TRAIL OF TEARS GROUP HOLDING TWO-DAY CONVENTION IN CAPE

The award-winning producer of NBC's "Dateline" series, Jess Bushyhead of Los Angeles, will be among a dozen speakers for the National Trail of Tears Association's annual convention today and Thursday at Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau.

The convention is sponsored by the Missouri chapter of the Trail of Tears Association, the Missouri Humanities Council and Southeast Missouri State University.

During the spring and summer of 1838, more than 15,000 Cherokee Indians were removed by the U.S. Army from their ancestral homeland in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. After being held in concentration camps during the summer, they were forced to start their march of over 1,000 miles -- the Trail of Tears -- to Oklahoma Indian territory.

Many didn't make it. Rain, snow, freezing cold, hunger and disease took their toll.

Convention participants will learn what the forced march meant for the Cherokee and Missouri. Sessions will be presented at Drury Lodge all day today and until about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, when participants will embark upon a "Gathering of the Tribes" at Trail of Tears State Park. It will include a tour of the Mississippi River overlook, the Princess Otahki Memorial and the park's Visitors Center and a walk along a portion of the Trail of Tears.

Between 125 and 150 members of the association are expected. All programs are open to the public.

The meeting will feature a series of discussions related to the historical significance of the Trail of Tears in Missouri, the need to preserve sites associated with the trail, the cultural heritage of Cherokee Indians, and the legacy of Native American culture.

A program on the "Memoirs of Henry Timberlake," who reported on the traditions and verbal arts of the Cherokees at the time of their early encounters with Europeans, will be presented.

Bushyhead is a descendant of Cherokee Princess Otahki, who died on the Trail of Tears march.

Princess Otahki first married John Walker Jr. Following Walker's death, she married Lewis Hildebrand. She and Walker had two children, who completed the march into Oklahoma.

Eleven detachments made their way to Oklahoma over a northern route. Traveling in wagons and on horseback, they crossed from Willard's Landing in Illinois to Moccasin Springs on ferry boats at Green's Ferry near what is now Trail of Tears State Park and at Smith's Ferry at Bainbridge a few miles to the south. They crossed the river during the dead of winter in December 1838 and January and February 1839.

Many died in camps on both sides of the river.

Trail of Tears State Park, approximately 10 miles north of Cape Girardeau on Highway 177, offers museum displays relating to Cherokee history and Trail of Tears artifacts and books, and a video program.