“Cherokee history is fascinating stuff. They were nothing like the indians of Hollywood’s imaginings.”
Indeed. I’ve just finished a novel on this, still in editing. The written records my ancestors kept are fascinating.
The legendary “Trail “ was actually a series of land routes and water routes. Some went only by land, others only by water. Some combined the two. Because of the numbers passing over the same landscape over such a short period of time and severe drought, vegetation was scare to feed the livestock and beasts of burden, making alternate routes necessary. Most routes traveled about nine hundred to one thousand miles. Within a decade of passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1839, it is estimated sixty thousand Indians, African slaves, white spouses and missionaries crossed through North West Arkansas. Sixteen thousand were Cherokee as well as other tribes from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
My ancestors (Bells) fared better than most because they took military roads with only about 700 on their wagon train instead of the Army running the trip. Only 21 were lost on the trip. They were first entered and held at Ft. Cass in Tennessee. Before doing so, they shipped many of their belongings by barge to the new Indian Territory.
Some verified dates of the Bell contingency.
1838 October, Ridge Party families of Bell, Adair, Lynch, and others removed from their
homes, entered at Ft. Cass, E. Tenn. for holding to await removal to Indian Territory West.
1838 November 22, Bell Detachment arrives Memphis, TN. , buried 17 in Monroe County
1838 December 25, Bell Detachment ferries Point Remove Creek, Arkansas N.E. of Little Rock.
1839 January 7, Bell Detachment arrives at Evansville, Ark. Completed 707 miles in 89 days
This particularly sad account of other groups is given by Private John G. Burnett of Captain Abraham McClellan’s Company:
“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.....”
The most recent and best map of the trails is here. This has been updated because of records found in the government of the various trips:
http://ngeorgia.com/history/trailoftearsmap2.html
Red Clayh is not far from where i live...
it was a village with good houses, stores etc..
Cherokees lived quiet lives there before they were forceablly moved from there own homes and lands...
One reason that so many died is that instead of going due west into OK...about 700 miles...they were forced to go in a horseshoe ...far north into Il and MO in the dead of winter...and then back south...
Here’s a little bit of Bell related Tennessee history.
May be a different branch of the family....
The Trail of Tears runs right through where I live.