News Release

Cherokee Nation Remember the Removal Bike Riders to Visit Trail of Tears Path through Pea Ridge National Military Park 2024

Date: June 12, 2024
Contact: Shelley Todd, 479-451-8122

On June 19, at approximately 11 a.m., Cherokee Nation’s twelve Remember the Removal Bike Riders will cycle into Pea Ridge National Military Park to honor their ancestors by visiting a portion of the route more than 10,000 Cherokee traveled in the late 1830s as they were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands. Today known as the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, one of the best-preserved sections of the path lies along the Telegraph Road near Elkhorn Tavern. The riders will also visit Ruddick’s Field, where some removal contingents camped along the route.

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which required the various Indian tribes in today’s southeastern United States to give up their lands in exchange for federal territory located west of the Mississippi River. Most Indians fiercely resisted this policy, but as the 1830s wore on, most of the major tribes – the Choctaws, Muscogee Creeks, Seminoles, and Chickasaws – agreed to be relocated to Indian Territory (in present-day Oklahoma). The Cherokee were forced to move because a small, rump faction of the tribe signed the Treaty of New Echota in late 1835, a treaty that the U.S. Senate ratified in May 1836. This action – the treaty signing and its subsequent Senate approval – tore the Cherokee into two implacable factions: a minority of those who were allied with the “treaty party,” and the vast majority that bitterly opposed the treaty signing.

In May 1838, the Cherokee removal process began. U.S. Army troops, along with various state militia, moved into the tribe’s homelands and forcibly evicted more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia. They were first sent to so-called “round up camps,” and soon afterward to one of three emigration camps. Once there, the U.S. Army gave orders to move the Cherokee west. In June 1838, three detachments left southeastern Tennessee and were sent to Indian Territory by water. Difficulties with those moves, however, led to negotiations between Principal Chief John Ross and U.S. Army General Winfield Scott, and later that summer, Scott issued an order stating that Ross would be in charge of all future detachment movements. Ross, honoring that pledge, orchestrated the migration of fourteen detachments, most of which traveled over existing roads, between August and December 1838.

The impact of the resulting Cherokee “Trail of Tears” was devastating. More than a thousand Cherokee – particularly the old, the young, and the infirm – died during their trip west, hundreds more deserted from the detachments, and an unknown number – perhaps several thousand – perished from the consequences of the forced migration. The tragic relocation was completed by the end of March 1839, and resettlement of tribal members in Oklahoma began soon afterward.

On the 40^th anniversary of the inaugural Remember the Removal ride, the program continues to provide Cherokee youth the opportunity to develop their leadership skills while retracing the Trail of Tears, reflecting on the experiences of their ancestors, and sharing the history and ultimate triumph of Cherokee people. The 950-mile journey from New Echota, Georgia, to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, follows the Northern Route of the Trail of Tears. The team began their ride on June 3.

During their time in the park, the riders will also stop by the park Visitor Center to see the Cherokee Braves battle flag, which will be on exhibit through July 7. Considered one of the rarest battle flags in existence, it was flown by the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles at the Battle of Pea Ridge, just over two decades after the removal.

Since its introduction to Cherokee people in the eighteenth century, the enslavement of African-descended people was a practice in Cherokee Nation. When forcibly relocated to Indian Territory, Cherokee slaveholders brought enslaved people to continue their labors in Indian Territory. At the start of the Civil War, factions within the Cherokee Nation emerged as both the United States and the Confederacy eyed Indian Territory for expansion. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief John Ross, who was himself a slave owner, vigorously campaigned to keep Cherokee Nation neutral. Other Cherokee slave owners, however, wanted to side with the Confederacy.

After federal troops abandoned Indian Territory, Ross reluctantly allied with the Confederacy to avoid reprisal from the nearby Confederate states of Arkansas and Texas. The decision bitterly divided the tribe and inflamed deeply rooted internal tensions. In 1861, the Cherokee National Council authorized the creation of the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles, also called “Cherokee Braves.” As pro-Union Cherokees, including some who deserted the Confederacy, also took up arms, Cherokee Nation descended into factional violence.

The Civil War ended in 1865, but emancipation in Cherokee Nation was not widely enforced until after ratification of the Treaty of 1866, giving the former slaves, known as Cherokee Freedmen, “all the rights of native Cherokees,” which the tribe embraces today through citizenship, programs and services, and through art and history projects.

The Cherokee Braves battle flag was patterned after the Confederate First National Flag and had eleven white stars to represent the eleven states of the Confederacy. The five red stars represented the “Five Civilized Tribes.” The flag currently on exhibit at Pea Ridge National Military Park is on loan from the museum collection of Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.

www.nps.gov/peri

About Pea Ridge National Military Park: the Battle of Pea Ridge was fought on March 7-8, 1862, by over 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. It was the largest battle fought west of the Mississippi River and was a major turning point, helping Union forces maintain physical and political control of the state of Missouri. Administered by the National Park Service, the 4,400-acre battlefield is located 10 miles north of Rogers, just off US Highway 62. For more information, visit us at www.nps.gov/peri or call 479-451-8122.