Copyright © 1997 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved
When Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto first encountered the Cherokee in 1540 he found a unified, peaceful nation of about 25,000 people. Some three hundred years later, almost to the year, the Cherokee became a divided nation of people with little remaining of their vast territory and national pride.The Cherokee co-existed peacefully with early settlers, but the white man's lust for gold and land was all consuming and between 1684 and 1835 over 30 treaties chipped away at their original 135,000 square miles of Cherokee territory.
The Cherokee issue was hotly debated in Congress for many years. Sadly, speeches on behalf of the Cherokee by Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster and other prominent statesmen fell on deaf ears. President Andrew Jackson, whose life was ironically saved by Cherokee Chief Junaluska at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1812, was the one who signed the final "Removal Treaty".
Beginning in the spring of 1837 and continuing through the fall of 1838, the Cherokee people were rounded up and corralled into hastily constructed stockades. So began the "Trail of Tears", a 1,200 mile journey to unfamiliar land.
Under the command of General Winfield Scott, over 600 wagons, steamers and keel boats moved about 16,000 Cherokee by land and by river. The infamous journey took between 104 and 189 days, and before they arrived in Oklahoma, torrential rains, ice storms, disease and broken heartedness had claimed the lives of at least 4,000 men, women and children.
A Georgia soldier who took part in the removal wrote, "I fought through the War Between the States and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew."
William Holland Thomas, a Scotsman, adopted by the Cherokee, purchased 56,000 acres which eventually became the Qualla Boundary where the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians now reside.
In 1987 the United States Congress approved the recognition and development of the "Trail of Tears National Historic Trail." Several interpretive centers will be constructed along the Trail in the near future.
Cherokee Tribal Travel and Promotion,