Capt. John Benge, a Cherokee court judge, led a group of 1,200 Cherokees from Wills Valley, Ala. (near present-day Fort Payne) to their new home in Indian Territory -- the area now part of Oklahoma. They started Sept. 28, 1838.
"They were told they had to be out by Oct. 1," said Carolyn Kent, project coordinator for the Arkansas Trail of Tears Association, who studied the trip extensively. "The government was not going to feed them after the 30th."
At A Glance (w/logo)
Cherokee National Holiday
Celebrates: 175th anniversary of Cherokee Nation Constitution
When: August 29-30
Where: Cherokee Cultural Grounds, Tahlequah, Okla.
Information: cherokee.org
The little-known Benge route through Arkansas, including Fayetteville, was a focal point of discussions of the Arkansas chapter of the Trail of Tears Association when it met Aug. 2 at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale.
The Benge contingent traveled through Tennessee and Missouri before entering Arkansas near Pocahontas. "The Benge Party entered Arkansas on Dec. 8, 1838, just north of Pitman's Ferry in extreme northeastern Randolph County," reads an interpretive panel placed in that county. Kent designed, researched and wrote the text for the panel.
The group didn't use the ferry to cross the Current River because the ferry man inflated his price. Instead, they forded the river that cold December. They stopped at Supply, Ark., for supplies and to bury eight members who died before and during the crossing. They had four large and icy rivers to ford in Randolph County, with similar greetings from other ferry masters along the route, the panel notes.
The group followed the Southwest Trail, and, in January 1839, arrived in Carrollton, east of Springdale. Then the Benge group traveled traveled through Fayetteville on their way to their dispersal station at Webber's plantation near modern-day Stilwell, Okla.
Kent read an account of their arrival from the 1889 Goodspeed's "History of Northwest Arkansas."
"The following account of the affair, here, by Alfred W. Arrington, is said to be correct:
"'It was a beautiful Sunday in mid-summer that a band of some 1,000 Cherokee immigrants ... passed through Fayetteville. ... The scene of their passage through the principle streets of the village was picturesque in extreme. Long lines of wagons rolled slowly forward, creaking with a dull sound under their heavy loads. Then followed troops of pedestrians of all ages and conditions: hunters with their rifles and tomahawks; barefoot squaws with their babies tied on their shoulders; little Indian boys leading their lean wolf-like dogs by long strings fastened around their necks; and half-naked girls driving herds of cattle before them.
"Next came lines of those on horseback (these belonged to the middle class), and these, too, were of every variety of description: sober and sedate members of the church; half-breed braves in the wild costume of the desperado; white gamblers, who had married Indian women; and beautiful quadroons, with whose dark and fascinating eyes and raven ringlets, still more bewitching, if possible, floating in the wind around their fine, graceful shoulders. After these followed the families of wealth -- the Cherokee aristocracy -- in their splendid carriages, many of which were equal to the most brilliant that rattle along Broadway. And next, and last of all, came hundreds of African-American slaves on foot, and weary and worn down by the heavy burdens they were compelled to carry."
Most of the Cherokee party camped three miles west of Fayetteville, Kent said, but "a good bit" stayed in town.
"It had been their custom," reads the Goodspeed history, "on reaching small towns, to imbibe freely of 'fire water,' then to take possession of the town and terrorize the inhabitants."
Most of the residents of Fayetteville hoped no store would be open to sell them alcohol, Kent said. But the Wallace brothers needed the money and served them until all were sufficiently drunk and dancing in the streets.
An unknown Fayetteville "loafer" insulted a Cherokee woman, and Nelson Orr -- described as a "half-breed desperado" -- knocked down the offender and beat him. Riley Wallace pulled Orr off the man. Then, Orr stabbed Riley. Willis Wallace, Riley's brother, in turn, stabbed Orr, the history relates.
Wallace and friends left town at the urging of William Coody, a Cherokee brave, and at the sound of an approaching "hideous war-whoop." Hundreds of Cherokee from the nearby camp rode with their guns to Fayetteville to burn down the village. Coody and other rational Cherokee leaders finally convinced them Wallace was gone and to return to camp.
"At the May term, 1839, Willis S. Wallace was tried upon the charge of manslaughter, for the killing of a Cherokee named Orr," reads the Goodspeed history. He received an innocent verdict from the jury.
"Orr lingered several days in excruciating torture, and expired as he had lived, a fearless desperado to the last," the history concludes.
Commentary on 08/21/2014