Fight For Survival

Fight For Survival. Rhodes Ferry Park. The Cherokee people resisted the government's order to leave the Tennessee Valley. They signed petitions and lobbied Congress. Yet the Indian Removal Act of 1830 still passed. In March 1837, the first detachment, a group of Cherokee families, slaves, and a doctor, loaded onto 11 flat boats with Major Ridge, a Cherokee leader. In 1838, two more detachments faced hunger, disease, and death on their Trail of Tears route through Decatur. , Captions , Major Ridge signed away Cherokee land in the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, hoping to preserve Cherokee rights to Indian Territory., ...I know we love the graves of our fathers. We can never forget these home but an unbending, iron necessity tells us we must leave them. I would willing die to preserve them, but any forcible effort to keep them will cost us our lands, our lives and the lives of our children." , Major Ridge, Name of Detachment . Arrival Date in Decatur . Number of Cherokee , Major Ridge . March 7, 1837 . 471 , Lt. Edward Deas . June 9, 1838 . 800 , Lt. Robert H.K. Whiteley . June 21, 1838 . 1,000