From AP Newsfeatures Story-Date: 11:29 a.m. PST Monday , June 23, 1997 >From AP NewsfeaturesAPN SUNDAY ILLUSTRATIONS: Subscribers get 5 photos, NY360-NY364. Trail of Tears: Retracing the Cherokee past proves a frustrating job BY CHELSEA J. CARTER Associated Press Writer NEW ECHOTA, Ga. (AP) -- At the restored capital of the Cherokee Nation here in northwest Georgia, giggling and squirming schoolchildren innocently act out one of the darkest moments in American history. Nine-year-old Adam Free, for example, is too young to understand that the character he is playing helped bring about what has come to be called the Trail of Tears, the banishment of the Cherokee Indians from their homeland. Adam is playing the role of Major John Ridge, one of the Cherokee leaders who signed a treaty leading to the forced removal of 15,000 people from their homes in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee in 1838. More than 4,000 Cherokees died from disease, hunger and exhaustion on the 1,000-mile march to their new home in present-day Oklahoma. Adam and his classmates from Macedonia Elementary School in Canton are learning history by acting out one of the last tribal meetings before the Trail of Tears began. Some adults in their midst were fretting over the frustrating 10-year effort to mark the trail, which has become bogged down by too little money and sketchy historical records. This rebuilt Cherokee capital, off Interstate 75 near the Tennessee border, features reconstructed buildings, including a typical Cherokee house, a museum and a monument. Much more is needed to be done to preserve this piece of history, say proponents of preserving the Cherokee heritage. In 1835, a minority faction of the Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota, which ceded to the federal government all the tribe's lands east of the Mississippi River for $5 million and new homes in Oklahoma. Because the treaty was not signed by the elected representatives of the Cherokee, most considered it fraudulent and refused to leave. In 1838, President Andrew Jackson ordered 7,000 state and federal troops to arrest the Cherokees and hold them in stockades until they could be moved west. It wasn't until 1987 that Congress designated the Trail of Tears as a National Historic Trail and established an advisory council to oversee the marking of its route. It was a brief moment of celebration for the Cherokees. ``It recognizes what happened. It was an admission by the government that the removal should be remembered,'' says Charles Gourd, a Cherokee and member of the Trail of Tears Association in Tahlequah, Okla. The National Park Service's master plan called for hiking trails and a marked auto route from Tennessee to Oklahoma that would include interpretive centers and historical markers. Georgia and North Carolina routes would be added later. But after 10 years, there are few highway markers and even fewer places for people to stop and learn about the Cherokees and the trail. ``To understand the Trail of Tears, you have to understand the background,'' says Maxwell Ramsey, vice president of the Trail of Tears Association. ``A highway marker doesn't mean much if you don't know anything about it.'' The interpretive centers are nonexistent and the hiking trails have yet to be plotted, although several states have museums and monuments dedicated to the event and the park service has requested $1.2 million in next year's budget to build two interpretive centers. Congress has given only about $40,000 a year to the Trail of Tears project since 1987 -- not even enough for the park service to dedicate a full-time staff member to the trail, says David Gaines, the National Park Service's superintendent of long-distance trails. ``It's a hard sell,'' Gaines says. ``Rather than have a Grand Canyon in your district, these trails are so diffused that I'm not sure they register that strongly with lawmakers as a moneymaker.'' Gaines estimates it would take $250,000 a year to maintain the trail. ``We're getting 16 percent of what we really need. For that reason, we've decided to use most of the money to cultivate the grass-roots association,'' Gaines says, referring to the all-volunteer Trail of Tears Association, created in 1993. The Trail of Tears also has been difficult to retrace. Unlike the Oregon Trail and the Santa Fe Trail, which took waves of settlers West, the Trail of Tears consisted of four routes -- including one by river -- that were used just once. Historians have had to rely on military journals and old newspaper accounts to trace them. ``The trail actually started at the door of every Cherokee,'' says Duane King, a Cherokee historian who has helped the park service and the association map the trail. Taking into account development, erosion and changes in the environment, King believes the two routes designated by the park service -- an auto route and a river route -- come very close to the actual trails. ``Some of those trails are under asphalt and some are on private lands,'' he says. About two-dozen sites, including Indian campgrounds, graves and museums, have been certified as part of the historic trail. At least two-dozen more are waiting for certification and many more need to be identified. Four key sites in Cherokee history have been preserved through state and private efforts: the New Echota Historic Site in Georgia; the Cherokee Reservation in Oklahoma; the headquarters of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee in Cherokee, N.C., and the Red Clay Historic Site near Cleveland, Tenn. Red Clay, the last meeting place of the Cherokee before they were sent West, has an eternal flame commemorating a 1984 meeting of the tribe's factions from Oklahoma and North Carolina -- the first since the forced removal. ``A lot of the Cherokees make pilgrimages here. It has significance for not only the Cherokee but for the people who live around here,'' says park manager Lois Osborne. ``It isn't just a pretty place. It really means something.'' Trail supporters hope to see more such places established. ``It's an experience that all Americans share,'' says Paul Anderson, secretary of the Trail of Tears Association. ``It's public policy that caused it. ``Your assumption, once you hear about the trail, would be that all the Cherokees died. It's an amazing story of tragedy and survival. That's a story the American people need to know.'' ------------------------------------------------------------