Last updated: August 1, 2023
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Cherokee Garden Exhibits Audio Description
Cherokee Gardens - Powerful Plants Exhibit Audio Description
NPS Exhibit
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Cherokee Garden Powerful Plants Exhibit Audio Description
Cherokee Garden Powerful Plants Exhibit Audio Description
- Credit / Author:
- NPS
In front of you, is a slanted exhibit panel it is 3 feet wide and 2 feet tall, and about 3 feet off the ground. The background image for the panel is a landscape with rolling hills covered in green deciduous trees. Across the top of the exhibit panel is a black banner.Text reads, Cherokee Garden at Green Meadows Preserve. The blue, triangular logo for the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is on the left side with text crediting the partners on this project are on the right. The Trail of Tears Association, National Park Service, Cobb County Parks, Cobb Master Gardeners, and the Friends of Green Meadows Preserve.
Main Paragraph, title, Powerful Plants.
Text reads, Home to thousands of men, women, and children, the Cherokee Nation once spread across parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. The 1830 Indian Removal Act required that the Cherokee surrender their land and move west to Indian Territory, today’s Oklahoma.
Forced removal in 1838—the Trail of Tears— uprooted the Cherokee way of life. Living very close to the Earth, they used hundreds of native plants for daily needs, including medicine, food, shelter, weapons, tools, art, and for ceremony. Not only did the Cherokee cultivate crops, they also gathered medicinal plants from the nearby woodlands.
The Cherokee believed that the Creator gave them the land and entrusted them with its care. The loss of native plants accentuated the trauma of removal.
Paragraph in the center of the panel, title, In the Garden
Paragraph text reads: These plants represent the value and use of southeastern native plants. Daily interaction with plants was part of being Cherokee. Cherokee passed down this knowledge over hundreds of years and even shared it with the white settlers who eventually took their land.
Seven photos of plants are on the panel, listed with the traditional uses. Clockwise they are:
Rivercane used for weapons and shelter, used for blowguns, flutes, chairs, basketry, and houses. This segmented yellow and green plant grows in a long, thin and straight stock.
Golden seal has medicinal uses, treatment for skin sores and as digestive aid. The green wide- five-lobed leaves grow close together and it has a white flower.
Eastern Red Cedar is used ceremonially, smoked conveyed prayers. This is a green shrub with wispy- featherlike evergreen leaves.
Blood root is used in medicine. The Roots are used for red dye. Sap is used to treat poison ivy and repelled insects. These have a white flower with nine petals and a bright yellow center. The leaves are oddly shaped and multi-lobbed.
Yaupon Holly used ceremonially. Black tea drink used in male-only purification ritual. This is a shrub like tree with small leaves.
Black Cohosh used in medicine. Root tea used for fevers and snake bite treatment. The low bush has multi lobed leaves and the white flowers grow on taller stems above the bush.
Wild ginger is used in medicine. Root tea used for coughs, colds, fevers, and headaches. The green leaves are heart shaped.
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 would have for Indian peoples. One thing was certain: millions of acres of Indian lands were given to American settlers.
Learn more at nps.gov/trte or go to nationaltota.org
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, The United States government forcibly removed more than 15,000 Cherokee, 21,000 Muscogee (Creek), 9,000 Choctaw, and 6,000 Chickasaw, and 4,000 Seminole.
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 joined those who were removed earlier to form a new government for their sovereign nation in present-day Oklahoma. Some Cherokee remained in North Carolina and formed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Map on the lower right side of panel 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; You can visit more sites along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. 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.