This Cherokee Removal Memorial is dedicated to those Cherokees that died and those that cried in what has become known as The Trail of Tears. The names of the head of each of the 2,537 households and the number of family members from the 1835 Census taken in preparation for the removal are inscribed on panels arranged by the State of their residence. Panels representing the seven Cherokee clans are superimposed on central part of the Cherokee Nation seal.

Today we are champions of human rights and have gone to war to oppose ethnic cleansing. This has not been the case in dealing with Native Americans in general and southeastern tribes in particular. President Thomas Jefferson made an agreement with the state of Georgia to extinguish Indian land claims as soon as it could be peaceably accomplished. This provided for the creation of the states of Alabama and Mississippi and a solution to the “Indian Problem” by moving them west of the Mississippi River. Cherokee communal land claims were based on treaties between sovereign nations subject to Constitutional Law requiring change by treaty or right of conquest. President Andrew Jackson formalized the policy with passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 after a bitter debate in Congress. The Cherokees adamantly opposed removal and passed a death penalty law for anyone entering into an agreement ceding Cherokee land without approval of the Cherokee National Council. In 1835 a small unauthorized group of leading Cherokee citizens entered into the New Echota Treaty which was ratified by the U.S. Senate by one vote and was rejected by the Cherokee National Council. The Cherokees were to receive five million dollars and were to remove themselves to Indian Territory(Oklahoma) within two years. A small group of Treaty supporters accepted compensation for their property and emigrated on their own. Over 90 percent of the Cherokees signed a petition to Congress rejecting the Treaty and refused to emigrate. On May 24, 1838 the U.S. Army and civilian volunteers begin the brutal roundup of the Cherokees.

By mid July 1838 the Army had 14,870 persons in 12 stockades under deplorable conditions. The region was undergoing a severe drought and the Army’s attempt to transport 3 detachments of about 3,000 Cherokees by water was disastrous. Conditions in the stockades were very difficult for the very young and old in what the Indians called the “sickly season”. The Cherokees asked for and received permission to manage their own removal if they could wait until fall to start their journey overland. Between August 28 and November 7, 1838 twelve detachments of about one thousand each departed by land and one smaller detachment by water. Nine of these detachments departed their ancestral land at Blyths Ferry waiting here, up to six weeks, waiting to cross the Tennessee River into an uncertain future. The Army failed to provide the promised support when they arrived in their new land unprepared for a harsh winter. There are no accurate records of the deaths that occurred due to the Cherokee Removal. The best contemporary estimate was by Elizur Butler an attending physician to the emigrating Cherokees. He estimated about: 1,500 died in the Army’s transport by water, 2,000 died in the stockades, and 700 died during removal by the Cherokees for a total of 4,200. Some scholars place the number of deaths at about 8,000 taking into account the aftermath.