Trail of Tears Association Meeting

[Paulding History]

Trail of Tears Meeting in Paulding County

By Linda Baker

The next meeting of the Georgia Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association will take place on Saturday, July 14, 2012 at 10:30 AM at the Second Baptist Church of New Hope in Dallas, Georgia. Our speaker will be Mark Millican. Mr. Millican has worked as a journalist for most of his adult career, primarily at three newspapers — the Times-Courier in Ellijay, The Chatsworth Times and The Daily Citizen in Dalton. He has also served as a part-time pastor in the Methodist Church for the past seven years. His topic will be "John Sevier's Raids into Georgia in the late 1700s". Millican became interested in John Sevier after meeting and becoming friends with Lawrence Stanley. Mr. Stanley was a naturalist, historian and educator who had a special love for the Native Americans who first lived in the hills and mountains of north Georgia. One of the most distressing tales Stanley related to Millican was how the Indian towns of Coosa (in what would become Murray County) and Elij (from which Ellijay is derived) were burned to the ground by renegade Revolutionary War soldiers in 1782. The following is excerpted from Millican's writings about Sevier. "Colonel John Sevier was a Frenchman (his French name is Xivier) who enlisted with the fledgling Americans against the British in the Revolutionary War. His area of service was the southern Appalachians,and he soon developed a fierce loyalty among the mountaineers who served with him for his bravery and heroism." While the mountaineers were away fighting at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina, "a sympathizer to the Crown named Alexander Cameron stirred up the Cherokee with the hopes they could regain their hunting grounds with 1,000 white men out of the way." Sevier was asked to lead the campaign against this Indian uprising. "So began two years of Sevier and other commanders pursuing and fighting the Cherokee, and at turns, the British. At one time he even came to the aid of the legendary 'Swamp Fox', Gen. Francis Marion. In mid-1782, the tenor of the campaign turned even nastier when the North Carolina Assembly authorized Sevier to raise 1,000 volunteers for the destruction of the Chickamauga Indian towns further south." As time went on, Sevier and his troops destroyed one Cherokee town after another eventually reaching Ustinaula (Oostanaula in present-day Gordon County), Coosawatie(Coosa) and Elij (Ellijay). The attack on Elij was a complete surprise and was particularly vicious. PLEASE COME to our meeting and hear all the details about this fascinating and disturbing time in history!

 

Thank you to the Paulding County Historical Society for hosting us and allowing us to meet in this interesting location. The meeting location and address is: The Second Baptist Church of New Hope, 44 Bobo Rd., Dallas, GA 30132. The Church is the white frame building on the right at the corner of Bobo Road and Dallas Acworth Hwy. 381 in New Hope. The New Hope Second Baptist Church was built in 1886 on the New Hope Church Battlefield and has trenches on the property that were dug by the Confederate soldiers during the battle that took place from May25th to June 4th of 1864. Across the road is the historic New Hope Cemetery which was the site of the original New Hope Church destroyed during the battle and the burial site of many who died fighting there.

 

The Trail of Tears Association was created to support the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail established by an act of Congress in 1987. The TOTA is dedicated to identifying and preserving sites associated with the removal of Native Americans from the Southeast. The Association consists of nine state chapters representing the nine states that the Cherokee and other tribes traveled through on their way to Indian Territory. Our meetings are free and open to the public. You need not have Native American ancestry to attend our meetings, just an interest and desire to learn more about this fascinating and tragic period in our country's history. For more information about the TOTA, visit the National TOTA website at www.nationaltota.org and the Georgia Chapter website at www.gatrailoftears.org. For more information about the July meeting, contact Leslie Thomas at aeriehollow@ellijay.com or by phone at 770-757-0931.

 

 

The Paulding County Historical Society

 

www.pchsm.org

Edited July 2, 2012 by Betty Jo Bradley
Edited to correct typing errors

[thedeerslayer]

The book I am reading right now.

 

 

 

 

[feelip]

I saw the Trail of Tears signs on the road between Cave Springs and Cedartown (Booger Hollow Road).

[lowrider]

The book I am reading right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very sad. I have my old copy from 30 or more years ago.

 

We used to do the TOT ride from Chattanooga to Waterloo at the AL/MS line on our mototcycles. One day we will complete the trip to Oklahoma.

 

It's an amazing ride and quite somber when you think about how many were displaced and died on the way to Oklahoma, on foot.

[Ixliam1]

I had one generation of my family intermarry with the tribe, right before the Trail of Tears events took place. The women who married Cherokee men (and their descendants) are buried out in Oklahoma, while my direct ancestor and his Cherokee wife stayed here (since being white he could own property) and they are buried up in a little cemetery between Talking Rock and Ellijay.

[Paulding History]

Hopefully all of you can attend the meeting. Historians will be there that could answer any questions you may have. It should be interesting.

