The Trail of Tears began for
many Cherokee families in Georgia.
From the Cherokee capital at New
Echota, they raised their voices in
anger and fear against the loss of
their homeland. More than 9,000
Cherokees left Georgia. They
traveled the Trail of Tears to their
new homelands in Arkansas and
Oklahoma. More than 4,000
Cherokees died along the way.
Tah-Chee, A Cherokee Chief
Cherokee Lands In Georgia
In1836, the Cherokee Nation in
Georgia covered more than 6,000
Georgia’s Story
square miles. Cherokee lands
included four physiographic
of Cherokee
regions. These are the Appalachian
Plateau, the Ridge and Valley, the
Removal
Blue Ridge, and the Piedmont. The
Appalachian Plateau lies in the far
northwest corner of the state.
Mountains rise to 2,000 feet here
and are separated by a narrow
valley called Lookout Valley. This
valley offered the best soils for
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Cherokee farming. It also contains
well-drained, red clay soil was often
forests filled with game for hunting.
covered with lush growth. River
and stream valleys in the Piedmont
The Ridge and Valley area has
provided the Cherokee with farm
many small valleys surrounded by
land and forests for hunting.
narrow low hills. Ridge and Valley
Cherokees used the resources of
forests provided the Cherokee with
many resources. In its forests, they
their surroundings for food, water,
found food and materials to make
medicines, tools, clothing, housing
tools, transportation, and housing.
materials, and trade goods. Their
Within the Ridge and Valley is the
knowledge of plants, animals,
Great Valley. Its soils proved
insects, birds, and reptiles created
favorable for Cherokee agriculture
everything from wasp soup and
and the raising of livestock.
bloodroot dye to sassafras tea and
turtle-shell rattles.
To the east of the Ridge and
The Cherokee knew their
Valley lie both the Piedmont and the
Blue Ridge regions. The Blue Ridge
homeland and how to use its
is made up of rugged, heavily
resources. For example, chestnut,
forested mountains, streams, and
white oak, and hickory trees each
valleys. A few gaps in the mountains
served the Cherokee in different
can be easily climbed. The Cherokee
ways. The chestnut was a favorite
constructed trails and roads across
food for these Indians, who spent
both Rabun and Unicoi Gaps.
winter evenings shelling them
around a common fire. Women
The Piedmont consists of rolling
made enormous flat loaves of
terrain with deep river valleys. Its
chestnut bread. They wrapped each
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serving in corn shucks. Cherokees
Bloodroot, a native plant, provided a
built their buildings, homes, and
red dye for their baskets. Bloodroot
furniture of white oak. They used
and other plants such as lady’s
hickory to make tools such as corn
slipper
pounders. When mixed with cold
served as
water, hickory nuts made “hickory
medicines.
milk,” a rich and nourishing drink.
The
Hollowed out poplar trunks became
Cherokee
dugout canoes.
called
lady’s
The Cherokee grew plants such as
slipper
corn, squash, and beans for food.
Moccasin Flower
moccasin flower. Their forests
produced mushrooms, moss, lichens,
and other edible plants. Moss and
lichens served as a source for salt.
They hunted deer, bear, and
turkey along with smaller game
such as raccoon, fox, beaver,
opossum, and woodchucks. The
birds of the forest and grasslands
such as owls, hawks, ravens, and
crows filled their legends. They
hunted quail, doves, ducks, wild
geese, and ruffled grouse.
Cherokees used feathers from
certain birds for decoration. They
Bloodroot
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gathered eggs for food, and roasted
sheep all required feeding and
whole birds to eat.
fencing. By the 1830s, Cherokees in
Georgia owned nearly 80,000 head
of livestock. Blacksmith shops
A Changing Way of Life
appeared as the demand for new
The arrival and settlement of
Georgia by people from Europe
farm tools and equipment grew.
created great changes in the
They made tools such as horseshoes,
Cherokee’s way of life. By the 1830s,
nails, saddles, bridles, and wagon
Cherokee farmers had learned to use
fittings.
plows and other iron tools. This new
The introduction of new
practice often caused the priceless
topsoil to erode, or wear away.
vegetable crops lengthened the
Animals such as the wolf, fox,
growing season. The growing of
panther, mountain lion, buffalo and
cotton developed a new source for
elk disappeared when guns became
money. In 1826, Cherokee leader
common in the eighteenth century.
John Ridge wrote that “cotton is
generally raised for domestic
consumption [use] and a few have
As roads were built, population
grown it for market [to sell] and
grew. Pigs, horses, cattle, goats, and
Early American Plow
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have realized very good profits.”
