A week-long journey across Tennessee follows the traces of the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of more than 16,000 Cherokee people from their homelands in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina during 1838 and 1839. An estimated 4,000 died during the removal and its aftermath from disease, hunger, exposure and exhaustion.
In Calhoun, on the north bank of the Hiwassee River, a lake now covers a former detention site where around 3,000 Cherokee people were held before being taken to larger camps and eventually forced west to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. "People have grown up in this town their whole lives and don't know this is here," said guide Joe Bryan.
Across the river in Charleston stood Fort Cass, one of the most infamous larger camps. Both towns once lay within the Cherokee Nation, but an 1819 treaty shifted the US border to the river. The Charleston-Calhoun-Hiwassee Historical Society created the Hiwassee River Heritage Center, where displays recount local Trail of Tears and Civil War history, and plans are under way for an interpretive greenway linking the centre with Calhoun's riverbanks.
The expulsion followed decades of pressure on Cherokee land. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, and five years later a small minority of Cherokee leaders, acting without authority from the Cherokee government, signed the Treaty of New Echota, surrendering the Nation's eastern lands. Most Cherokee rejected it, but in 1838 federal troops and state militias began forcing them from their homes.
At Red Clay State Historic Park in Cleveland, where the Cherokee Nation made its last stand before removal, visitors can explore replica Cherokee structures, the sacred Blue Hole Spring and an Eternal Flame memorial. Each June, the flame is visited by Remember the Removal Bike Riders from the Cherokee Nation and Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, who cycle the Northern Route in memory of their ancestors.
In Chattanooga, Moccasin Bend National Archeological District contains evidence of 12,000 years of human habitation and a Trail of Tears route crossing through it. At its northern tip is Williams Island, managed by the Tennessee River Gorge Trust, which is working with groups including the Eastern Band to increase tourism responsibly. Eight free campsites can currently be reserved on the island.