 

Here is a good article that is a quick read -

 

Georgia History and the Trail of Tears Officially Converge

By Meg Donahue

It's difficult to imagine that an idyllic green field in North Georgia, with a clear, burbling spring edged by cedars, was once the site of a makeshift Cherokee internment camp. But in 1838, 199 Cherokee were marched to this spot in Cedartown, just south of Rome, to await removal into Tennessee and, from there, Indian Territory in Oklahoma. These were the first steps of what is now known as the Trail of Tears, an 800-mile journey that marks the forced exodus of some 15,000 Cherokee from the Southeast, more than 4,000 of whom died along the way.

 

Until this past fall, Georgia's removal sites were not included in the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, which, as it was originally conceived in 1987, commemorated only the Cherokees' passage west—not the places and events, such as the military seizures and internments, that led to their journey. But last spring, President Obama signed the Omnibus land bill, extending the boundaries of the trail into Georgia. It was the culmination of twenty years of work and the efforts of hundreds of people, including W. Jeff Bishop, president of the Georgia chapter of the Trail of Tears Association, and Tennessee U.S. Representative Zach Wamp, who worked with the state chapters to get the bill passed. "Nobody is doing this for money," says Dr. Sarah H. Hill, historian and founding member of the Georgia chapter. "They are doing it as a way to recover our broken history."

 

According to Hill, Georgia's inclusion was crucial; it was one of the most aggressive states in removing its native people, and it had the largest population of Cherokee, around 9,000 according to a federal census conducted three years before the removal. Fourteen removal forts and camps—including Cedartown, which was the first Georgia internment site officially added to the Trail last fall—were constructed throughout North Georgia to house the evicted, who, according to the U.S. Army, numbered 4,000 at that time. (The remaining numbers are believed to have left Georgia before the removal.) The forts were often nothing more than campsites built in areas with large Cherokee populations.

 

And now? Bishop says the organization will continue to identify Trail sites and routes for approval, using oral histories, archaeological records, lawsuits, letters, and land deeds as evidence of a site's history. Each site must also have little to no modern development; nothing should impede the visitor's imagination of what the area would have looked like in 1838. (So Ellijay's Fort Hetzel, for example—now an Ingles grocery store—may have some trouble.) Each approved site will then receive "wayside exhibits"—markers with pictures and text by Hill—explaining the property's role in the removal.

 

"We are using these sites and using the power of place to tell this story in a very immediate way," says Bishop. "It brings it alive and lets people know that the Trail of Tears wasn't something that happened somewhere else. It happened in my front yard."

 

Cherokee Removal in Georgia: A Timeline

 

1802

Georgia cedes its western lands (now Alabama and Mississippi) in the Compact of 1802 to the federal government, which promises in exchange the eventual removal of all Native Americans from the state.

 

1831

In Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia, the Cherokee balk at the tight restrictions Georgia has placed upon them (e.g., not being allowed to meet, testify against a white man, or have a government). The Supreme Court rules that the Cherokee Nation is a "domestic dependent nation" outside the Court's jurisdiction.

 

1825

The Cherokee capital is founded at New Echota, near present-day Calhoun.

 

1828

Gold is found on Cherokee land in Dahlonega.

 

1832

In Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court rules that the Cherokee Nation is a sovereign nation and as such is above any state law. Only the federal government has the authority to negotiate with another nation.

 

1835

Ousted Cherokee speaker Major Ridge signs the Treaty of New Echota, promising a Cherokee evacuation within two years. Many believe the treaty is invalid, as Chief John Ross (left) did not sign it.

 

1837

Construction begins on the first removal sites in Georgia.

 

1838

The roundup of the Cherokee begins in May; the last Cherokee are pushed out of Georgia by June.

 

This article originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of Atlanta magazine

[LisaKW@bellsouth.net]

Darn! It's right when I will be attending the orientation for our foreign exchange student.

 

It sounds FASCINATING! I'd love to learn more.

[Paulding History]

This has something about a place close to Burnt Hickory -

 

 

The death of King Fisher is a crucial blow to the Cherokee. The remaining warriors flee. While the Tennesseeans move west down the Coosa River destroying both Creek and Cherokee villages, the Hightower Cherokee not killed in battle move east along the Etowah to present-day Cartersville, Georgia, where they start a new village, also called Hightower.

 

Today the battle of Hightower is marked by a single stone in the Myrtle Hill Cemetery. John Sevier went on to become the first governor of the state of Tennessee and later U. S. Senator. Hugh Lawson White, the man reputed to have killed King Fisher, begins practicing law in Knoxville in 1796 and becomes Senator White in 1825. His third party run for United States President in 1836 ends with him winning the states of Tennessee and Georgia.

 

Doublehead became an important Cherokee Chief, but paid the price for attacking the boy in James Vann's saddle. 17 years later Vann would plot his murder as part of the "Revolt of the Young Chiefs. " Major Ridge, who was also present, would go on to many powerful positions in the Cherokee Nation.

 

 

 

Link to full article HERE

Edited July 14, 2012 by Paulding History