This lunette is located near the statue "As Long As the Waters Flow" in the Oklahoma Timeline Plaza on the south side of the Oklahoma State Capitol Building.
The lunette reads as follows:
"1817-1842
Eastern Tribes Removed Over "Trail of Tears"
The Trail of Tears was a brutal, shameful and genocidal removal of Eastern Indian Tribes from the southeastern US to new lands in what became Oklahoma, that was was designated "Indian Territory." The Indians had to be removed so that so that white settlers could have the former Indian lands in GA NC, SC, and TN for their settlement. This tragedy has reverberated through American history and continues today, especially in Oklahoma, the end of the Trail of Tears.
Of course, Indian Territory was itself opened to white settlement in 1889 when "Unassigned Lands" in Indian Territory were opened for the Oklahoma Land Run.
From the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma: (
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"TRAIL OF TEARS.
The term "Trail of Tears" refers to the difficult journeys that the Five Tribes took during their forced removal from the southeast during the 1830s and 1840s. The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole were all marched out of their ancestral lands to Indian Territory, or present Oklahoma. Although the removal of American Indians began long before the nineteenth century, the Trail of Tears is mostly associated with the forced removals that took place after the 1830 Indian Removal Act.
The Trail of Tears differed for each of the nations, but all Indians, as well as the enslaved persons accompanying them, suffered. The marches usually began when federal troops rounded up those who resisted removal. The journeys, usually more than one thousand miles, lasted several weeks. A shortage of wagons, horses, food, and other supplies made the marches difficult. Some traveled by boat, but the conditions there were usually no better. The U.S. government did not provide enough supplies to sustain the travelers during their march and after their arrival.
An exceptionally harsh winter plagued the Choctaw, the first nation to face the forced migration. Leaving in several groups in 1831, more than fourteen thousand Choctaws left Mississippi. French observer Alexis de Tocqueville described one journey as a "sight [that] will never fade from my memory." He noted that "The snow was hard on the ground, and huge masses of ice drifted on the river. The Indians brought their families with them; there were among them the wounded, the sick, newborn babies, and old men on the point of death. They had neither tents nor wagons, but only some provisions and weapons." Hundreds of Choctaws died.
For other Indians disease and malnutrition proved equally devastating. After losing the Creek War of 1836–37 with the United States, more than 14,500 Creek Indians faced the additional indignation of being forced to leave their lands and forced to march west, often in chains. Several hundred Creeks died during the journey, and approximately thirty-two hundred died from disease, malnutrition, and exposure after their arrival in Indian Territory. Disease also took a toll on the Chickasaw, who lost more than five hundred men, women, and children to smallpox. The Cherokee experience was perhaps the most severe. As many as one out of four Cherokees died because of their westward journey.
Andrew K. Frank"
And from the National Park Service: (
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"A Journey of Injustice
Remember and commemorate the survival of the Cherokee people, forcefully removed from their homelands in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to live in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. They traveled by foot, horse, wagon, or steamboat in 1838-1839.
A Brief History
In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which required the various Indian tribes in today’s southeastern United States to give up their lands in exchange for federal territory which was located west of the Mississippi River. Most Indians fiercely resisted this policy, but as the 1830s wore on, most of the major tribes – the Choctaws, Muscogee Creeks, Seminoles, and Chickasaws – agreed to be relocated to Indian Territory (in present-day Oklahoma). The Cherokee were forced to move because a small, rump faction of the tribe signed the Treaty of New Echota in late 1835, a treaty that the U.S. Senate ratified in May 1836. This action – the treaty signing and its subsequent Senate approval – tore the Cherokee into two implacable factions: a minority of those who were allied with the “treaty party,” and the vast majority that bitterly opposed the treaty signing.
In May 1838, the Cherokee removal process began. U.S. Army troops, along with various state militia, moved into the tribe’s homelands and forcibly evicted more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia. They were first sent to so-called “round up camps,” and soon afterward to one of three emigration camps. Once there, the U.S. Army gave orders to move the Cherokee west. In June 1838, three detachments left southeastern Tennessee and were sent to Indian Territory by water. Difficulties with those moves, however, led to negotiations between Principal Chief John Ross and U.S. Army General Winfield Scott, and later that summer, Scott issued an order stating that Ross would be in charge of all future detachment movements. Ross, honoring that pledge, orchestrated the migration of fourteen detachments, most of which traveled over existing roads, between August and December 1838.
The impact of the resulting Cherokee “Trail of Tears” was devastating. More than a thousand Cherokee – particularly the old, the young, and the infirm – died during their trip west, hundreds more deserted from the detachments, and an unknown number – perhaps several thousand – perished from the consequences of the forced migration. The tragic relocation was completed by the end of March 1839, and resettlement of tribal members in Oklahoma began soon afterward. The Cherokee, in the years that followed, struggled to reassert themselves in the new, unfamiliar land. Today, they are a proud, independent tribe, and its members recognize that despite the adversity they have endured, they are resilient and invest in their future.
Visit the following pages to discover the story of the Trail of Tears and its lasting impact: (
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