The Trail of Tears through Jacksonville

The Trail of Tears through Jacksonville. Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. "The route which the Choctaws and Chickasaws will travel, in emigrating to their new homes, is not yet, we believe, fully determined on; but it is quite probable that a large proportion of them will cross the Mississippi at Helena, and White river at the Mouth of Cache, and proceed on the Memphis Road in the direction of this place." , -Arkansas Gazette, February 23, 1831 , A Passage to the West , Thousands of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Muscogee Creek Indians passed by where you are standing as they were forced from their ancestral lands in the east and cross the hundreds of miles to Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). Hundreds would die during the trek, and thousands of others would not survive the hardships of establishing their new homes Local settler Samson Gray, whose home stood northeast of here, contracted with the United States government to supply corn, beef and sait for the displaced Native Americans, as well as oxen to pull their wagons and fodder for their livestock. , "The vast and prodigious efforts made by the general government to rid the interior of our Union of the presence of Indian tribes, have made our State for the present, nothing but a thoroughfare, a theatre, for the march of these tribes to their new homes in the west."