Sign marks past travails

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

— The small sign appeared several weeks ago. Attached to a post at the west end of the railroad overpass in Gravette, the sign calls attention to a sad event in America’s history: The Trail of Tears.

Many people may not know, or may not be aware, that almost 200 years ago several thousand Native Americans trudged halfway across the developing nation to a new home in an unsettled wilderness area.

Most of them traveled other routes. But at least one group ended their journey as they trudged through the hills and prairie land of northwest Benton County. Some may have camped or rested along the banks of Spavinaw Creek.

In the relocation, thousands of Indians from several tribes who lived in the southeastern section of America were forcibly removed from their lands for a long trek to a new untamed land that became known as The Indian Territory.

Oklahoma’s early birth involved the blood, sweat and tears of those thousands who spent the long, cold winter of 1838-39 suffering as they were herded westward from areas in and near Georgia. It was a sad moment in America’s history.

Today, the residents of northwest Arkansas relate best to those of the Cherokee tribe who settled nearby on land just across the border of the new state of Arkansas.

There were other tribes: Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole - but it is mainly the Cherokees who are the focus of that small sign on the highway post in Gravette. It identifies part of what is known as The Heritage Trail.

The sign is one of several placed along highways in Benton County and northwest Arkansas. Look for them as you drive. To the Cherokees, they will always point to The Trail of Tears - a designation along many routes by the several tribes.

The various tribes trudged along several routes from northern Georgia. Some went west, others started north. All came through parts of Tennessee. Some followed what is called the “River Route” which included the Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Many entered Indian Territory near Fort Smith.

Others took what is called the “Northern Route,” which traveled through parts of Kentucky, southern Illinois and into Missouri near the present-day Cape Girardeau.It is those who continued westward past Springfield, Mo., and their entry into Arkansas near Pea Ridge on what is called the “Old Wire (Telegraph) Road.”

From there many went south toward Rogers, Fayetteville, Prairie Grove, then west just north of what is now Westville, Okla. A cemetery and a church beside Oklahoma Highway 59 relate to that migration.

It was a smaller group which came west to near Bentonville, then continued westward toward what is now Gravette and eventually to Maysville, considered by many as the oldest settlement in Benton County, which bordered the Territory. Others may have traveled along streams in the central part of Benton County.

The rest is history. The Cherokees eventually established a government patterned after the American system. Today the Cherokee Nation is headquartered in Tahlequah and the Nation is an integral part of Oklahoma.

This brief account doesn’t begin to tell the story of those days of hardship and death that occurred during the troubling years of the late 1830s or the history of the settlement of the Five Civilized Tribes in their new home.

Countless books are available that document the history; the Internet is filled with references to the Trail of Tears and how it impacted the states through which it passed. Historians have documented the suffering and the perseverance of a people that is sobering, and of their courage that was and continues to be inspiring.

Today people can travel from the Indian Territory or Benton County to the East Coast in just less than a day. It is a speedy, uneventful trail. The Trail of Tears is the story of a people who could, who did and who are - so much larger than the tiny signs that mark their journey.

News, Pages 1 on 09/05/2012