...we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go...to let it go it will be like throwing away...[our] mother that gave...[us] birth."

~ Letter from Aitooweyah, to John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees.

National policy to move Indians west of the Mississippi developed after the Louisiana Territory was purchased from the French in 1803. Whites moving onto these lands pressed the U.S. government to do something about the Indian presence. In 1825 the U.S. government formally adopted a removal policy, which was carried out extensively in the 1830's by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. The result was particularly overwhelming for the Indians of the southeastern United States - primarily the Cherokee, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles - who were finally removed hundreds of miles to a new home.

Perhaps the most culturally devastating episode of this era is that concerning the removal of the Cherokee Indians, who called themselves Ani Yun wiya. Traditionally the Cherokees had lived in villages in the southern Appalachians - present-day Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, western North Carolina, and South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. Here in a land of valleys, ridges, mountains, and streams they developed a culture based on farming, hunting, and fishing.

The Cherokees took on some of the ways of white society. They built European-style homes and farmsteads, laid out European-style fields and farms, developed a written language, established a newspaper, and wrote a constitution. But they found that they were not guaranteed equal protection under the law and that they could not prevent whites from seizing their lands. They were driven from their homes, herded into internment camps, and moved by force to a strange land.

Cherokee Relations With The U.S. Government

Beginning in 1791 a series of treaties between the United States and the Cherokees living in Georgia gave recognition to the Cherokees as a nation with their own laws and customs. Nevertheless, treaties and agreements gradually whittled away at this land base, and in the late 1700's some Cherokees sought refuge from white interference by moving to northwestern Arkansas between the White and Arkansas rivers. As more and more land cessions were forced on the Cherokees during the first two decades of the 1800's, the number moving to Arkansas increased. Then in 1819 the Cherokee National council notified the federal government that it would no longer cede land, thus hardening their resolve to remain on their dispute traditional homelands.

States' Rights Issue

The Cherokee situation was further complicated by the issue of state's rights and a prolonged dispute between Georgia and the federal government. In 1802 Georgia was the last of the original colonies to cede its western lands to the federal government. In doing so, Georgia expected all titles to the land held by Indians to be extinguished. However, that did not happen, and the Principal People continued to occupy their ancestral homelands, which had been guaranteed to them by treaty. "...Inclination to remove from this land has no abiding place in our hearts, and when we move we shall move by the course of nature to sleep under this ground which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors and which now covers them in their undisturbed peace."

~ Cherokee Legislative Council New Echota July 1830

Georgia residents resented the Cherokees success in holding onto their tribal lands and governing themselves. Settlers continued to encroach on Cherokee lands, as well as those belonging to the neighboring Creek Indians. In 1828 Georgia passed a law pronouncing all laws of the Cherokee Nation to be null and void after June 1, 1830, forcing the issue of states' rights with the federal government. Because the state no longer recognized the rights of the Cherokees, tribal meetings had to held just across the state line at Red Clay, Tennessee. When gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1829, efforts to dislodge the Principal People from their lands were intensified. At the same time President Andrew Jackson began to aggressively implement a broad policy of extinguishing Indian land titles in affected states and relocating the Indian population.

"No eastern tribe had struggled harder or more successfully to make white civilization their own. For generations the Cherokee had lived side by side with whites in Georgia. They had devised a written language, published their own newspaper, adopted a constitution, and a Christian faith. But after gold was discovered on their land, even they were told they would have to start over again in the West."

~ The West, a documentary by Ken Burns and Stephen Ives

Supreme Court Cases

In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which directed the executive branch to negotiate for Indian lands. This act, in combination with the discovery of gold and an increasingly untenable position with the state of Georgia, prompted the Cherokee Nation to bring suit in the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for the majority, held that the Cherokee Nation was a "domestic dependent nation," and therefore Georgia state law applied to them.

That decision, however, was reversed the following year in Worcester v. Georgia. Under an 1830 law Georgia required all white residents in Cherokee country to secure a license from the governor and to take an oath of allegiance to the state. Missionaries Samuel A. Worcester and Elizur Butler refused and were convicted and imprisoned. Worcester appealed to the Supreme Court. This time the court found that Indian nations are capable of making treaties, that under the Constitution treaties are the supreme law of the land, that the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation, and that state law had no force within the Cherokee boundaries. Worcester was ordered released from jail.

President Jackson refused to enforce the court's decision and along with legal technicalities, the fate of the Principal People seemed to be in the hands of the federal government. Even though the Cherokee people had adopted many practices of the white culture, and had used the court system in two major Supreme Court cases, they were unable to halt the removal process.

"John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."

~ President Andrew Jackson re: Worcester v. Georgia

Treaty of New Echota

The state of Georgia continued to press for Indian lands, and a group of Cherokees known as the Treaty Party began negotiating a treaty with the federal government. The group led by Major Ridge and including his son John, Elias Boudinot, and his brother Stand Watie, signed a treaty at New Echota in 1835. Despite the majority opposition to this treaty - opposition led by Principal Chief John Ross - the eastern lands were sold for $5 million, and the Cherokees agreed to move beyond the Mississippi River to Indian Territory. The Senate ratified the treaty despite knowledge that only a minority of Cherokees had accepted it. Within two years the Principal People were to move from their ancestral homelands.

The Roundup

"My friends, circumstances render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach, and that is to remove to the west. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity."

~ Andrew Jackson

President Martin Van Buren ordered the implementation of the Treaty of New Echota in 1838, and U.S. Army troops under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott began rounding up the Cherokees and moving them into stockades in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Altogether 31 forts were constructed for this purpose - 13 in Georgia, five in North Carolina, eight in Tennessee, and five in Alabama. All of the posts were near Cherokee towns, and they served only as temporary housing for the Cherokees.

As soon as practical, the Indians were transferred from the removal forts to 11 internment camps that were more centrally located - 10 in Tennessee and one in Alabama. In North Carolina, for example, Cherokees at the removal forts were sent to Fort Butler, and by the second week in July on to the principal agency at Fort Cass. By late July 1838, with the exception of the Oconaluftee Citizen Indians, the fugitives hiding in the mountains, and some scattered families, virtually all other Cherokees remaining in the East were in the internment camps.