European ways of life, many white
Indian women made use of the
settlers did not want to live with the
cotton they grew to make cloth and
Cherokee as their neighbors. These
clothing. The government gave the
new settlers wanted to settle on the
Cherokee spinning wheels, cotton
rich farmland of north Georgia. Yet,
cards, and looms. The raising of
this land belonged to the Cherokee
sheep for wool also became
people. The settlers remembered the
important.
violence of the recent past when
Indians and the arriving white
European settlers brought fruit
settlers fought for land. Some
trees into Georgia. Cherokees
violence continued between white
quickly began growing peaches.
settlers and the Cherokee.
Because there were soon so many of
Not all settlers to Georgia
these trees, many new arrivals to
Georgia thought peaches were a
despised the Cherokee. Some
native plant. The Cherokee also
recognized them as honorable
planted apple, cherry, pear, quince,
people. Many men married
and plum trees. Wheat, rye, and
Cherokee women. Others helped
oats grew very well, and some
them to learn how to grow new
Cherokee families planted them on
crops. The Cherokee taught the
their farms.
new settlers how to use the
resources of the land.
The Cherokee and the White
Settlers
Still, Georgia’s government
The 1835 Cherokee census listed
favored the removal of all Indians.
8,936 Cherokee Indians in Georgia.
They wanted them to move west of
Although most Cherokees adopted
the Mississippi River. In 1802,
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Georgia gave its lands west of the
Chattahoochee River to the federal
government. In return, the federal
government pledged to remove all
Indians from the state.
In 1826, Wilson Lumpkin was
elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives. He was appointed
to the Committee on Indian Affairs.
Wilson Lumpkin
He introduced a resolution to find a
way to remove the Indians. He also
worked to find a suitable home for
Cherokee lands and distributed
them west of the Mississippi River.
them by lottery to white settlers.
In 1829, the country elected
In 1834, the Georgia General
President Andrew Jackson as its
seventh president. Jackson
Assembly ordered the state militia
supported Indian removal. The U.S.
to protect Georgia citizens. The
House of Representatives approved
militia also protected those Indians
the Indian Removal Bill on 28 May
that agreed with removal plans.
1830.
Wilson Lumpkin, who was now
governor, directed Colonel William
From 1830-1835, the Choctaws,
Bishop to construct barracks for his
Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Creeks
men. He also had to find a suitable
signed removal treaties. The state
place to store their supplies.
then extended its laws over the
Colonel Bishop built his
Cherokee Nation. They surveyed all
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headquarters at Spring Place,
By 1838, Ft. Wool became the center
Georgia.
of Cherokee removal work in
Georgia. Ft. Wool was located at
New Echota, the Cherokee Nation’s
In December 1835, a group of
Cherokee led by John Ridge, Elias
capital. At Ft. Wool, Cherokee
Boudinot, and Major Ridge met
families signed up for removal. The
treaty commissioners at New Echota.
federal government paid them small
These three men signed a treaty
amounts of money for their land.
giving up all southeastern Cherokee
They also gave them some payment
land, and the time of removal was
for houses, barns, and other
set for two years later. The Georgia
outbuildings they had built. The
legislature decreed that all Indians
government passed out rations to
would leave Georgia by 25 May
poor Cherokees who did not have
1838.
enough food.
Major Ridge
John Ridge
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The Army built 14 more military
assistant led each group west to
posts in Georgia. These posts stood
Oklahoma and Arkansas. On 1
about 10 to 20 miles apart. Each had
October 1838, the first groups
access to major roads. Each post
departed along the trail. Forced to
provided shelter for troops and
walk, ride in wagons, or on
supplies during the Cherokee
flatboats, each group traveled for
removal.
about four months to reach their
new home.
Removal
Federal troops organized the
Today, Georgia’s Trail of Tears
Cherokees into 13 groups of about
forts are only found on early maps.
1,000 each. A conductor and his
Archaeologists are working to
relocate these sites. These sites,
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....”
like the actual Trail of Tears, can
still tell stories of hardship, hatred,
prejudice, and loss.
Some sites tell stories of the
Cherokee people being forced from
their homes and rounded up like
livestock. They lived in open
stockades before being forced to
leave for Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Private John G. Burnett
Captain Abraham McClellan’s Company,
2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39
Others tell stories of soldiers who
guarded and carried out the
removal of the Cherokee. Some of
these men acted harshly. Others
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had sympathy for these people and
treated them with kindness.
