TRAIL OF TEARS IS GETTING NATIONAL PARK SERVICE RECOGNITION

The Trail of Tears has existed since the early 1800s, when thousands of Cherokee Indians were moved from ancestral homes in the southeastern United States and resettled in the Southwest. Various monuments and parks have served to call attention to the devastating resettlement. Now the National Park Service is incorporating the Trail of Tears into its National Trails System.

Planned are new interpretive centers at each end of the trail in Cherokee, N.C., and Tahlequah, Okla. In between, there will be appropriate markers, and local museums and centers will be incorporated. Parts of the trail along Illinois Highway 146 already have been marked with the National Trail System signs. Highways in Missouri were marked last year, following a route from Trail of Tears State Park through Cape Girardeau and Jackson and westward on Highway 72 to Fredericktown.

The Trail of Tears took many routes across several states. One of those routes crossed Southern Illinois and into Missouri near where Trail of Tears State Park is located now in northern Cape Girardeau County. Across the Mississippi River in Illinois is Trail of Tears State Forest.

It was during the winter of 1838-39 that one of the most devastating event occurred during the forced migration. Because the Mississippi River couldn't be crossed because of ice, the Cherokees camped near Reynoldsville, Ill., with few provisions and inadequate shelter. Hundreds of them died as a result.

Brenda Farnell, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois, sums up that era of history: The Trail of Tears "was devastating to all the native peoples in the Southeast because, although it began with the Cherokees, the other tribes in the Southeast were also removed. Today, we would call it ethnic cleansing."

Ken Blankenship, a Cherokee who is director of the interpretative center planned in North Carolina, says, "This trail marks one of the most important events in our tribal hitory. It was genocidal event that would not happen today."

Including the trail and its various routes in the National Trails System will help promote a better understanding of those events and will serve, in some small part, to memorialize all those who suffered.