According to a military report for July 1838, the seven camps in and around Charleston, Tennessee, contained more than 4,800 Cherokees: 700 at the agency post, 600 at Rattlesnake Spring, 870 at the first encampment on Mouse Creek, 1,600 at the second encampment of Mouse Creek, 900 at Bedwell Springs, 1,300 on Chestooee, 700 on the ridge east of the agency, and 600 on the Upper Chatate. Some 2,000 Cherokees were camped at Gunstocker Spring 13 miles from Calhoun, Tennessee.

One group of Cherokees did not leave the mountains of North Carolina. This group traced their origin to an 1819 treaty that gave them an allotment of land and American citizenship on lands not belonging to the Cherokee Nation. When the forced removal came in 1838, this group--now called the Oconaluftee Cherokees - claimed the 1835 treaty did not apply to them as they no longer lived on Cherokee lands. Tsali and his sons were involved in raids on the U.S. soldiers who were sent to drive the Cherokees to the stockades. The responsible Indians were punished by the army, but the rest of the group gained permission to stay, and North Carolina ultimately recognized their rights. Fugitive Cherokees from the nation also joined the Oconaluftee Cherokees, and in time this group became the Eastern Band of Cherokees, who still reside in North Carolina.

Trail Where They Cried nu na hi du na tlo hi lu i

"One by one Indian peoples were removed to the West. The Delaware, the Ottawa, Shawnee, Pawnee and Potawatomi, the Sauk and Fox, Miami and Kickapoo, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole. In all some 90 thousand Indians were relocated. The Cherokee were among the last to go. Some reluctantly agreed to move. Others were driven from their homes at bayonet point. Almost two thousand of them died along the route they remembered as the Trail of Tears."

~ Documentary: The West (Ken Burns/Stephen Ives)

During the roundup intimidation and acts of cruelty at the hands of the troops, along with the theft and destruction of property by local residents, further alienated the Cherokees. Finally, Chief Ross appealed to President Van Buren to permit the Cherokees to oversee their own removal. Van Buren consented, and Ross and his brother Lewis administered the effort. The Cherokees were divided into 16 detachments of about 1,000 each.

Water Route

Three detachments of Cherokees, totaling about 2,800 persons, traveled by river to Indian Territory. The first of these groups left on June 6 by steamboat and barge from Ross's Landing on the Tennessee River (present-day Chattanooga). They followed the Tennessee as it wound across northern Alabama, including a short railroad detour around the shoals between Decatur and Tuscumbia Landing. The route then headed north through central Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio River. The Ohio took them to the Mississippi River, which they followed to the mouth of the Arkansas River. The Arkansas led northwest to Indian Territory, and they arrived aboard a steamboat at the mouth of Salisaw Creek near Fort Coffee on June 19, 1838. The other two groups suffered more because of a severe drought and disease (especially among the children), and they did not arrive in Indian Territory until the end of the summer.

Land Routes

The rest of the Principal People traveled to Indian Territory overland on existing roads. They were organized into detachments ranging in size from 700 to 1,600, with each detachment headed by a conductor and an assistant conductor appointed by John Ross. The Cherokees who had signed the treaty of New Echota were moved in a separate detachment conducted by John Bell and administered by US. Army Lt. Edward Deas. A physician, and perhaps a clergyman, usually accompanied each detachment. Supplies of flour and corn, and occasionally salt pork, coffee, and sugar, were obtained in advance, but were generally of poor quality. Drought and the number of people being moved reduced forage for draft animals, which often were used to haul possessions, while the people routinely walked.

The most commonly used overland route followed a northern alignment, while other detachments (notably those led by John Being and John Bell) followed more southern routes, and some followed slight variations. The northern route started at, Tennessee, and crossed central Tennessee, southwestern Kentucky, and southern Illinois. After crossing the Mississippi River north of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, these detachments trekked across southern Missouri and the northwest corner of Arkansas.

Road conditions, illness, and the distress of winter, particularly in southern Illinois while detachments waited to cross the ice-choked Mississippi, made death a daily occurrence. Mortality rates for the entire removal and its aftermath were substantial, totaling approximately 8,000.

"I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the west....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm with freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March the 26th 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold and exposure..."

~ Private John G. Burnett
Captain Abraham McClellan's Company,
2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39

Most of the land route detachments entered present-day Oklahoma near Westville and were often met by a detachment of US. troops from Fort Gibson and the Arkansas River. The army officially received the Cherokees, who generally went to live with those who had already arrived, or awaited land assignments while camped alone the Illinois River and its tributaries east of present-day Tahlequah.

Aftermath

In the Indian Territory problems quickly developed among the new arrivals and Cherokees who had already settled, especially as reprisals were taken against the contingent who had signed the Treaty of New Echota. As these problems were resolved, the Cherokees proceeded to adapt to their new homeland, and they reestablished their own system of government, which was modeled on that of the United States.

"A common ancestry promotes understanding between Cherokee full bloods and the mixed bloods. They are poles apart in many respects but, under the skin, are still brothers. For one thing, they have Cherokee traditions in common, and no amount of white blood can dilute the remembrance of what happened in centuries past to the Cherokee people."

~ Grace Steele Woodward

Tribal government was headquartered in Tahlequah and adhered to a constitution that divided responsibilities among an elected principal chief, an elected legislature know as the National Council, and a supreme court with lesser courts. Local districts with elected officials, similar to counties, formed the basis of the nation. The Cherokees maintained a bilingual school system, and missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions were active in the nation.

