Trail of Tears Water Route Overlook on the Natchez Trace, Milepost 328.7

Trail of Tears Water Route Overlook on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

NPS

Quick Facts

Location:

Natchez Trace Parkway Milepost 328.7, near Waterloo, AL

Significance:

Trail of Tears Site

Amenities

7 listed

Audio Description, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Parking - Bus/RV, Picnic Table, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Wheelchair Accessible

Three detachments of Cherokee, totaling about 2,800 people, traveled by river past this location to Indian Territory. The first of these groups led by Lieutenant Edward Deas left on June 6, 1838 by steamboat and barge from Ross Landing, present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. They followed the Tennessee River, Ohio River, Mississippi River and the Arkansas River and arrived near Fort Coffee on June 19, 1838. The second detachment, led by Lt. Robert H.K. Whiteley, left in mid-June and arrived two months later near Stilwell, Oklahoma. The final detachment, led by John Drew, left in the late fall and arrived in Indian Territory the following March.

See Trail of Tears on the Natchez Trace for additional information.

• Forcibly Removed, Lauderdale, Milepost 328

  
  

  Speakers: Jack Baker, Member of the Cherokee Nation; Male Narrator for Missionary Reverend Daniel Sabine Butrick’s writings

  Credit / Author:

  NPS

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  [Male narrator] In March of 2000, Jack Baker described the Trail of Tears based on stories that had been passed down to him.

  “I'm Jack Baker, I’m a member of the Cherokee Nation.” “Through the early 1800s, there was a lot of pressure brought to bear on the Cherokees to give up their lands in the East and remove to the West. But since that was our ancestral homes, we did not want to give them up... …May 23, 1838, General Scott and his troops began the roundup of the Cherokees. They literally went into the homes and forced the people out, with them allowing them to take whatever they could carry with them and that was it, and herded them into the concentration camps and then later they were moved to certain points to be removed to the West. One was on the Tennessee River.”

  [Male narrator] In June of 1838, Missionary Reverend Daniel Sabine Butrick wrote about the removal: [Description of Cherokee removal read by a male narrator] “There was, we understand, a flat bottom boat, 100 feet long, 20 feet wide, two stories high, fastened to an old steam boat. This was so filled that the timbers began to crack and give way, the boat itself was on the point of sinking. Some of the poor inmates were of course taken out, while this boat was lashed to the steamboat, and some other small boats were brought to take in those who had been recalled. Twelve hundred, it is said, were hurried off in this manner at one time. Who would think of crowding men, women, and children, sick and well, into a boat together, with little, if any more room or accommodations than would be allowed to swine taken to market?”