The Cherokee called it ᏅᎾᏓᎤᎳᏨᏱ (nv-na-da-u-la-tsv-yi) — "the trail where they cried."

 

For the roughly 15,000 Cherokee driven from the internment camps of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama in the summer, fall, and winter of 1838, the Trail of Tears was not a single road but a web of rivers, ferries, turnpikes, and frozen wagon ruts stretching some 800 miles from the Appalachian foothills to Indian Territory in what is now northeastern Oklahoma.

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The First Departures and the Water Route

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The forced march began under the Army's direct control. On June 6, 1838, Lieutenant Edward Deas led about 800 Cherokee out of Ross's Landing (present-day Chattanooga) by steamboat and barge, followed on June 13 by a second detachment under Lieutenant Whitely and a third on June 17. These three "water route" detachments — roughly 2,800 people in all — descended the Tennessee River to the Ohio, dropped down the Mississippi, and pushed up the Arkansas toward Fort Coffee.

 

Summer drought stalled the boats in shallow water, forcing overland marches across Arkansas where dysentery and heat killed three to five people a day. The suffering was so severe that Principal Chief John Ross petitioned General Winfield Scott to suspend removals until autumn and to let the Cherokee Nation manage its own migration.

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The Ross-Led Detachments

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Scott agreed. Ross organized the remaining people into thirteen detachments of roughly 700 to 1,600 each, appointing Cherokee conductors and assistant conductors to lead them — Hair Conrad (later Daniel Colston), Elijah Hicks, Rev. Jesse Bushyhead, John Benge, Situwakee, Captain Old Field, Moses Daniel, Choowalooka, James Brown, George Hicks, Richard Taylor, Peter Hildebrand, and John Drew.

 

Hair Conrad's detachment left the Rattlesnake Springs/Fort Cass staging area on August 23, 1838, the first of the Ross-led parties; Elijah Hicks followed on September 1, then Bushyhead on September 3, and the rest across September, October, and November.

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Most crossed the Tennessee River at Blythe Ferry and then followed what became known as the Northern Route: northwest across central Tennessee through Nashville, into Kentucky through Hopkinsville, across the southern tip of Illinois, over the Mississippi near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and southwestward through the Ozarks and northwestern Arkansas into Indian Territory.

 

The John Benge detachment out of Fort Payne, Alabama, took a distinct southern alignment across northern Alabama and the Missouri Ozarks; the John Bell detachment moved west across southern Tennessee through Memphis.

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Winter on the Trail

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Autumn turned to catastrophe as the detachments approached the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In early December 1838, Cherokee families reached the Ohio opposite Golconda, Illinois, and began ferrying across into a landscape locked in one of the coldest winters on record. At the Mississippi crossing near Moccasin Springs and Green's Ferry at Bainbridge, Missouri, thick drift ice halted the ferries entirely; thousands of Cherokee camped for weeks along both banks, sheltering in places like Mantle Rock in Kentucky, waiting for the river to clear.

 

One commissary agent testified that snow lay so deep across the roadway "it was impossible to see" the dangerous places beneath, and that his detachment lay in camp through excessive cold until January 3, 1839. Pneumonia, measles, whooping cough, and exposure killed elders and infants first. Hair Conrad's detachment lost 57 people.

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The Last Detachment and Quatie Ross

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Chief John Ross himself led the final party, the Victoria detachment, conducted by his nephew John Drew. About 228 people boarded four flatboats on the Hiwassee River on December 5, 1838, and transferred to the steamboat Victoria, which Ross had purchased for the journey.

 

Just before reaching Little Rock, Ross's wife Quatie fell ill; by local tradition she had given her only blanket to a sick child. She died of pneumonia aboard the Victoria on February 1, 1839, and was buried in Little Rock, where her grave still stands at Mount Holly Cemetery.

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The last detachments straggled into Indian Territory between January and March 25, 1839, after journeys of 106 to 188 days. Missionary physician Elizur Butler estimated that more than 4,000 Cherokee died along the trail and in the camps — nearly one in five of the Nation.

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READ THE STORY FROM ELLA WATERS' POINT OF VIEW:

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