The legacy of the Trail of Tears in Nashville and Middle Tennessee

This Is Nashville · Oct 17, 2022 · 50m

Starting in October 1838, more than 16,000 Cherokee people who had been forced from their homes in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee began their journey to Indian Territory, in what is now known as Oklahoma.

Undertaken through the fall and winter, the journey was fatal for a fourth of the population. The various routes became known collectively as the Trail of Tears, which passes right through present-day Nashville. The Cherokee were not the only people swept up in the ethnic cleansing of the Southeast. Members of the Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations were also…