President Bush signs Trail of Tears expansion study

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) -- President Bush has signed into law the Trail of Tears Study Act, directing the National Park Service to finish research on routes used when American Indians were forced from their ancestral homelands.

The measure sponsor, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said Friday that accurately identifying all routes used "is necessary because the human side" of the removal must be told.

"Today the President has shown his commitment to the completeness, objectiveness and accuracy of our nation's rich history," Wamp said in a statement after the bill signing.

"This development coupled with others, such as Moccasin Bend being added to the National Park Service and even a movie about the Trail of Tears coming out of Hollywood, will show the character and the courage of the Cherokee," he said.

When the original trail was designated in 1987, two main arteries -- the Benge and Bell routes -- were missing, as well as other water routes and emigration depots.

The additional components will allow Americans to see where the original Cherokee villages lay and aid public understanding of the history.

The proposed expansion areas have been documented by National Park Service historians, military journals, and newspaper accounts, Wamp said.

Thousands of members of the Cherokee, Creek and other tribes were forced from their homes in 1838 to make way for white settlement. Untold hundreds and perhaps thousands of American Indians died during the removal to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.

The Trail of Tears dates to 1830, when then-President Andrew Jackson submitted a plan to Congress to remove the tribes from the Southeast.

The National Park Service oversees the trail.

Currently it does not recognize routes in North Carolina or Georgia, even though up to three-quarters of the Cherokees likely started from those states. The official trail markers also leave out two major arteries in Arkansas and water routes in eastern Tennessee.

An education and research center is to be built on a bluff at the junction of the Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers in East Tennessee, where the Blythe Ferry once operated and thousands of Cherokees and Creeks were taken by force to begin the journey.

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On The Net:

Trail of Tears Association: http://www.nationaltota.org