Fort Delaney

Fort Delaney, the U.S. Army’s post for the 1838 forced removal of Cherokee citizens from the upper Valley River Valley, was located due south of here in present-day Andrews. East Tennessee Mounted Volunteers built the fort in October 1837, constructing a palisade with log blockhouses, officers’ quarters, a blacksmith’s shop, a powder magazine, a hospital, and winter “huttage” for enlisted men., In June 1838, North Carolina troops stationed at Fort Delaney arrested hundreds of Cherokee citizens from the nearby communities of Konahete, Dasetsi, and Little Tellico. The detainees assembled in camps around the fort before transferring to Fort Butler (at present-day Murphy) in their staged exodus to Oklahoma. Other Cherokee prisoners from the Cheoah, Nantahala, and Little Tennessee river valley communities rested at Fort Delaney on their way to Fort Butler. As may as 1,500 Cherokee detainees, about 10% of the total Cherokee population departed along the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma, passed through Fort Delaney in their tragic journey to the west., (sidebar) , In 1838, the United States government deported more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, and sent them to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Thousands of Cherokees perished during the forced relocation, which has become known as the Trail of Tears. This tragic episode of our history was a result of the 1830 Indian Removal Act, an official government policy to purge native nations from the eastern United States., (captions) , (RIGHT) Lt. E.D Keyes’ 1838 schematic map of army posts in the Cherokee Nation indicates Fort Delaney at the convergence of routes from Fort Lindsay, Fort Montgomery, and Camp Scott., This 1837 lithograph depicts a U.S. Army fort on the southern frontier, a temporary post that may have resembled Fort Delaney.