This autonomy remained reasonably strong until the Civil War, when a faction of the Cherokees sided with the Confederacy. During Reconstruction they suffered a loss of self-government and, more importantly, their land base. Government annuities were reduced, and lands were sold to newly arrived tribes. Cessions of land continued during the later 19th century, and the federal government emerged as the major force for land cessions under the Dawes Act of 1887, which divided up tribal lands. The establishment of the state of Oklahoma in 1907 increased pressure for land cessions. Many people of questionable Cherokee ancestry managed to get on the tribal rolls and participate in the allotment of these lands to individuals. By the early 1970's the Western Cherokees had lost title to over 19 million acres of land.

Difficult times continued because of the effects of the 1930's depression and the government policy to relocate Indians from tribal areas to urban America. Many Cherokees found themselves in urban slums with a lack of basic needs. Differences also emerged between traditionalists and those who adapted to mainstream society. During the 1970's and after, however, the Cherokees' situation improved because of self rule and economic programs.

Throughout the years, the Cherokees have sought to maintain much of their original cultural identity. To increase public awareness of their heritage, many of them have advocated the designation of the Trail of Tears as a historic trail.

"The Cherokee are probably the most tragic instance of what could have succeeded in American Indian policy and didn't. All these things that Americans would proudly see as the hallmarks of civilization are going to the West by Indian people. They do everything they were asked except one thing. What the Cherokees ultimately are, they may be Christian, they may be literate, they may have a government like ours, but ultimately they are Indian. And in the end, being Indian is what kills them."

Trail of Tears

From the Trail of Tears by History.com

https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears

Contents:
1. The 'Indian Problem'
2. Indian Removal
3. Trail of Tears

At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears.

The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved). Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this “Indian problem” was simply to “civilize” the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English, and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, African slaves). In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs and became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and rights and encroaching on their territory. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations “in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have no force.” Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would “[fall]…still born.” Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands and would go to great lengths to secure this territory.

Indian Removal

Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal.” As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers. As president, he continued this crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. (This “Indian territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma.)

The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their land. However, President Jackson and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations. In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched double file,” one historian writes) and without any food, supplies or other help from the government. Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death.”

The Trail of Tears

The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the government’s determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions. In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property. To the federal government, the treaty was a done deal, but many of the Cherokee felt betrayed; after all, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. “The instrument in question is not the act of our nation,” wrote the nation’s principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the treaty. “We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.” Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross’s petition, but Congress approved the treaty anyway.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while whites looted their homes and belongings. Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were epidemic along the way, and historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.

By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian territory was gone for good.

Citation Information

Article Title

Trail of Tears

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears

Access Date

September 23, 2019

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 3, 2019

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009

Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears

Andrew Jackson's Policy of Indian Removal Led to the Notorious Trail of Tears

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-trail-of-tears-1773597

By Robert McNamara

The Indian Removal policy of President Andrew Jackson was prompted by the desire of white settlers in the South to expand into lands belonging to five Indian tribes. After Jackson succeeded in pushing the Indian Removal Act through Congress in 1830, the U.S. government spent nearly 30 years forcing Indians to move westward, beyond the Mississippi River.

In the most notorious example of this policy, more than 15,000 members of the Cherokee tribe were forced to walk from their homes in the southern states to designated Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma in 1838. Many died along the way.

This forced relocation became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the great hardship faced by Cherokees. In brutal conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears.

Conflicts With Settlers Led to Indian Removal

There had been conflicts between whites and Native Americans since the first white settlers arrived in North America. But in the early 1800s, the issue had come down to white settlers encroaching on Indian lands in the southern United States.

Five Indian tribes were located on land that would be highly sought for settlement, especially as it was prime land for the cultivation of cotton. The tribes on the land were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.

Over time the tribes in the south tended to adopt white ways such as taking up farming in the tradition of white settlers and in some cases even buying and owning African American slaves.

These efforts at assimilation led to the tribes becoming known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Yet taking up the ways of the white settlers did not mean the Indians would be able to keep their lands.

In fact, settlers hungry for land were actually dismayed to see Indians, contrary to all the propaganda about them being savages, adopt the farming practices of the white Americans.

The Attitude of Andrew Jackson Toward Indians

The accelerated desire to relocate Indians to the West was a consequence of the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Jackson had a long and complicated history with Indians, having grown up in frontier settlements where stories of Indian attacks were common.

At various times in his early military career, Jackson had been allied with Indian tribes but had also waged brutal campaigns against Indians. His attitude toward Native Americans was not unusual for the times, though by today’s standards he would be considered a racist as he believed Indians to be inferior to whites.

One way to view Jackson’s attitude toward Indians was that he was paternalistic, believing the Indians to be like children who needed guidance. And by that way of thinking, Jackson may well have believed that forcing the Indians to move hundreds of miles westward may have been for their own good, as they would never fit in with white society.

Of course, the Indians, not to mention sympathetic white people ranging from religious figures in the North to the backwoods hero turned Congressman Davy Crockett, saw things quite differently.

To this day Andrew Jackson's legacy is often tied to his attitudes toward Native Americans.

According to an article in the Detroit Free Press in 2016, many Cherokees, to this day, will not use $20 bills because they bear the likeness of Jackson.

The political leader of the Cherokee tribe, John Ross, was the son of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother. He was destined for a career as a merchant, as his father had been, but became involved in tribal politics and in 1828 Ross was elected the tribal chief of the Cherokee.

In 1830, Ross and the Cherokee took the audacious step of trying to retain their lands by filing suit against the state of Georgia. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Marshall, while avoiding the central issue, ruled that the states could not assert control over the Indian tribes.

According to legend, President Jackson scoffed, saying, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

And no matter what the Supreme Court ruled, the Cherokees did face serious obstacles. Vigilante groups in Georgia attacked them, and John Ross was nearly killed in one attack.

Indian Tribes Were Forcibly Removed

In the 1820s, the Chickasaws, under pressure, began moving westward. The U.S. Army began forcing the Choctaws to move in 1831. The French author Alexis de Tocqueville, on his landmark trip to America, witnessed a party of Choctaws struggling to cross the Mississippi with great hardship in the dead of winter.

