The Trail of Tears Water Route on the Arkansas River

The red line marks the stretch of the Arkansas River covered by this itinerary. National Park Service map.

Thousands of Cherokee men, women and children traveled the Arkansas River on the water route of the Trail of Tears. Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Cherokee were forced from their homes in the southeastern United States toward Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The National Park Service's itinerary Follow the Arkansas River, Retrace the Trail of Tears covers the stretch from Lake Dardanelle to Little Rock, where each site tells part of the Cherokee and Creek experience of the journey by water.

A 1,300-mile river journey

The water route began in Tennessee and ended in Oklahoma, following the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers for 1,300 miles on steamboats and the keelboats they towed. Lashing flatboats, keelboats or rafts to a steamer moved far more people far more cheaply — much like tugboats and barges today.

Lieutenant Whiteley, whose detachment traveled the rivers in July 1838, summed up the difficulties in his log:

...waiting for a light draft boat to carry the Detachment up. Much sickness in the party, diseases, measles & summer complaint...made a contract...to carry the party on the steamboat & two keels...

It might sound simple and even comfortable to board a steamboat in Tennessee and ride to Oklahoma. The water route was faster than the land routes, but it had its own dangers: sickness spread quickly on board, disease lurked in the river lowlands, steamers caught fire, weather was unpredictable, and changing water levels made navigation hard.

The Arkansas River stretch

On this part of the Arkansas the water grew much shallower, forcing detachment leaders to decide whether to leave the river and finish on land. By then the Cherokee were exhausted and sick, fighting severe epidemics while stuck in shallow water, sometimes pushing the boats over sandbars to stay on the river rather than walk.

The itinerary's sites are places where such decisions were made and where lives were lost. The National Park Service invites visitors to imagine watching family and fellow travelers suffer and persevere while trying to carry on daily life on a terrible journey.

Visiting

More water route sites along the Arkansas are listed on the trail's Arkansas places to go page, with an interactive map, and the NPS app can guide travel along the trail. Among them, the exhibits at Cadron Settlement Park tell of Cherokee stranded there by low water and cholera. More is on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail site.

Sources

• National Park Service, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: "Trail of Tears: Arkansas River Water Route Itinerary." Lieutenant Whiteley's 1838 log is quoted as given there. The painting of a Cherokee man on a keelboat, by Michael Haynes, is not reproduced.