Existing comment:
Fight for Survival:
The Cherokee people resisted the government's order to leave the Tennessee Valley. They signed petitions and lobbied Congress. Yet the Indian Removal Act of 1830 still passed. In March 1837, the first detachment -- a group of Cherokee families, slaves , and a doctor -- loaded onto 11 flat boats with Major Ridge, a Cherokee leader. In 1838, two more detachments faced hunger, disease, and death on their Trail of Tears route through Decatur. |