The leaders of the Creeks were imprisoned in 1837, and 15,000 Creeks were forced to move westward. The Seminoles, based in Florida, managed to fight a long war against the U.S. Army until they finally moved westward in 1857.

The Cherokees Were Forced to Move Westward Along the Trail of Tears

Despite legal victories by the Cherokees, the United States government began to force the tribe to move west, to present-day Oklahoma, in 1838.

A considerable force of the U.S. Army -- more than 7,000 men -- was ordered by President Martin Van Buren, who followed Jackson in office, to remove the Cherokees. General Winfield Scott commanded the operation, which became notorious for the cruelty shown to the Cherokee people. Soldiers in the operation later expressed regret for what they had been ordered to do.

Cherokees were rounded up in camps and farms which had been in their families for generations were awarded to white settlers.

The forced march of more than 15,000 Cherokees began in late 1838. And in the cold winter conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokee died while trying to walk the 1,000 miles to the land where they had been ordered to live.

The forced relocation of the Cherokee thus became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

Cherokee removal

Cherokee Removal: Wikipedia

This is just some of the sections from the Wikipedia entry on Cherokee Removal

Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation between 1836 and 1839 of the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Alabama to the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the then Western United States, and the resultant deaths along the way and at the end of the movement of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee.

The Cherokee have come to call the event Nu na da ul tsun yi (the place where they cried); another term is Tlo va sa (our removal)—both phrases not used at the time, and seems to be of Choctaw origin. Removal actions (voluntary, reluctantly or forcibly) occurred to other American Indian groups in the American South, North, Midwest, Southwest, and the Plains regions. The Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and (Muskogee) were removed reluctantly. The Seminole in Florida resisted removal by the United States Army for decades (1817–1850) with guerrilla warfare, part of the intermittent Native American Wars that lasted from 1540 to 1924. Some Seminole remained in their Florida home country, while others were transported to Native American Territory in shackles.

The phrase "Trail of Tears" is used to refer to similar events endured by other Indian groups, especially among the "Five Civilized Tribes". The phrase originated as a description of the voluntary removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831.

^Beginnings:

In the fall of 1835, a census was taken by civilian officials of the US War Department to enumerate Cherokee residing in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, with a count of 16,542 Cherokee, 201 inter-married whites, and 1592 slaves (total: 18,335 people). Tensions between the indigenous Cherokee and white settlers developed over ownership of the land rich in gold deposits and fertile soil that could be used for farming cotton. In October of that year, Principal Chief John Ross and an Eastern visitor, John Howard Payne, were kidnapped from Ross' Tennessee home by a renegade group of the Georgia militia. Released, Ross and a delegation of tribal leaders traveled to Washington, DC to protest this high-handed action, and to lobby against the removal policy of President Andrew Jackson. In an effort to reach an agreeable compromise Principal Chief John Ross met with President Jackson to discuss the possibility that Cherokee might give up some of their land for money and land to the west of the Mississippi River. Jackson turned this deal down resulting in Ross suggesting $20 million as a base for negotiating the sale of the land and eventually agreeing to let the US Senate decide the sale price.
John Ross estimated the value of Cherokee Land at $7.23 million. A conservative estimate by Matthew T. Gregg in 2009 puts Cherokee's land value for the 1838 market at $7,055,469.70, more than $2 million over the $5 million the senate agreed to pay. In this power vacuum, U.S. Agent John F. Schermerhorn gathered a group of dissident Cherokee in the home of Elias Boudinot at the tribal capital, New Echota, Georgia. There on December 29, 1835, this rump group signed the unauthorized Treaty of New Echota, which exchanged Cherokee land in the East for lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian Territory. This agreement was never accepted by the elected tribal leadership or a majority of the Cherokee people. In February 1836, two councils convened at Red Clay, Tennessee and at Valley Town, North Carolina (now Murphy, North Carolina) and produced two lists totaling some 13,000 names written in the Sequoyah writing script of Cherokee opposed to the Treaty. The lists were dispatched to Washington, DC and presented by Chief Ross to Congress. Nevertheless, a slightly modified version of the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a single vote on May 23, 1836, and signed into law by President Jackson. The treaty provided a grace period until May 1838 for the tribe to voluntarily remove themselves to Indian Territory.

Growth in cotton farming and agriculture:

Until widespread use of the cotton gin, short-staple cotton had been such an arduous crop to grow and process because of the time-consuming process of removing the sticky seeds from each of the individual boles of cotton. This process took so long that it was nearly unprofitable to grow cotton. The increased ease of cotton production due to access to the Cotton Gin, invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, which used teeth to comb through the fluffy fibers and remove all of the seeds in a much more efficient manner, led to a major rise in the production of cotton in the south near North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. Production increased from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850, earning the south the nickname King Cotton for its success. Matthew T. Gregg writes that "According to the 1835 Cherokee census enumerators, 1,707,900 acres in the Cherokee Nation in Georgia were tillable." This land was valuable farming land, with the ideal climate and the necessary 200 frost-free days for growing cotton, and would have been crucial in supporting the cotton industry's monumental growth, as would have increased ease of transportation due to railroads. The Cherokee Indians typically grew small family farms and only planted what was needed to survive alongside hunting and gathering. Some, however, heeded Silas Dinsmoor's advice. They took advantage of the growing demand for cotton and began to farm it themselves, asking for cotton cards, cotton gins, and spinning wheels from the United States Government. As immigration increased rapidly throughout the 1820s and 1830s, and by 1850 approximately 2.6 million people immigrated to the United States, the government saw that the land could be used for more than just small family crops and could provide a source of income for the farmers immigrating to the south and needing farmable land. The Cherokees that did farm cotton in excess for selling became a threat to the settlers that were hoping to capitalize on the cotton industry by taking away not only valuable farm land but also adding more cotton to the market which could reduce the demand and the price, thus prompting the pursuit of a removal treaty.

Georgia Gold Rush:

These tensions between Georgia's and the Cherokee Nation were brought to a crisis by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the first gold rush in U.S. history. Hopeful gold speculators began trespassing on Cherokee lands, and pressure began to mount on the Georgia government to fulfill the promises of the Compact of 1802.