It is a sad story in our history. It
is a story of men, women, and
children herded together and forced
to march more than a thousand
miles to a new, but different,
homeland. Some made the trip by
John R oss
boat. Others walked, rode in wagons
or on horses the entire way, guarded
by soldiers. Loss of life was high,
Suggested Reading:
especially among the young and the
Check your local library for the following:
very old.
1.
Life on the Trail of Tears
Fischer, Laura, 2003
Only after John Ross, a Cherokee
2.
leader, appealed to General Winfield
The Trail of Tears
Burgan, Michael. 2001.
3.
Scott were the Cherokee allowed to
The Journal of Jesse Smoke : a Cherokee Boy
Bruchac, Joseph. 2001.
lead their own people west in small
4.
groups. These small groups could
Soft Rain : a Story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Cornelissen, Cornelia. 1998
forage along the way for food. Most
5.
On the long trail home
Stewart, Elisabeth Jane. 1994.
arrived in Arkansas and Oklahoma
6.
during the brutally cold winter of
The Trail of Tears
Stein, R. Conrad. 1993.
1838-1839. More than 4,500
7.
Remember my name
Banks, Sara H. 1993.
Cherokee died along the Trail Where
8.
They Cried or Nunna daul Tsuny in
Only the names remain; the Cherokees and the Trail of
Tears
the Cherokee’s own language.
Bealer, Alex W. 1972
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10. Cherokee Legends and the Trail of Tears
Additional Books Available From Bookstores:
Thomas
1.
3.
4.
5.
6.
8.
9.
Tom
Underwood, Amanda Crowe (Illustrator)
Joseph Bruchac, Diana Magnuson (Illustrator)
Pub. Date: August 2001
B.
11. Singing Violet: The Decade between Georgia's Gold
Trail of Tears 1838
Rush and the Trail of Tears
L. Salas, Jack D. Baker
A. Fran Booth
Pub. Date: January 2003
Pub. Date: May 2002
12. Lucy of the Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Sabrina Crewe, D. L. Birchfield
James D. Yoder
Pub. Date: December 2003
Pub. Date: December 1999
13. Cherokee
Trail of Tears
Manufactured by Scholastic Books
Stuart A. Kallen, Cathryn J. Long
Pub. Date: April 2002
Pub. Date: September 1999
Westward Expansion (FlashCharts Series)
14. The Story of the Cherokee People
FlashKids Editors
Thomas B. Underwood, Tom B. Underwood,
Pub. Date: January 2004
Jacob Anchutin (Illustrator)
Trails of Tears: American Indians Driven from Their
Pub. Date: March 1996
15. Trail of Tears
Lands
7.
Underwood,
Trail of Tears
Pub. Date: September 1999
2.
Bryan
Jeanne Williams, Michael Taylor (Illustrator)
Richard Conrad Stein, R. Conrad Stein
Pub. Date: January 1995
Pub. Date: March 1993
The Trail of Tears
16. Night of the Cruel Moon: Cherokee Removal and the
Deborah Kent
Trail of Tears
Library Edition
Stanley Hoig
Pub. Date: March 2005
Pub. Date: August 1996
On the Long Trail Home
17. The Trail of Tears: The Cherokee Journey from Home
Elizabeth J. Steward
Marlene Targ Targ Brill
Pub. Date: August 1994
Pub. Date: May 1995
Only the Names Remain: The Cherokees and the Trail of
18. Trail on Which They Wept: The Story of a Cherokee
Tears
Girl
Alex W. Bealer, Kristina Rodanas (Illustrator)
Dorothy Hoobler, S. S. Burrus, Thomas
Pub. Date: April 1996
Hoobler, Carey-Greenberg Associates
Pub. Date: June 1992
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19. Cherokee Windsong
Evelin Sanders
Pub. Date: June 1996
20. Long Trail: A Play about the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Donna Getzinger
Pub. Date: January 2002
WEBSITES:
Trail of Tears History
http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html
http://www.neosoft.com/powersource/cherokee/history.html
http://www.rosecity.net/tears/
http://www.kidskonnect.com/TrailofTears/TrailofTears/Home.html
http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/history/trail.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html
Timeline
http://www.rosecity.net/tears/trail/timeline.html
Classroom poster
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/trailpst.htm
Cherokee
http://www.cherokee.org/
http://www.cherokee-nc.com/
http://www.arch.dcr.state.nc.us/tears/
General’s address to the Cherokee May 10, 1838
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/scottadd.htm
General’s order to the Cherokee May 17, 1838
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/scottadd.htm
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