Rivers, Rails & Roads: Transportation During the Cherokee Removal 1837 - 1839

Introduction

The Trail of Tears involved mile after mile of hard travel through miserable conditions. Yet detachments bound for Indian Territory did more than just walk. Although time-honored methods like wagons, keelboats, flatboats, and ferries played major roles, some of the technology used to transport Cherokees on the Trail of Tears was actually quite new.

The Trail of Tears occurred during a period historians call the “market revolution.” At the beginning of the 1800s, Americans that did not live in major cities were fairly isolated, making what they needed at home or bartering with their neighbors (who might have lived miles away). Farmers that did not live near rivers struggled to get their produce to market. By the 1820s, however, innovations in transportation began connecting people across great distances.

In the early 1800s, rivers served as the nation's unofficial highway system. They were by far the most efficient way to move people and goods through the interior United States; however, it was difficult to move against the current. This changed with the invention of steamboats, which went upstream almost as fast as they went downstream. Detachment leaders relied upon a number of different steamboats to move Cherokees along the “water route” of the Trail of Tears.

Although not as efficient as river travel, improved roads and turnpikes enabled wagons to carry Cherokees and their belongings towards Indian Territory. Some routes were even “paved” with gravel and widened so that two wagons could comfortably pass one another. The 1820s saw the introduction of railroads, which utilized the same technology as steamboats but could be built almost anywhere. Northern Alabama’s Tuscumbia, Courtland, and Decatur Railroad, one of the earliest railroads in the United States, was essential in moving large numbers of Cherokees to Indian Territory.

These innovations did not automatically improve life for all Americans. While the market revolution made it easier for farmers to get their crops to market, it also expanded the South’s cotton economy—which was fueled by the enslavement of Black Americans. Similarly, steamboats, roads, and railroads allowed goods and people to move more freely around the United States; they also, however, facilitated the removal of Cherokees from their homeland.

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Transportation: the Cherokee Removal

The publication was made possible by the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.

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• Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail

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