History
For many Cherokee families the Trail of Tears began in Georgia. From the Cherokee capital at New Echota, they raised their voices against the loss of their homeland to no avail. More than 9,000 Cherokees were forced to leave Georgia. As they traveled the Trail of Tears to Arkansas and Oklahoma, many people died along the way.
Cherokee Lands In Georgia
In 1836, the Cherokee Nation in Georgia covered more than 6,000 square miles and was home to 8,936 people. Cherokee lands encompassed four of the state’s five physiographic provinces, including the Appalachian Plateau, the Ridge and Valley, the Blue Ridge, and the Piedmont. The Appalachian Plateau lies in the far northwest corner of the state. Mountains rise to 2,000 feet here and are separated by Lookout Valley. This valley offered the best soils for Cherokee farming and provided access to forests filled with game.
The Ridge and Valley area has many small valleys surrounded by narrow low hills. Ridge and Valley forests provided the Cherokee with many resources for food, tools, transportation, and housing. Within the Ridge and Valley is the Great Valley. Its soils proved favorable for Cherokee agriculture and the raising of livestock.
The Piedmont province and the Blue Ridge province lie to the east of the Ridge and Valley. The Blue Ridge is made up of rugged, heavily forested mountains, streams, and valleys. The Cherokee constructed trails and roads across both Rabun and Unicoi Gaps, which can be easily climbed.
Bloodroot
The Piedmont consists of rolling terrain with deep river valleys. Its well-drained, red clay soil was often covered with lush growth. River and stream valleys in the Piedmont provided the Cherokee with farm land and forest for hunting.
Cherokees used the resources of their surroundings for food, water, medicines, tools, clothing, housing materials, and trade goods. With their knowledge of plants, animals, insects, birds, and reptiles, they created everything from wasp soup and bloodroot dye to sassafras tea and turtle-shell rattles. The Cherokee knew their homeland and how to use its resources.
For example, chestnut, white oak, and hickory trees each served the Cherokee in different ways. The chestnut was a favorite food. Women made enormous flat loaves of chestnut bread and wrapped each serving in the corn shucks. Hickory nuts mixed with cold water made a rich and nourishing drink. The Cherokee constructed buildings, homes, and furniture of white oak. They hollowed out poplar trunks to make dugout canoes.
Moccasin Flower
The Cherokee grew plants such as corn, squash, and beans for foods. They used Bloodroot, a native plant, as a red dye for their baskets. Bloodroot and other plants such as lady's slipper served as medicines. The Cherokee called lady's slipper moccasin flower. Their forests produced mushrooms, moss, lichens, and other edible plants. Moss and lichens served as a source for salt.
They hunted deer, bear, and turkey along with smaller game such as raccoon, fox, beaver, opossum, and woodchucks. The birds of the forest and grasslands, owls, hawks, ravens, and crows, filled their legends. They hunted quail, doves, ducks, wild geese, and ruffled grouse. Cherokees used feathers from certain birds for decoration. They gathered eggs for food, and roasted whole birds to eat.
Cherokees were never passive occupants of an unchanging environment. They regularly burned forests to clear litter and expose game; they cleared plots for farmland and gathered enormous quantities of nuts, fruits, roots, and wild plants, erected stone weirs in rivers and streams to trap fish, dug moats, and cut down trees to build homes and public buildings.
A Changing Way of Life
The arrival of Europeans in Georgia greatly affected the Cherokees’ life. By the 1830s, Cherokee farmers had learned to use plows and other iron tools. This new practice often accelerated the erosion of priceless topsoil. Animals, such as the wolf, fox, panther, mountain lion, buffalo, and elk, disappeared when access to guns in the eighteenth century contributed to over-hunting and foraging domestic animals destroyed the native habitat.
John Ridge
The introduction of new vegetable crops lengthened the growing season. As in other parts of the country, cotton offered a new market crop while contributing the depletion of once-rich soils. In 1826, Cherokee leader John Ridge wrote that, “cotton is generally raised for domestic consumption and a few have grown it for market and have realized very good profits.” Indian women made use of the cotton they grew to make cloth and clothing. The government gave the Cherokee spinning wheels, cotton cards, and looms. Raising sheep for wool became important with these new tools.
