The National Parks Service dubbed the Trail of Tears the "Journey of Injustice." From 1837 to 1839, the U.S. military forcibly removed from their homes -- sometimes a gunpoint -- Cherokee Indians from their home lands in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.
"The Trail of Tears started on the doorstep of every Cherokee home," said John McLarty, president of the Arkansas chapter of the Trail of Tears Association.
"That was one tragic period in American history," he noted. All five tribes -- the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws and Seminoles -- in 13 detachments of about 1,000 people each passed through Northwest Arkansas bound for Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
"They traveled by foot, horse, wagon or steamboat in 1838 to 1839," reads the parks service website of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
The Arkansas chapter of the association met for its annual meeting Aug. 2 at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, which stands just 27 miles east of today's Oklahoma boundary.
Capt. John Benge, the Rev. Jesse Bushyhead, John A. Bell, Richard Taylor and others led the expeditions. An earlier detachment led by B.B. Cannon, from October to December 1837, wasn't considered part of the "removal." These Cherokees left voluntarily, but they did travel through Northwest Arkansas, McLarty shared.
Most groups traveled through Missouri to Arkansas, McLarty said, showing a map with each route marked in a different color.
Disbandment depots were designated in Oklahoma. The Benge route ended at Mrs. Webber's plantation near present-day Stilwell, Okla.; Bushyhead's group disbanded at Beatties Prairie near Westville, Okla.; Bell's route ended at the Latta house in Evansville, which is near Stilwell; and the Taylor group at Woodall's near Westville. Cannon's early group disbanded at Ms. Bean's at Stilwell.
"The geography was tough from southern Missouri to Cane Hill -- a trek made in winter," McLarty said. The Cherokees on the Cannon route buried three children.
"What do the families do?" he asked. "They go on to Indian Territory. They didn't have time to mourn. They had to figure out how to survive winter in their new home."
McLarty said the Arkansas group places commemorative markers and interpretive signs at significant points along the trail -- but only those confirmed by research.
For example, the Arkansas chapter found a receipt, dated December 1837, for $2.25 to James Coulter of Cane Hill for furnishing a coffin. Dan Littlefield of the Sequoyah Research Center led the research team.
"The receipt was found in the National Archives, and it's written from the Treasury Department," McLarty said. The group also found a journal in another box at the archives which confirmed this."
A Dec. 27, 1827, entry from the previously discovered Cannon's journal reads:
"Buried Alsey Timberlake, daughter of Chas Timberlake, Marched at 8 o'c. A.M., halted at Ms. Bean's, in the Cherokee nation west, at ½ past 2 o'c. P.M., encamped and issued corn and fodder. Fresh pork & some beef. 12 miles to day."
The parks service originally placed signs identifying an "auto route" to follow the Trail of Tears.
"There's the original route and the auto route," McLarty said. "The federal government took the easy way out on the initial placement of road signs. U.S. highways were the best approximation, but are not historically accurate. The auto route through Northwest Arkansas follows (U.S.) 62 to (U.S) 71B, while the actual route lay in the path of today's Old Wire Road in Springdale."
"Everybody knew the route was Old Wire Road," he continued. "And we've always known it. It's confirmed now, and we have a chance to correct it."
Taylor and his detachment entered Arkansas near present-day Gateway and stopped at Ruddick's -- now known as Elkhorn Tavern, part of the Pea Ridge National Military Park. The group traveled south, stopping at Cross Hollows near Lowell and at Fitzgerald's Station in Springdale.
While only a family farm in the 1830s, Fitzgerald's became a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route. A stone barn built by the stagecoach line to hold horses for the stage remains on the site.
Again, primary evidence puts the Cherokees at Fitzgerald's. A receipt to John Fitzgerald, dated Dec. 25, 1837, from the diary of William Morrow reads: "Forage for two horses and quarters and subsistence for a driver of a wagon ... $1.25."
From Fitzgerald's, the Cherokees traveled to Spring Creek in downtown Springdale then to the Mount Comfort area of Fayetteville, near the old Cunningham homestead.
"They passed right here," McLarty said excitedly, pointing to the creek alongside what today is Mill Street, the eastern border of the museum's grounds.
McLarty showed an 1899 map clearly showing the route between Fitzgerald's and Spring Creek.
"We know how they got from Fitzgerald's to Spring Creek. The puzzle is how they got from here to Mount Comfort," McLarty said.
Commentary on 08/14/2014