I’m Eastern Band Cherokee and everything I’ve ever read talks about two groups who spent part of the trip on open boats but talks none on trains.
The lady we are descended from was married to a White farmer who was also politically well connected. The 1820 census lists her as Cherokee but the 1830 census lists her, under the same name, married to the same man and 10 years older, as White.
The family story is her husband fixed things for her to stay. He and she also helped groups of Cherokees who were hiding in the mountains.
The Eastern Band is in regular contact with the Oklahoma Cherokees and documentation of the Trail of Tears is pretty extensive including many first person accounts written along the way or shortly after arriving in the wilderness. The Cherokee had a very high literacy rate even back then.
The great advantage a syllabary has is that you don't have to teach people how to spell ~ just how to read and write ~ Korean also uses a syllabary.
BTW, here's how "family stories" work. It seems the Chickasaw had a need to travel East (to escape enemies, a drought, a flood, a crop failure, bad weather, etc.). One of their shamen said the way to figure out where to go was to take one of the horses and just turn him loose, then follow the horse.
They did that and ended up in Mississippi or Arkansas where they settled for a while.
I discovered a branch of our family in the East (who were in no ways self-identified as Indians) had the family prophet tell them "which way West", and she said "cut the horse loose, follow it, and then settle there". So they did, and that bunch ended up in Arkansas.
They lived there for a while (and I guess this is about Hope Arkansas BTW.) They later moved to Tulsa and South to the Texas state line ~ about 50 miles North of where Gene Autry grew up.
The Chickasaw did the same ~ and settled the same area when they moved to Oklahoma ~ so both the families ~ the Chickasaw, and that bunch of my cousins ~ ended up living in the same places with the same family story about cutting the horse lose and following it to that place.
I just did a quick look-up on the Chickasaw and the tribe officially refers to "other stories handed down", so that's gotta' be that one. Other folks who've studied the tribe indicate it to be highly likely since there are definite signs the Chickasaw lived much further West than Mississippi in "historic" times ~ and certainly in prehistoric times.
Anyway, the point being, family stories that get handed down are probably pretty good but you have to know the full context.
Another one ~ we have a tradition that one of the ever so great Grandfather's assembled/built the first locomotive West of the Alleghenies. Took many years to figure out who he was, but we did ~ now, did he just assemble the right of way for the railroad or build the locomotive? You try to combine these stories with facts on the ground things definitely get more confused than ever.
Buhley had the Cherokee riding, not walking, with the blacks crying all the tears as they walked to Oklahoma. The Chickasaw claim a similar "trail of tears" event as they, in fact, simply moved back where they'd lived a century or so earlier.
I have no doubt the differentiation had less to do with actual racial affinity and more with personal appearance.