European settlers brought fruit trees into Georgia. The Cherokees quickly began growing peaches. Soon, there were so many of these trees that newcomers to Georgia thought peaches were a native plant. The Cherokee also planted apple, cherry, pear, quince, and plum trees. Wheat, rye, and oats also grew very well.
The Cherokee and the White Settlers
The 1835 Cherokee census lists 8,936 Cherokee Indians in Georgia at that time. Although most Cherokees adopted European ways of life, including speech, dress, and customs, many white settlers did not wish to live with the Cherokee as their neighbors. In truth, these new settlers wanted the rich farmland of north Georgia. Yet this land belonged to the Cherokee people.
Not all settlers to Georgia disliked the Cherokee. Many recognized them as hard-working and honorable people. Many men married Cherokee women. Other settlers taught them to grow new crops. Similarly, the Cherokee taught the new settlers how to use the resources of the land.
Still, Georgia's government favored the removal of all Indians. They wanted the Indians to be moved west of the Mississippi River. In 1802, Georgia gave its lands west of the Chattahoochee River to the federal government. In return, the federal government pledged to remove all Indians from the state.
Wilson Lumpkin
In 1826, Wilson Lumpkin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was appointed to the Committee on Indian Affairs, and he quickly introduced a resolution to find a way to remove all native peoples from Georgia. He also worked to find a suitable home for them west of the Mississippi River. In 1829, the country elected President Andrew Jackson as its seventh president. Jackson supported Indian removal. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the Indian Removal Bill on 28 May 1830.
From 1830 to 1835, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Creeks signed removal treaties. The state then extended its laws over the Cherokee Nation. They surveyed all Cherokee lands and distributed them by lottery to white settlers.
In 1834, the Georgia General Assembly ordered the state militia to protect Georgia citizens. The militia also offered protection to those Indians who agreed with the removal plans. Wilson Lumpkin, now governor, directed Colonel William Bishop to construct barracks for his men and to find suitable places to store their supplies. Colonel Bishop built his headquarters at Spring Place, Georgia.
Major Ridge
In December 1835, a group of Cherokee led by John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and Major Ridge met treaty commissioners at New Echota. These three men signed a treaty giving up all southeastern Cherokee lands, even though they represented only a small minority of the Cherokee nation. The time of removal was set for two years later. The Georgia legislature decreed that all Indians would leave Georgia by 25 May 1838.
By 1838, Fort Wool was the center of Cherokee removal work in Georgia. Fort Wool was located at New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Here, Cherokee families signed up for removal. The federal government paid them a small compensation for their land, houses, and barns.
The Army built 14 more military posts in Georgia. These posts were constructed approximately 10 to 20 miles apart. Each fort had access to major roads and each provided shelter for troops and supplies during the removal.
Removal
Federal troops organized the Cherokee into 13 groups of about 1,000 people. A conductor and his assistant led each group west to Oklahoma and Arkansas. On 1 October 1838, the first groups departed along the trail. Forced to walk, ride in wagons, or on flatboats, the groups traveled for nearly four months to reach their new home.
Winfield Scott
It is a sad story in our history. It is a story of men, women, and children herded together and forced to march more than a thousand miles to a new and different homeland. Some people made the journey by boat. Others walked, rode horses, or were carried in wagons. They were guarded by soldiers the entire way. Many died, especially among the young and the very old.
Only after John Ross, a Cherokee leader, appealed to General Winfield Scott were the Cherokee allowed to lead their own people west in small groups. Most arrived in Arkansas and Oklahoma during the brutally cold winter of 1838-1839.
Although this report provides the basis for extension of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail System into Georgia, research is far from complete. Historians and archaeologists are actively seeking archival documents in county courthouses and archaeological information to help refine our knowledge of the forts that were built and occupied during Removal and to tell the stories of those who were imprisoned within their walls.
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