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Cave Spring Exhibits Audio Description
NPS Wayside
Trail of Tears Exhibit Audio Description (The Trail Where They Cried)
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Cave Spring The Trail Where They Cried Exhibit Audio Description
Listen to the audio description The Trail Where They Cried for Cave Spring and the Trail of Tears.
- Credit / Author:
- NPS
In front of you, are two upright exhibit panels it is 6 feet wide and 2 feet tall, and about 3 feet off the ground. The panel on the left is titled “The Trail Where They Cried” Across the top of the exhibit panel is a black banner. The blue, triangular logo for the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is on the right side with text crediting the partners on this project. The National Park Service, City of Cave Spring, and the Trail of Tears Association. Main paragraphs on the left side of the panel, title The Trail Where They Cried, text reads, The Cherokee Nation once spread across Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. It was home to thousands of men, women, and children. The 1830 Indian Removal Act required that the Cherokee surrender their land and move west. Many actively opposed the act and refused to move. In the spring of 1838, soldiers established forts and camps across the Cherokee homeland and swiftly rounded up every Cherokee they could find. The Cherokee knew this was coming and chose to resist removal by waiting in their homes to be forcefully evicted by militias. In the camps, they suffered from exposure, disease epidemics, inadequate sanitation, and heartbreak, remaining prisoners in the camps until their final deportation to the West. Quote to the right of main text reads “The soldiers came and took us from home. They first surrounded our house, and they took the mare while we were at work in the fields and they drove us out of doors and did not permit us to take anything with us, not even a second change of clothes...They marched us to Ross’ Landing, and still on foot, even our little children, and they sent us off.” end of quote from Oo-loo-cha, widow of Sweet Water, 1842.Painting on the right side of panel depicts a Cherokee family when soldiers forced them to leave their home. Exterior of a log cabin, in the foreground on the ground shadows of soldiers holding guns, one on horseback points at the family. A Cherokee man in a turban holds a rifle and looks serious. A mother and small child stand behind him. A grandmother comforts a second child. The panting is titled “This is my home” by Dorothy Sullivan. Paragraph at the bottom left side of the panel, title, Federal Indian Removal Policy, Paragraph text reads: Federal Indian removal policy aroused fierce and bitter debate. Supporters of the policy claimed it was a benevolent action to save the tribes east of the Mississippi River from being overwhelmed and lost in the onslaught of an expanding American population. Opponents decried its inhumanity and the tragic consequences it had for the Indian peoples. One thing was certain; removal freed millions of acres of desired Indian lands for use by white settlers. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the removal of thousands of American Indians from their ancestral lands for new homes in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). They traveled by existing roads and rivers. Many groups, hoping to avoid the disease and heat of summer travel, left in the fall and instead faced treacherous winter weather. Many died during the ordeal of the Trail of Tears. Map to the right of paragraph is of the Southeastern United States, five brown arrows pointing from east to west show the origin of the five Tribes during the forced removal. The arrows represent where tribal populations came from in relation to today's US states, however, tribal lands did not originally have any relationship to state lines. The paths curve and merge at different points across the map but all end in Oklahoma. Text below map, In the 1830s, the federal government forcibly removed approximately 16,000 Cherokee, 21,000 Muscogee (Creek), 9,000 Choctaw, 6,000 Chickasaw, and 4,000 Seminole from their ancestral homes in the southeastern United States. Paragraph at the bottom in the center of the panel, title, Today Paragraph reads: Despite the hardships of the journey, members of the five removed tribes established new lives in the West. They stand as successful sovereign nations, proudly preserving cultural traditions, while adapting to the challenges of the 21st century. Cherokee who survived the Trail of Tears created a new sovereign nation in present-day Oklahoma. Some Cherokee remained in North Carolina and due to a special exemption formed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Map on the lower right side of panel, title Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, map shows a more detailed view of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Black lines represent the Historic Trail and yellow dots show major cities across the routes today. Text below map; By helping to preserve historic sites and trail segments and developing areas for public use, the story of the forced removal of the Cherokee people and other American Indian tribes is remembered and told by the National Park Service and its partners. You can visit more sites along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Learn more at nps.gov/trte
NPS Wayside
Trail of Tears Exhibit Audio Description (First Blood Shed by the Georgians)
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Cave Spring Exhibit First Blood Shed by the Georgians
Audio exhibit wayside Cave Spring First Blood Shed by the Georgians
- Credit / Author:
- NPS
In front of you, are two upright exhibit panels it is 6 feet wide and 2 feet tall, and about 3 feet off the ground. The panel on the right is titled “First Blood Shed by the Georgians” Across the top of the exhibit panel is a black banner. The blue, triangular logo for the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is on the right side with text crediting the partners on this project. The National Park Service, City of Cave Spring, and the Trail of Tears Association. The background of the panel has orange flames across the bottom, Main text is in two paragraphs, the paragraphs read, seventeen white families from Georgia and Alabama illegally took possession of Cherokee homes here in the Beaver Dam settlement in February 1830. Cherokee Chief John Ross responded by sending a mounted police force, the Light Horse Brigade, to evict them. Major Ridge, David Vann, and the brigade went from home to home forcibly evicting white intruders and burning empty Cherokee structures to discourage future settlement. Retaliation came the following day in the death of one Cherokee and the imprisonment of others. Beaver Dam marked the most prominent instance of active Cherokee resistance to unauthorized white settlement on Cherokee lands. The log structure across the street stood as witnessed to the event; it is one of the last remnants of Beaver Dam in today's Cave Spring and Vann's Valley. After this incident, the Cherokee sought only political solutions to intrusions from Georgia and no longer attempted to forcibly evict whites. An article quote reads, “... A Cherokee has ... been killed by the intruders and three more taken into Georgia! … A company of Cherokees...started the other day, under the authority of the principal chief to correct, at least part of the evil...They found...17 families of intruders, living, we believe, in Cherokee houses. These they ordered out and after safely taking out their bedding, chairs, etcetera the houses were set on fire. In no instance was the least violence used on the part of the Cherokees.” Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate. Wednesday, February 10, 1830. There is a gray column on the right side of the panel with portraits and photos. The two portraits are of Major Ridge, an older man with wavy white hair in a mid 1800s high white collared shirt and blue coat. The portrait of David Vann is younger with short brown hair and he wears a blue and white stripped coat. Below the portraits is a photo of the exterior of a wood building with a red door and tall windows on either side. Text below photo reads, The Green Hotel, in front of you, contains within it an original log structure that predates Cherokee removal, possibly as early as 1810. Photo at the bottom of the column is a group of people standing around a brown and white roadside sign for the Trail of Tears original route. Text below photo reads, This Cherokee delegation visited Cave Spring in 2011, recognizing its connection to the story of removal. The structure is located on an original route of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.