Let it be known what our forefathers (Non Indian) did to a    Proud Nation, The Cherokees." Let it be known what is written on this page is the Truth. Let it be known that what was done to the First Americans was          dreadfully wrong. Let it be known that My Heart is Sad.                                                                        ~ CougarHeart

Along the Trail of Tears a column of dispirited Cherokees, guarded by bluecoated U.S. soldiers, moves westward in 1838 to 1839. Forced from their mountain homes by the federal government, the Cherokees, like other major tribes in the southeast, were forced to migrate to a sparsely populated region in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). For years the Cherokees fought this policy of Indian removal through the federal courts, but in the end the judiciary refused to recognize the Indian's rights to their ancestral lands. Though there was much suffering and death along the trail west.

"The Trail Where They Cried"           It was the Cherokee who suffered most. To force compliance with the illegal Treaty of New Echota, the U.S. government sent more than 7,000 troops into Cherokee country, state militias swelled the army occupation to more than 9,000 men. The soldiers built stockades in key locations and in late May of 1838 began filling them with ordinary people pulled from their homes.           Years later an eyewitness remembered the scene: "Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the trail that led to the stockade." Individuals were seized "In their fields or going along the road, women were taken from their spinning wheels and children from play."           "To prevent escape the soldiers had been ordered to approach and surround each house, as far as possible, so as to come upon the occupants without warning. One old patriarch when thus surprised calmly called his children and grandchildren around him, and kneeling down bid them pray with him in their own language, while the astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising he led the way into exile. A woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door and called p the chickens to be feed for the last time, after which taking her infant on her back and her other children by the hand, she followed her husband with the soldiers."           As soon as soldiers removed the Indians, local whites rushed in, ransacking their abandoned homes and stealing anything of value. Even the dead were not safe. Searching for Cherokee gold that was rumored to have been hidden, white mobs feverishly ripped apart burial grounds and opened old coffins, tossing aside sacred remains of Cherokee ancestors. Within a single month more than 8,000 Cherokees had been rounded up and herded into the stockades. Only one small group managed to escape the soldiers; they took refuge deep in the North Carolina mountains, where their descendants remain today.           For most of the tribe, the worst was still ahead. The Cherokees fell sick in the stockades. Drought again struck the Southeast drying up wells and streams and destroying crops. Cholera and dysentery broke out in the stockades. Watching their people die, Cherokee leaders negotiated an agreement that allowed them to control their own removal. But nothing could stop the impending tragedy. The main body departed west with 645 wagons in the midst of a drought that made water and food scarce. They continued to travel into a viciously cold winter. People sickened and died and were buried along the way. The journey took an especially terrible toll of women and children.As the long caravans began to move toward Oklahoma, the emigrants were already running short of food and supplies.           Tuberculosis, pellagra, pneumonia, and other diseases stalked the wagon trains. Of the 16,000 men, women, and children forced to relocate, more than 4,000 died either in the stockades or on the way west. The tragedy of the removal still lingers in the memory of the Cherokee. They call it, "oosti ganuhnuh dunaclohiluh," "The Trail Where They Cried."

Quote by Luiseno Song: At the time of death, When I found there was to be death, I was very much surprised. All was failing, My home, I was sad to leave it. I have been looking far, Sending my spirit north, south, east and west. Trying to escape death, But could find nothing, No way of escape.

This page was last updated on: February 20, 2004

This page is Dedicated to the Cherokee Peoples past and Present

The Music is, "The Trail Of Tears" By elan Michaels.

Murder is murder and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in the summer of 1838. Somebody must explain the 4,000 silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile. I wish I could forget it all, but the picture of 645 wagons lumbering over frozen ground with their Cargo off suffering humanity still lingers in my memory.           Let the Historians of a future day tell the sad story with its sighs, its tears and dying groans. Let the great Judge of all the earth weigh our actions and reward us according to our work. The words above were from a good man, John G. Burnett United States Army and interpreter on the Trail Of Tears, ca. 1890

Andrew Jackson, defying the Supreme Court, pushed Indains west to open land for whites.

The Trail That Cried!

~Chief Dragging Canoe My spirit grows sad as I look at our children and the faces of my people. And as I think of what we left behind, our mountains, our land and a part of ourselves. I know why this has been called, "The Trail Where We Cried."