Cherokee Removal - The End of the Trail
By Steve Bank head


Legal authority for removing Cherokees from the old homeland was the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. It was ratified by a margin of one vote in Congress despite it only being witnessed by a few hundred Cherokees, while Chief Ross presented legislators with a petition opposing it signed by over 13,000 tribal members.

The states split on the removal along political lines which later divided them over slavery; but in this instance the South prevailed. Former President John Quincy Adams said of the treaty: "It brings with it eternal disgrace upon the country." And the first removal commander, General John Wool, was so repelled by the action that he had himself relieved of duties.

The removal was set to begin May 26, 1838. Roundups began while Chief Ross was still in Washington pleading the tribe's cause, and a family's first warning was often the glint of bayonets in their doorway.

Some homes were simple cabins, but others were impressive structures with lace curtains, libraries and fine furnishings. Civilians followed the troops like carrion, often looting homes and livestock before the homeowners were out of sight, and family graves were also plundered in search of valuables. One family asked permission to pray before leaving. The guard squad, possibly expecting a pagan ritual, then stood in uneasy silence as the Cherokees knelt and said a Christian prayer.

A singular episode of the roundup occurred when troops came for the family of a tribal elder named Tsali. As they were marched away, guards prodded Tsali's aged wife with bayonets, urging greater speed. Outraged, the men of Tsali's family grappled with the guards, killing one and sending the others fleeing.

Tsali fled with his family and other refugees to the Blue Ridge Mountains, leaving the military with the unpleasant prospect of pursuing them into high peaks and caves. William Thomas, a white adopted by the tribe, helped negotiate a cruel compromise. The military would allow other fugitives to remain in the homeland if Tsali and his male relatives surrendered for execution.

Tsali complied, but General Scott ordered that Cherokees form the firing squad to demonstrate the hopelessness of their situation. There would be no more rebellions on the Trail, but the sacrifice of Tsali was not wasted. The remaining fugitives stayed in their beloved homeland, becoming the Eastern Cherokees. Their reservation survives in North Carolina, where the memory of Tsali is revered.

The first removals were of several thousand Cherokees in keelboats. It was fever season, however, so deaths from illness were so numerous the tribe was allowed to conduct its own removal overland in the fall. In staggered groups of a thousand, remaining Cherokees set out on foot, horseback and wagons.

Diseases like dysentery, measles and whooping cough had spread through the internment camps, and followed on the Trail. Supplies ran short as the tribe was gouged and swindled by merchants and farmers along the route. Another foe was an early and harsh winter. Roads became bogs, and crossing the Mississippi was a nightmare. Ice floes forced many Cherokees to make a temporary camp on its eastern shore, where inadequate shelter resulted in many deaths from exposure.

Freezing temperatures pursued them into Arkansas. Near Little Rock, the wife of Chief Ross gave her blanket to a sick child. The child recovered, but Quatie Ross died of pneumonia, and was buried in a shallow grave. Figures vary, but most estimates indicate 4,000 Cherokees, or one-fourth the tribe perished on the Trail. Funeral services were often limited to a brief singing of "Amazing Grace."

The last group reached Oklahoma six months after the Trail began, but the Cherokee Nation arrived in its new home with a wound in its soul that has never completely healed. As one member wrote upon arrival: "Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night."

I was born in Visalia, California. It is also the home of Mooney Grove Park, which contains a magnificent public sculpture called "The End of the Trail." Perhaps you've seen it or a representation...a lone mounted brave, with his head, lance and pony all slumped forward in defeat.

As a child, my main interests in that park were picnics and boat rides, but I remember my father often pausing beside that somber sculpture. It was many years before I learned its significance to him, and came to see it as a call to remember and share all I can from an unhappy chapter of American history.

The official end of the Trail of Tears was in March 1839 at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. However, I would argue that it continues today on another level; one not of geography but of the spirit. It is wide as the world, and often seems endless. For as long as might is allowed to prevail over that which is right, all of humanity will walk that trail together.