The Trail of Tears
Nearly Ten Thousand Years ago, when the giant glaciers and bitter cold of the last Ice age were declining, the forefathers of the Cherokees made their way from Asia to this Continent.
Over a narrow strip of land now covered by the Bering Strait they wondered into North America as nomad tribes, following herds of wild prehistoric animals and seeking to keep them selves alive.
Spreading southward like a gigantic fan of humanity, these wandering tribes continued to come, populating most of North and South America. Differing in appearance, language, and customs, they came eventually to call certain areas of this new continent their home .
It is Believed that the Cherokees and The Iroquois are brother tribes, having come from the same source. They were known for their superior height and robust stature.
Claiming for their hunting grounds what is now parts of eight states .The Cherokees became the mightiest Indian Empire of all the southern Tribes. Gradually their towns grew up near the Mouths of small streams where clear water was plentiful.
When the first White man, Hernando De Soto, came into Cherokee County in the sixteenth century there were about 25,000 Cherokees.
This Spanish adventurer, coming into the Cherokee Mountain Territory in search of gold, began the long and painful march of the white man into the Cherokees world. The influx of settlers pushed hard against the Cherokees and in a series of treaties from 1684 to 1835, consistently broken, the Cherokee Country shrank from an empire of enormous proportions to a small boundary in Western North Carolina.
The Saddest winter in Cherokee history was that of 1838-39 when the Indian people were taken from their homes, herded like cattle, and moved to Oklahoma through the bitter cold of winter.
Over 4,000 Cherokees died due to this action of the government. So sad and tragic was the journey that it is called even today, "The Trail Of Tears".
