The Lone Wolf Band of Cherokee Indians
Indiana's Cherokee people.

THE TRAIL OF TEARS

The first thoughts of the removal of the Cherokee Indian people from their woodlands homes in Georgia began between 1790 and 1830 when the population of Georgia, the first home land of the Cherokee, was over run by the white man. Most of these new white men, or settlers, were in search of the gold in that state that the Spanish explorer, Hernando DeSoto had searched for in the North Georgia Mountains in 1540. These people pushed to get the area rid of the Indians so that they could control the land and take all the gold. In 1830, the United States Congress passed the “Indian Removal Act,” and the removal was certain. Many Americans fought against the removal act including the famous Congressman from Tennessee, Davy Crockett, But despite the arguments the bill passed anyway and then President Andrew Jackson quickly, without a blink of his eye, signed the bill into law. Crockett destryed his political future when he supported the Cherokee and left Washington, DC. The Cherokees, who by this period in time had already assimilated many of the European customs including a governmental system, legally challenged the removal act in the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court however ruled in favor of the government and the Indian Removal Act stayed intact. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case extending Georgia’s laws on the Cherokee because they did not represent a sovereign nation. In 1832, the United States Supreme Court this time ruled in favor of the Cherokee on the same issue in Worcester v. Georgia. In this case Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation, making the removal laws invalid. With this judgement, if the Cherokee were to be removed it would have to be by their own agreement and signed to in a treaty. The treaty would then have to be ratified by the United States Senate. By 1835, many of the Cherokee were divided and despondent over what had been happening to them. Starting with the land lottery of 1832, the Cherokees Principal Chief, John Ross, who fought the invasion of the white man advocated fighting the removal. Ross was supported by as many as 16,500 of the Cherokee people. Against Ross, another Cherokee, Major Ridge, along with his son and cousin, Elias Boudinot, advocated removal. However, Ridge and Boudinot were only supported by 500 out of 17,000 Cherokees in North Georgia. In 1835, Major Ridge gave President Jackson the legal authority needed to remove the Cherokee from Georgia when Ridge signed “The Treaty of New Echota.” Thereafter the United States Senate ratified the treaty which sealed the fate of the Cherokee. Amoung a few who spoke out against the ratification was Daniel Webster and Henery Clay. However, the ratification passed by only one vote. On May 17th., 1838, General Winfield Scott and 7000 calvary soldiers arrived at New Echota to fulfill the removal act. By early summer the United State Army invaded the Cherokee Nation in Georgia and the removal began. In one of the saddest episodes in the United States history, Cherokee men, women and children were taken from their homes and lands and herded into military camps with very little facilities, food or healthcare. Then by the order of General Scott, the Cherokees were force marched thousands of miles westward under the command of assigned military officers, many who cared less about the Cherokees. Lives by the hundreds were lost, mostly elders, the sick, the weak and children because of the horrid weather conditions or exhaustion. Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross appealed to General Scott to allow his people to lead the tribe. Scott agreed and Ross organized the Cherokee people into smaller groups and let them move on their own through the wilderness where the Cherokee groups had to forage for food and shelter. The parties left with John Ross in early fall of that year and finally arrived in Oklahoma during the brutal winter of 1838 and 1839. Somewhere in the area of 4,000 Cherokee people lost their lives as a result of the march. They route they took from Georgia to Oklahoma is now called, “The Trail of Tears,” or through direct translation, “The Trail Where They Cried.” Six months after the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma, Ridge, his son and Elias Boudinot were killed by their own Cherokee people. And so this great country, formed fifty years earlier on the premise “...that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...” brutally closed the curtain on a culture that had done no wrong.

The Legend of the Cherokee Rose

During the Trail of Tears, the mothers cried so much that the Chiefs asked the Creator for a sign to lift the crying mothers spirits and to give them strength so they could care for their children. On that day and ever since, a white rose grows where the tears of the mothers fell. The rose has white peddles which stands for the mothers tears. The rose has a gold center which represented the gold that was taken from the Cherokee lands. The rose bore seven leaves on the stem that represented the seven clans of the Cherokee that made the journey. To this day the roses still grow along the route of the “Trail of Tears,” and has been selected to be the state flower for Georgia.

Return to the table of contents.