When Georgia moved to extend state laws over Cherokee tribal lands in 1830, the matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Marshall court ruled that the Cherokee were not a sovereign and independent nation, and therefore refused to hear the case. However, in Worcester v. State of Georgia (1832), the Court ruled that Georgia could not impose laws in Cherokee territory, since only the national government — not state governments — had authority in Indian affairs.

President Andrew Jackson has often been quoted as defying the Supreme Court with the words, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" Jackson probably never said this, but he was fully committed to the policy. He had no desire to use the power of the national government to protect the Cherokee from Georgia, since he was already entangled with states' rights issues in what became known as the nullification crisis. With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. Congress had given Jackson authority to negotiate removal treaties, exchanging Indian land in the East for land west of the Mississippi River. Jackson used the dispute with Georgia to put pressure on the Cherokee to sign a removal treaty.

^{Georgia and the Cherokee Nation:}

The rapidly expanding population of the United States early in the 19th century created tensions with Native American tribes located within the borders of the various states. While state governments did not want independent Indian enclaves within state boundaries, Indian tribes did not want to relocate or to give up their distinct identities.

With the Compact of 1802, the state of Georgia relinquished to the national government its western land claims (which became the states of Alabama and Mississippi). In exchange, the national government promised to eventually conduct treaties to relocate those Indian tribes living within Georgia, thus giving Georgia control of all land within its borders.

However, the Cherokee, whose ancestral tribal lands overlapped the boundaries of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama, declined to move. They established a capital in 1825 at New Echota (near present-day Calhoun, Georgia). Furthermore, led by principal Chief John Ross and Major Ridge, the speaker of the Cherokee National Council, the Cherokee adopted a written constitution on 26 July 1827, declaring the Cherokee Nation to be a sovereign and independent nation.

With this constitution, an election was held for Principal Chief. John Ross won the first election and became the leader and representative of the tribe. In 1828, the Cherokee government established a law that addressed the issue of removal. The law stated that anyone who signed an agreement with the United States that addressed the Cherokee land without consent of the Cherokee government would be considered treasonous and could be punishable by death.

The Cherokee land that was lost proved to be extremely valuable. Upon these lands were the alignments for the future rights-of-way for rail and road communications between the eastern Piedmont slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, the Ohio River in Kentucky and the Tennessee River Valley at Chattanooga. This location is still a strategic economic asset and is the basis for the tremendous success of Atlanta, Georgia, as a regional transportation and logistics center. Georgia's appropriation of these lands from the Cherokee kept the wealth out of the hands of the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee lands in Georgia were settled upon by the Cherokee for the simple reason that they were and still are the shortest and most easily traversed route between the only fresh water sourced settlement location at the southeastern tip of the Appalachian range (the Chattahoochee River), and the natural passes, ridges, and valleys which lead to the Tennessee River at what is today, Chattanooga. From Chattanooga there was and is the potential for a year-round water transport to St. Louis and the west (via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers), or to as far east as Pittsburgh, PA.

Treaty of New Echota:

With the landslide reelection of Andrew Jackson in 1832, some of the most strident Cherokee opponents of removal began to rethink their positions. Led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie, they became known as the "Ridge Party", or the "Treaty Party". The Ridge Party believed that it was in the best interest of the Cherokee to get favorable terms from the U.S. government, before white squatters, state governments, and violence made matters worse. John Ridge began unauthorized talks with the Jackson administration in the late 1820s. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Cherokee removal, the state of Georgia began holding lotteries in order to divide up the Cherokee tribal lands among white Georgians.

However, Principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokee people remained adamantly opposed to removal. Political maneuvering began: Chief Ross canceled the tribal elections in 1832, the Council threatened to impeach the Ridges, and a prominent member of the Treaty Party (John Walker, Jr.) was murdered. The Ridges responded by eventually forming their own council, representing only a fraction of the Cherokee people. This split the Cherokee Nation into two factions: those following Ross, known as the National Party, and those of the Treaty Party, who elected William A. Hicks, who had briefly succeeded his brother Charles R. Hicks as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation to act as titular leader of the pro-Treaty faction, with former National Council clerk Alexander McCoy as his assistant.

John Ross states in his letter to congress, "By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty. We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations."

In 1835, Jackson appointed Reverend John F. Schermerhorn as a treaty commissioner. The U.S. government proposed to pay the Cherokee Nation US$4.5 million (among other considerations) to remove themselves. These terms were rejected in October 1835 by the Cherokee Nation Council meeting at Red Clay. Chief Ross, attempting to bridge the gap between his administration and the Ridge Party, traveled to Washington with a party that included John Ridge and Stand Watie to open new negotiations, but they were turned away and told to deal with Schermerhorn.

Meanwhile, Schermerhorn organized a meeting with the pro-removal council members at New Echota, Georgia. Only five hundred Cherokee (out of thousands) responded to the summons, and, on December 30, 1835, twenty-one proponents of Cherokee removal (Major Ridge, Elias Boudinot, James Foster, Testaesky, Charles Moore, George Chambers, Tahyeske, Archilla Smith, Andrew Ross (younger brother of Chief John Ross), William Lassley, Caetehee, Tegaheske, Robert Rogers, John Gunter, John A. Bell, Charles Foreman, William Rogers, George W. Adair, James Starr, and Jesse Halfbreed), signed or left "X" marks on the Treaty of New Echota after those present voted unanimously for its approval. John Ridge and Stand Watie signed the treaty when it was brought to Washington. Chief Ross, as expected, refused.

This treaty gave up all the Cherokee land east of the Mississippi in return for five million dollars to be disbursed on a per capita basis, an additional half-million dollars for educational funds, title in perpetuity to an amount of land in Indian Territory equal to that given up, and full compensation for all property left in the East. There was also a clause in the treaty as signed allowing Cherokee who so desired to remain and become citizens of the states in which they resided on 160 acres (0.65 km²) of land, but that was later stricken out by President Jackson.

