page_title: Cherokee removal
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Cherokee removal / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: Trail of Tears sign on Hwy 71 through Fayetteville, Arkansas
context_page_description: Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation between 1836 and 1839 of the Cherokee Nation and their roughly 1,600 black slaves from their lands in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama to the Indian Territory in the then Western United States, and the resultant deaths along the way and at the end of the movement of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee.
  The Cherokee have come to call the event Nu na da ul tsun yi; another term is Tlo va sa —both phrases not used at the time, and seems to be of Choctaw origin. Removal actions occurred to other American Indian groups in the American South, North, Midwest, Southwest, and the Plains regions. The Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee and were removed reluctantly. The Seminole in Florida resisted removal by the United States Army for decades with guerrilla warfare, part of the intermittent Native American Wars that lasted from 1540 to 1924. Some Seminole remained in their Florida home country, while others were transported to Native American Territory in shackles.
context_section_description: Cherokee who were removed initially settled near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The political turmoil resulting from the Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears led to the assassinations of Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot; of those targeted for assassination that day, only Stand Watie escaped his assassins. The population of the Cherokee Nation eventually rebounded, and today the Cherokee are the largest American Indian group in the United States.
  There were some exceptions to removal. Those Cherokee who lived on private, individually owned lands (rather than communally owned tribal land) were not subject to removal. In North Carolina, about 400 Cherokee led by Yonaguska lived on land along the Oconaluftee River in the Great Smoky Mountains owned by a white man named William Holland Thomas (who had been adopted by Cherokee as a boy), and were thus not subject to removal, and these were joined by a smaller band of about 150 along the Nantahala River led by Utsala. Along with a group living in Snowbird and another along the Cheoah River in a community called Tomotley, these North Carolina Cherokee became the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, numbering approximately 1000. According to a roll taken the year after the removal (1839), there were in addition some estimated about 400 of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, and these also joined the EBCI.
  A local newspaper, the Highland Messenger, said July 24, 1840, “that between nine hundred and a thousand of these deluded beings … are still hovering about the homes of their fathers, in the counties of Macon and Cherokee"  and "that they are a great annoyance to the citizens" who wanted to buy land there believing the Cherokee were gone; the newspaper reported that President Jackson said "they … are, in his opinion, free to go or stay.’ 
  The Trail of Tears is generally considered to be one of the most regrettable episodes in American history. To commemorate the event, the U.S. Congress designated the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail in 1987. It stretches across nine states for 2,200 miles (3,500 km).
  In 2004, during the 108th Congress, Senator Sam Brownback (Republican of Kansas) introduced a joint resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 37) to "offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States" for past "ill-conceived policies" by the United States Government regarding Indian Tribes. It passed in the U.S. Senate in February 2008.
  As of 2014, Cherokee Nation members can request heritage seeds for a species of beans carried on the Trail of Tears from the Cherokee Seed Project.
caption: Trail of Tears marker, Hwy 71, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
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