New Madrid and the Cherokee Water Route on the Trail of Tears

Few Cherokee traveled the Trail of Tears by water, and the ones who did passed a remote stretch of the Mississippi River at New Madrid, Missouri, on their way to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The National Park Service tells this story in exhibits on the levee in New Madrid.

Image from the National Park Service's page.

Why they were on the river

The Cherokee Nation once spread across parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama, home to thousands of men, women and children. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 required the Cherokee to give up their land and move west. In 1838 more than 15,000 Cherokee began the trek to Indian Territory by road and river. More than 1,000 died during the journey, and more than 4,000 died as a result of the forced migration.

Federal removal policy was fiercely debated. Supporters called it a kindness that would save eastern tribes from being overwhelmed by a growing American population; opponents called it inhumane and pointed to its tragic consequences. One thing was certain: removal freed millions of acres for white settlers. The federal government removed 21,000 Muscogee (Creek), 9,000 Choctaw, 6,000 Chickasaw and 4,000 Seminole, as well as the Cherokee, from their southeastern homelands in the 1830s. Many groups left in autumn to avoid summer's disease and heat and met treacherous winter weather instead.

Image from the National Park Service's page.

New Madrid, 1838

New Madrid was a remote stretch of the river when steamboats of Cherokee passed. Traffic was limited to daylight hours because of snags and shifting channels. One or more of the boats probably stopped at New Madrid, since there were few places to get food for the travelers or wood and water for the steam engines. Local pilots were often hired to guide boats through nearby stretches, and the town's physicians may have treated Cherokee made ill by exhaustion and cramped quarters. The town then had only 317 residents, 159 of them enslaved.

Steamboats pulling long flatboats and keelboats were a common sight on the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers in the 1830s.

Image from the National Park Service's page.

The dangers of water travel

Military-led groups that traveled by water had a hard time, and after hearing of it Cherokee leaders petitioned to manage their own people's removal. They chose overland routes to avoid the hazards of boats: sickness spreading quickly on board, fear of disease in the river lowlands, and unpredictable water levels and weather. Unreliable rivers, safety worries and serious health threats meant only a minority of Cherokee went by water. A newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette, reported in November 1837 on the loss of the steamboat Monmouth after a collision with another boat, with the deaths of at least half of its crowded passengers; it said six hundred Creek were packed aboard and three hundred died.

Today

Despite the hardships, members of the five removed tribes built new lives in the West and now stand as sovereign nations, preserving their cultural traditions while adapting to the 21st century. Cherokee who survived the Trail of Tears created a new sovereign nation in present-day Oklahoma, while some Cherokee remained in North Carolina and, under a special exemption, formed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The National Park Service and its partners work to preserve historic sites and trail segments and develop them for public use, so that the story of the forced removal is remembered and told.

Image from the National Park Service's page.

Sources

• National Park Service, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, "New Madrid and the Trail of Tears" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/new-madrid-and-the-trail-of-tears.htm); a figure for Cherokee removed is left out because the page gives two different counts; rewritten in hubnx's own words.