ParkScope
Q&A: The Trail of Tears
In 1838, the United States government forcibly removed more than 16,000 Cherokee Indians from their homelands in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, relocating them to areas now called Oklahoma; hundreds died during the trip and thousands more perished shortly afterwards. The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail—about 2,200 miles of land and water trails designated in 1987—tells this sad chapter in American history, but research has indicated that there are additional trails that are not yet part of the network. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) recently introduced legislation expanding the trail to parts of Tennessee and several other states.
Q: How did you become involved in the legislation concerning the Trail of Tears?
A: My mother’s grandfather, Looney Meadows, who lived to be about 100 years old, was a half-breed Cherokee Indian—I can still remember being with him in his later years. His mother, whose Indian name was Little Flower, was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, and that has always been something I was real proud of. Our family had roots in east Tennessee about four generations ago, then all ended up in northern Alabama, and now we’re all back [in Tennessee], but the thought has always been that they fled before the Trail of Tears took place.
Through my work in designating Moccasin Bend [as an archaeological historical site relevant to the Trail of Tears], I met Dr. Dwayne King, an authority on the Park Service’s trail system. Back in 1994, he told me that he was documenting more depots—places where Cherokees were rounded up—and paths that were part of the trail, and he told me the original legislation establishing the trail was woefully inadequate. He said that once his research was vetted, we might want to look at modernizing the legislation, and these new routes would double the scope of the Trail of Tears.
Q: Why is it so important to preserve this land?
A: The Trail of Tears is a story of a great people, the Cherokee people, one of the smartest Indian tribes in the history of all Native Americans. They had their own alphabet, their own communication, their own government, and the white man completely disrupted their way of life, ordering their forced removal. It’s a story of character of an entire people, a great people whose character was born out of adversity. It’s a tragic story that, frankly, needs to be a more prominent part of American history.
But beyond the story of the Cherokee, this is the story of Andrew Jackson ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court, forcibly removing nearly 17,000 Native Americans from their land against the ruling of Chief Justice John Marshall. It’s a sore spot in the history of Andrew Jackson and the state of Tennessee, but you can’t water down or ignore the harsh realities of what man can do to man.
I have the privilege of taking young people through the U.S. Capitol quite often and I always stop in at Statuary Hall, and I talk about heroes like Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett—they were both Democrats [and they knew each other well], but boy did they ever part ways. Davy Crockett lost his seat in Congress because he sided with the Native Americans against Andrew Jackson, and he was run out of office. Davy Crockett goes down in history as this great leader, in part because he gave his life at the Alamo, but in my view he separated himself from everyone else by doing what he knew was right, even though it was very unpopular to side with the Native Americans.
Q: Why is it important for the Park Service to tell these difficult stories?
A: I think all great leaders at some point admit their mistakes and I think all great nations would fall into the same category. If you deny that you are infallible or that you make mistakes, history will never truly recognize you as great.
If these stories are told candidly, they reveal the character of the nation and the character of the players. You have to understand the injustice of the Trail of Tears to understand the courage of Davy Crockett. You have to understand the travesty of the Cherokee to understand why Tennessee Governor John Sevier came to Chattanooga and stood over the Cherokee children as they played at the Brainerd mission and began to cry. When they said, “Governor, why do you cry?” He said “Because I realize these are little children just like my grandchildren and not wild animals after all.” You have to understand how wrong it all was, to ever understand how right he was.
Q: How are Cherokees in this region responding to this movement?
A: At the opening of The Passage [a permanent display of Cherokee artwork on the shores of the Tennessee River], it was incredible to see the presence of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, who came back to these sites—to see the emotion and the passion they brought to the river, and to see the Five Civilized Tribes come together… Over the years, a lot of these tribes have been fractured and splintered and relocated all over the region, but this process is a coming together, a return to where their ancestors came and were removed. It’s like the recent movement to honor the World War II generation: You can honor them when they’re all gone and dead, but isn’t it a lot nicer to honor them when they live?