Despite the protests by the Cherokee National Council and principal Chief Ross that the document was a fraud, Congress ratified the treaty on May 23, 1836, by just one vote.

Removal Process:

The process of Cherokee removal took place in three stages. It began with the voluntary removal of those in favor of the treaty, who were willing to accept government support and move west on their own in the two years after the signing of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. Most of the Cherokee, including Chief John Ross, were outraged and unwilling to move, and they reacted with opposition. They did not believe the government would take any action against them if they elected to stay. However, the U.S. army was sent in, and the forced removal stage began. The Cherokee were herded violently into internment camps, where they were kept for the summer of 1838. The actual transportation west was delayed by intense heat and drought, but in the fall, the Cherokee reluctantly agreed to transport themselves west under the supervision of Chief Ross in the reluctant removal stage.

Voluntary removal:

The Treaty provided a two-year grace period for Cherokee to willingly emigrate to Indian Territory. However, President Andrew Jackson dispatched General John E. Wool to begin the process of rounding up all those who would accept government provisions and prepare them for removal. Upon arrival, the staunch opposition to the treaty was evident to General Wool as the provisions were rejected by nearly all that he came in contact with, and it seemed that no one would voluntarily remove themselves. Due to the staunch opposition, preparations did not begin for several months, which greatly frustrated General Wool, who reported that the Indians were "almost universally opposed to the treaty." During this time, efforts were also being made by pro-removal advocates within the Cherokee to persuade the rest of the people to accept government subsistence and therefore give in to the inevitable. The treaty party called a meeting of the Cherokee on September 12, 1836 to do just that, but the meeting was canceled due to John Ross's subsequent call for another meeting that opposed the goals of the first in every way. Ross urged the people to continue to reject any government handout, stressing that the acceptance of any such gift also meant the acceptance of the treaty terms. Seeing that all efforts to sway their brethren were fruitless, a number of Cherokee (mostly members of the Ridge faction) ceased their delay and accepted government funds for subsistence and transportation. An approximate total of 10,000 Cherokee voluntarily removed themselves to the west, leaving around 1,000 of their brethren behind, who continued their opposition. Many travelled as individuals or families, but there were several organized groups:

John S. Young, Conductor; via river boats; 466 Cherokee and 6 Creek, left March 1, 1837; arrived March 28, 1837; included Major Ridge and Stand Watie.
B.B. Cannon, Conductor; overland; 355 persons (15 deaths); left Oct.15, 1837; arrived Dec.29, 1837; included James Starr.
Rev. John Huss, Conductor, overland; 74 persons; left Nov.11, 1837; arrival unknown.
Robert B. Vann, leader; 133 persons; left Dec.1, 1837; arrived March 17, 1838.
Lt. Edward Deas, Conductor; by boat; 252 persons (2 deaths); left April 6, 1838; arrived May 1, 1838.
162 persons; left May 25, 1838; arrived Oct. 21, 1838.
96 persons; date left unknown; arrived June 1, 1838.
Lt. Edward Deas and John Adair Bell, Co-Conductors, overland, 660 persons left Oct. 11, 1838; 650 arrived Jan. 7, 1839.

There are muster rolls for groups # 1, 3 – 6 and daily journals of conductors for groups # 2 and 5 among records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the National Archives. Despite the government blandishments, only a few hundred volunteered to accept the Treaty terms for Removal.

Forced removal:

Many white Americans were outraged by the dubious legality of the treaty and called on the government not to force the Cherokee to move. For example, on April 23, 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter to Jackson's successor, President Martin Van Buren, urging him not to inflict "so vast an outrage upon the Cherokee Nation."
Nevertheless, as the May 23, 1838, deadline for voluntary removal approached, President Van Buren assigned General Winfield Scott to head the forcible removal operation. He arrived at New Echota on May 17, 1838, in command of U.S. Army and state militia totalling about 7,000 soldiers. Scott discouraged mistreatment of the Native Americans, ordering his troops to "show every possible kindness to the Cherokee and to arrest any soldier who inflicted a wanton injury or insult on any Cherokee man, woman, or child." They began rounding up Cherokee in Georgia on May 26, 1838; ten days later, operations began in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama. Men, women, and children were removed at gunpoint from their homes over three weeks and gathered together in concentration camps, often with very few of their possessions. About 1,000 Cherokee took refuge in the mountains to the east, and some who owned private property also escaped the evacuation. Private John G. Burnett later wrote "Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokee who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter."

This story is perhaps a garbled version of the episode when a Cherokee named Tsali or Charley and three others killed two soldiers in the North Carolina mountains during the round-up. The two Indians were subsequently tracked down and executed by Chief Euchella's band of Cherokee in exchange for a deal with the Army to avoid their own removal. The Cherokee were then marched overland to departure points at Ross's Landing (Chattanooga, Tennessee) and Gunter's Landing (Guntersville, Alabama) on the Tennessee River, and forced on to flatboats and the steamers "Smelter" and "Little Rock". Unfortunately, a drought brought low water levels on the rivers, requiring frequent unloading of vessels to evade river obstacles and shoals. The Army directed Removal was characterized by many deaths and desertions, and this part of the Cherokee Removal proved to be a fiasco and Gen. Scott ordered suspension of further removal efforts. The Army-operated groups were :

Lt. Edward Deas, Conductor; 800 left June 6, 1838 by boat; 489 arrived June 19, 1838.
Lt. Monroe, Conductor, 164 persons left June 12, 1838; arrival unknown.
Lt. R.H.K. Whiteley, ca. 800 persons left June 13, 1838 by boat, arrived Aug. 5, 1838 (70 deaths).
Captain Gustavus S. Drane, Conductor, 1072 left June 17, 1838 by boat, 635 arrived Sept. 7, 1838 (146 deaths, 2 births).

