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A side note that came to mind I’d like to share.

Mentioned in the article is one John Adair “Jack” Bell, who led a somewhat ‘successful’ wagon train after removal. He was one of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota, who was marked for death by the John Ross faction. Ross’s own brother had also signed, but he was forgiven. So, this wagon train consisted of families in opposition to Ross, trying to survive assassination attempts and was the last detachment to leave.
Jack couldn’t leave Georgia until Ross and his henchmen were gone, because they would have been sitting ducks out in the wilderness, many on foot. And Ross just would not go! Finally, in late October, they were able to leave.

Here is a timeline of that trip.

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.
1835 December 29 Treaty of New Echota for Cherokee removal west signed with
      US government by members of Ridge Party.
1838 October, Ridge Party families of Bell, Adair, Lynch, and others
      removed from their homes, entered at Ft.Cass, Tenn. for holding to
      await removal to Indian Territory West.
1838 Nov.22, Bell Detachment arrives Memphis, TN. Buried 17 in Monroe County
1838 Dec.25, Bell Detachment ferries Point Remove Creek, N.E.of Little Rock.
1839 January 7, Bell Detachment arrives at Evansville, Ark. Completed 707
      miles in 89 days
1839 June 22, Honey Creek, I.T, Major Ridge, son John Ridge and Elias
      Boudinot assassinated

Jack Bell was an interesting man. He had been a guide and trader between Arkansas and the Cherokee nation in what is now NW Georgia. He was well educated and eloquent, as witnessed by the letter in the article. He made friends with the Army during the trade years and convinced them to let him guide the contingent instead of the Army, and to allow him to use trails he had scouted with some military routes. He also arranged to have household goods rafted down the mississippi, up the Arkansas, so they would have provisions when they arrived and not have items to be stolen. Hoodlums haunted some of the Cherokee contingents and stole from them often, until there was nothing left.

His was the shortest in miles of all the routes, with the fewest casualties. Bell had arranged all their supplies without John Ross’s supervision and sales from the Ross ‘mercantile’.

There was 8 years between Jackson signing the Indian Removal act and the departure of the Cherokee. Early in that period, the Indians were under constant attack, mostly through the courts and by the Georgia Militia trying to force them out of their homes. I’m not talking Teepees here. These were well appointed, often European designed, spacious homes on plantations.

Jack Bell was just one of the Cherokee the Georgia Militia jailed.

From the Book ‘Jesus Wept’ An American Story
Chapter 2 - Law, Law Understood, and Law Executed

     President Jackson passed his Indian Removal act, settlers were moving into Cherokee homes and it became apparent to the sensible leaders of the Cherokee Nation that removal would happen. Their protests or their Supreme Court victories which stated the Cherokee Nation had all the rights of any state of the union and was by legal definition, sovereign, did not matter. Jackson’s position was that he would not enforce the ruling of the court to stop the incursion. Prominent Cherokees in the community were made examples of to further the ends of white settlement of the Cherokee homes.
     An 1832 Edition of the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper tells of the arrest of the twenty-six year old son of John Bell, Jr. and Charlotte Adair. He was also the grandson of John Bell, Scottish immigrant and his Cherokee wife.
     “We understand on Wednesday morning Mr. John A. Bell of Coosewaytee was arrested by a detachment of the Georgia Guard. Mr. B. is a native. What the charge was we are unable to say; and in fact it is impossible to know, for these law officers go to work without a written precept.”

Subsequent issues of The Phoenix contain letters from other citizens stating that weeks later Bell and others had not been charged, but were still held in ‘custody’, not allowed representation or visitation. No ‘crime’ was necessary. The only prerequisite was having something the ‘powers that be’ of Georgia wanted or to be eloquent and brave enough to speak against them. Such treatment would explain why Cherokees like John Adair Bell signed the Treaty of New Echota in December of 1835 and voted to accept the offer by the U.S. Government to remove voluntarily beyond the Mississippi. To escape living with the daily persecution by the State of Georgia Militia and its citizens must have seemed logical. To them, it was a choice of having life and home somewhere with dignity or to lose it all......

     Elias Boudinot, as Editor of The Cherokee Phoenix, which was published both in English and Cherokee and read in the East and Europe, captured the Cherokee situation in just a few words.
     “Perhaps Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were only tantalizing us when they encouraged us in the pursuit of agriculture and government. Why were we not told long ago that we could not be permitted to establish a government within the limits of any state? The Cherokees have always had a government of their own. Nothing, however, was said when we were governed by savage laws. Others say it is time for the Cherokees to submit to inevitable destiny.
     What Destiny? To be slandered and then butchered? Yes, this is the bitter cup prepared for us by a republican and religious government. We shall drink it to the dregs.”

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