Muster rolls for groups # 1 and 4 are in the records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and # 2 in records of the Army Continental Commands (Eastern Division, Gen. Winfield Scott's papers) in the National Archives. There are daily journals of conductors for groups # 1 and 3 among Special Files of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Internment camps:

The deaths and desertions in the Army's boat detachments caused Gen Scott to suspend the Army's Removal efforts, and the remaining Cherokee were put into eleven internment camps, mostly located near Ross's Landing (now Chattanooga, TN) and at Red Clay, Bedwell Springs, Chatata, Mouse Creek, Rattlesnake Springs, Chestoee, and Calhoun (site of the former Cherokee Agency) located within Bradley County, TN and one camp (Fort Payne) in Alabama.

Cherokee remained in the camps during the summer of 1838 and were plagued by dysentery and other illnesses, which led to 353 deaths. A group of Cherokee petitioned General Scott for a delay until cooler weather made the journey less hazardous. This was granted; meanwhile Chief Ross, finally accepting defeat, managed to have the remainder of the removal turned over to the supervision of the Cherokee Council. Although there were some objections within the U.S. government because of the additional cost, General Scott awarded a contract for removing the remaining 11,000 Cherokee under the supervision of Principal Chief Ross, with expenses to be paid by the Army, which outraged President Jackson and surprised many.

Reluctant removal:

Chief John Ross made sure to confirm and secure his position as leader of the removal process by conferring with other Cherokee leaders, who granted him full responsibility of this daunting task. He then wasted no time in forming a plan, in which he organized 12 wagon trains, each with about 1000 persons and conducted by veteran full-blood tribal leaders or educated mixed bloods. Each wagon train was assigned physicians, interpreters (to help the physicians), commissaries, managers, wagon masters, teamsters, and even grave diggers. Chief Ross also purchased the steamboat Victoria in which his own and tribal leaders' families could travel in some comfort. Lewis Ross, the Chief's brother, was the main contractor and furnished forage, rations, and clothing for the wagon trains. Although this arrangement was an improvement for all concerned, disease and exposure still took many lives. This is the part of the Removal usually identified as The "Trail of Tears."

These detachments were forced to trek through various trails, crossing through Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri to the final destination of Oklahoma. One of the main routes began in Chattanooga, TN and took a northwestern route through eastern Kentucky and southern Illinois before bearing to the southwest near the center of Missouri. The entire trip was roughly 2,200 miles. The Cherokee endured freezing temperatures, snowstorms, and pneumonia. The harshness of the trail and the intense weather conditions claimed around 4,000 lives, although estimates vary.

Daniel Colston, Conductor (first choice Hair Conrad became ill); Asst. Conductor Jefferson Nevins; 710 persons left Oct.5, 1838 from Agency camp and 654 people arrived at Woodall's place in Indian Territory on Jan. 4, 1839 (57 deaths, 9 births, 24 deserters).
Elijah Hicks, Conductor; White Path (died near Hopkinsville, Kentucky) and William Arnold, Asst. Conductors; 809 persons left Oct.4, 1838 from Camp Ross on Gunstocker Creek and 744 people arrived Jan.4, 1839 at Mrs. Webber's place in Indian Territory.
Rev. Jesse Bushyhead, Conductor; Roman Nose, Asst. Conductor; 864 left Oct. 16, 1838 from Chatata Creek camp and 898 arrived Feb. 27, 1839 at Fort Wayne, Ind. Ty. (38 deaths, 6 births, 151 deserters, 171 additions).
Capt. John Benge, Conductor; George C. Lowrey, Jr. Asst. Conductor; 1,079 persons left Fort Payne camp, Alabama Oct. 1, 1838 and 1,132 arrived Jan.11, 1839 at Mrs. Webber's place, Indian Territory. (33 deaths, 3 births).
Situake, Conductor; Rev. Evan Jones, Asst. Conductor; 1,205 persons left Oct. 19, 1838 from Savannah Creek camp and 1,033 arrived Feb. 2, 1839 (at Beatties' Prairie, Indian Territory. (71 deaths, 5 births).
Capt. Old Fields, Conductor; Rev. Stephen Foreman, Asst. Conductor; 864 persons left Oct. 10, 1838 from Candy's Creek camp and 898 arrived Feb. 2, 1839 at Beatties' Prairie (57 deaths, 19 births, 10 deserters, 6 additions).
Moses Daniel, Conductor; George Still, Sr. Asst. Conductor; 1,031 persons left from Agency camp on Oct.23, 1838 and 924 arrived March 2, 1839 at Mrs. Webber's (48 deaths, 6 births).
Chuwaluka (a.k.a. Bark), Conductor; James D. Wofford (fired for drunkenness) and Thomas N. Clark, Jr. Asst. Conductors; 1,120 left Oct.27, 1838 from Mouse Creek camp and 970 arrived March 1, 1839 at Fort Wayne.
Judge James Brown, Conductor; Lewis Hildebrand, Asst. Conductor; 745 left Oct. 31, 1838 from Ootewah Creek camp and 717 arrived March 3, 1839 at Park Hill.
George Hicks, Conductor; Collins McDonald, Asst. Conductor; 1,031 left Nov. 4, 1838 from Mouse Creek camp and 1,039 arrived March 14, 1839 near Fort Wayne.
Richard Taylor, Conductor; Walter Scott Adair, Asst. Conductor; 897 left Nov. 6, 1838 from Ooltewah Creek camp and 942 arrived March 24, 1839 at Woodall's place(55 deaths, 15 births). Missionary Rev. Daniel Butrick accompanied this detachment, and his daily journal has been published.
Peter Hildebrand, Conductor; James Vann Hildebrand, Asst. Conductor; 1,449 left Nov. 8, 1838 Ocoe camp and 1,311 arrived March 25, 1839 near Woodall's place.
Victoria Detachment – John Drew Conductor; John Golden Ross, Asst. Conductor; 219 left Nov. 5, 1838 Agency camp and 231 arrived March 18, 1839 Tahlequah.

There exist muster rolls for four (Benge, Chuwaluka, G. Hicks, and Hildebrand) of the 12 wagon trains and payrolls of officials for all 13 detachments among the personal papers of Principal Chief John Ross in the Gilcrease Institution in Tulsa, OK.

Deaths and numbers:

The number of people who died as a result of the Trail of Tears has been variously estimated. American doctor and missionary Elizur Butler, who made the journey with the Daniel Colston wagon train, estimated 2,000 deaths in the Army removal and internment camps and perhaps another 2,000 on the trail; his total of 4,000 deaths remains the most cited figure, although he acknowledged these were estimates without having seen government or tribal records. A scholarly demographic study in 1973 estimated 2,000 total deaths; another, in 1984, concluded that a total of 6,000 people died. The 4000 figure or one quarter of the tribe was also used by the Smithsonian anthropologist James Mooney. Since 16,000 Cherokee were enumerated on the 1835 Census, and about 12,000 emigrated in 1838, ergo 4000 needed accounting for. Some 1500 Cherokee remained in North Carolina, many more in South Carolina, and Georgia, so the higher fatality numbers are unlikely. In addition, nearly 400 Creek or Muskogee Indians who had avoided being removed earlier fled into the Cherokee Nation and became part of the latter's Removal.

An accounting of the exact number of fatalities during the Removal is also related to discrepancies in expense accounts submitted by Chief John Ross after the Removal that the Army considered inflated and possibly fraudulent. Ross claimed rations for 1600 more Cherokee than were counted by an Army officer, Captain Page, at Ross's Landing as Cherokee groups left their homeland and another Army officer, Captain Stephenson, at Fort Gibson counted them as they arrived in Indian Territory.
Ross's accounts are consistently higher numbers than that of the Army disbursing agents. The Van Buren administration refused to pay Ross, but the later Tyler administration eventually approved disbursing more than $500,000 to the Principal Chief in 1842.

In addition, some Cherokee traveled from east to west more than once. Many deserters from the Army's boat detachments in June 1838 later emigrated in the twelve Ross wagon trains. There were transfers between groups, and later join ups and desertions were not always recorded. Jesse Mayfield was a white man with a Cherokee family went twice (first voluntarily in B.B. Cannon's detachment in 1837 to Indian Territory; unhappy there, he returned to the Cherokee Nation; and in Oct. 1838 was Wagon Master for the Bushyhead Detachment). An Army disbursing agent discovered that a Cherokee named Justis Fields travelled with government funds three times under different aliases. A mixed-blood named James Bigby, Jr. travelled to Indian Territory five times (three as government interpreter for different detachments, as Commissary for the Colston detachment, and as an individual in 1840). In addition, a small but significant number of mixed-bloods and whites with Cherokee families petitioned to become citizens of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, or Tennessee and thus ceased to be considered Cherokee.

During the journey, it is said that the people would sing "Amazing Grace", using its inspiration to improve morale. The traditional Christian hymn had previously been translated into Cherokee by the missionary Samuel Worcester with Cherokee assistance. The song has since become a sort of anthem for the Cherokee people.

Amazing Grace

This hymn was written in 1779 by John Newton who, until his early 20's, was an unbeliever. A decade later he had become a devout preacher.

The tune was known as "an early American Melody" and became a favorite of the Cherokees. It was sung on the Trail of Tears and can be considered the Cherokee National anthem.

u ne la nv i u we tsi God's Son
i ga gu yv he i paid for us.
hna quo tso sv wi yu lo se Now to heaven He went
i ga gu yv ho nv after paying for us.
a se no i u ne tse i Then He spoke
i yu no du le nv when He rose.
ta li ne dv tsi lu tsi li I'll come the second time
u dv ne u ne tsv He said when He spoke.
e lo ni gv ni li s qua di All the world will end
ga lu tsv ha i yu when He returns
ni ga di da ye di go i We will all see Him
a ni e lo ni gv here the world over.
u na da nv ti a ne hv The righteous who live
do da ya nv hi li He will come after.
tso sv hna quo ni go hi lv In heaven now always
do hi wa ne he s di in peace they will live.

Aftermath:

Cherokee who were removed initially settled near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The political turmoil resulting from the Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears led to the assassinations of Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot; of those targeted for assassination that day, only Stand Watie escaped his assassins. The population of the Cherokee Nation eventually rebounded, and today the Cherokee are the largest American Indian group in the United States.
There were some exceptions to removal. Those Cherokee who lived on private, individually owned lands (rather than communally owned tribal land) were not subject to removal. In North Carolina, about 400 Cherokee led by Yonaguska lived on land along the Oconaluftee River in the Great Smoky Mountains owned by a white man named William Holland Thomas (who had been adopted by Cherokee as a boy), and were thus not subject to removal, and these were joined by a smaller band of about 150 along the Nantahala River led by Utsala. Along with a group living in Snowbird and another along the Cheoah River in a community called Tomotley, these North Carolina Cherokee became the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, numbering approximately 1000. According to a roll taken the year after the removal (1839), there were in addition some estimated about 400 of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, and these also joined the EBCI.
A local newspaper, the Highland Messenger, said July 24, 1840, “that between nine hundred and a thousand of these deluded beings … are still hovering about the homes of their fathers, in the counties of Macon and Cherokee" and "that they are a great annoyance to the citizens" who wanted to buy land there believing the Cherokee were gone; the newspaper reported that President Jackson said "they … are, in his opinion, free to go or stay.’

The Trail of Tears is generally considered to be one of the most regrettable episodes in American history. To commemorate the event, the U.S. Congress designated the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail in 1987. It stretches across nine states for 2,200 miles (3,500 km).

In 2004, during the 108th Congress, Senator Sam Brownback (Republican of Kansas) introduced a joint resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 37) to "offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States" for past "ill-conceived policies" by the United States Government regarding Indian Tribes. It passed in the U.S. Senate in February 2008.
As of 2014, Cherokee Nation members can request heritage seeds for a species of beans carried on the Trail of Tears from the Cherokee Seed Project.

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Monday, September 23, 2019