Tuscumbia, Alabama , the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: A Site Report

Return to Trail of Tears Research homepage
Return to ANPA Site Reports homepage

by Jamie A. Metrailer

Resources on Indian Removal No. 8
Sequoyah Research Center
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
October 14, 2006

Research for this report was funded in part by a Challenge Cost Share Agreement with the Long Distance Trails Office of the National Park Service, Santa Fe, New Mexico. No part of this text may be duplicated or otherwise used except by permission of the author or as provided for by the "Special Provision" section of the agreement.

Background

The Michael Dickson family followed the French and Chickasaw lead in establishing a settlement in the area now known as Tuscumbia in 1815. Trade in the area increased when the Federal Government built a military road linking Nashville to New Orleans during the years of 1817-1819. The town was incorporated as Big Springs in 1820; the name changed to Tuscumbia in 1822.¹

In 1824, Tuscumbia built a landing two miles down river in order to increase trade associated with the introduction of steamboats on the Tennessee River. Soon thereafter another landing was built upstream from the town. With the completion of the Tuscumbia, Courtland, and Decatur Railroad in 1834, the forty-three-mile-long Muscle Shoals could be bypassed via a land route.² Its location on important travel routes of the day made it a significant site in Indian removal.

Tuscumbia and Muscogee (Creek) Removal

Even before the removal treaty of 1832, parties of removing Creeks came through Tuscumbia. A letter of Captain John Page and signed by other officers involved in Creek emigration was written in Tuscumbia on December 1, 1827, giving details related to their journey: “The party of emigrating Creek Indians under my charge arrived at this place on the 25th…[On the] 28th those possessing horses and others relying [on] public teams amounting to upwards of three hundred proceeded by land, the balance nearly four hundred and fifty, for whom boats and provisions are furnished will embark tomorrow morning.”³

The Treaty of March 24, 1832, placed Creek lands in Alabama in the hands of the United States government. During 1832, some 2,500 Creeks were removed west. Although the treaty allowed Creeks who chose to remain in Alabama to take allotments from the former tribal lands, they generally found life next to the whites intolerable.⁴ Many of those remaining fought the United States government and white settlers in what was later known as the Creek War. Meanwhile, mass removal of the Creeks began under the direction of the Alabama Emigrating Company.

In December of 1835, William Beattie of the Company conducted a party of 511 Creeks, including Benjamin Marshall, a half-blood Creek, his family of eight, and his nineteen slaves.⁵ Lieutenant Edward Deas was disbursing agent. Organized at Wetumka town on December 6, the group traveled by way of Montevallo, Elyton, and Moulton, and arrived at Tuscumbia on December 21.⁶ Deas’ journal entry for December 22 states: “The Contractors having heard very unfavorable accounts of the state of the roads from this to Memphis and west of the Mississippi have determined to take water from this place and have made arrangements for suitable Boats for that purpose…The state of the water in the Tennessee and other intermediate waters is said to be good at present at it is probable we shall get through the journey sooner and more to the comfort of the Indians in this manner.”⁷ At Tuscumbia, a slave boy of Benjamin Marshall died. In all, the party included about 100 slaves and 34 blacks traveling alone, some of the latter belonging to Opothleyohola and Tuckabatchee Micco.⁸ “Sending their horses in charge of contractors to be driven through by volunteer Indians, the remainder of the party, their wagons, beef, and corn were embarked December 23 on small steamboat and two keel boats that carried them down the river to Waterloo.”⁹ Both of these parties were headed to Memphis.

A letter to General George Gibson, Commissary General of Subsistence, on January 7, 1836, provides additional insight into this contingent. This letter contained a copy of a letter written by a Doctor Ingersoll from Tuscumbia on December 22, 1835. The doctor observed: “There was over 171 horses or ponies there, with the necessary number of Indians to take charge of them, have been sent by land, and the rest of the party sent by boats…The 7th Article of the contract positively forbids the separation of the ponies to whom their owners belong.”¹⁰

When the Creeks rebelled against removal in 1836, Brigadier General Winfield Scott brought several thousand troops to Alabama and gathered the Creeks into camps. Of the Creeks remaining in Alabama, 2,500 were considered hostile and were captured and transported to Indian Territory in the last half of 1836 and the summer of 1837.¹¹

A party of 2,320 Creeks, again with Lieut. Edward Deas as disbursing agent, arrived in Tuscumbia on October 2, 1836 on route to Memphis.¹² A letter written on this date from Deas to General Gibson states: “[At an] encampment of Indians near Tuscumbia, Alabama…I have the honor to state that the Party of Creek Emigrants which I have accompanied from Talladega, arrived and encamped at this place this afternoon [to proceed] on the most direct route toward Memphis.” Deas goes on to state: “Some sickness amongst the people but not of a serious nature…The cases however are numerous…I am now under the necessity of engaging a physician to attend the party toward Memphis.”¹³

Another party of 543 Creeks with Deas as disbursing agent traveled by flat boat to Tuscumbia, leaving Gunter's Landing on May 16, 1837. These were Creeks who had sought refuge in the Cherokee Nation after the treaty of 1832 and had been rounded up by the militia. Seventy-one had escaped during the first sixty miles of their journey.¹⁴ While in Tuscumbia, Deas purchased $14.76 worth of medical supplies, including adhesives, sponges, Epson salts, castor oil, a cork screw, a spatula, a basket, tooth key, and a pair of forceps in preparation for the next leg of their journey. Also at Tuscumbia, Fors-hach-fixico received $75 payment “for his services in assisting the Agents of Emigration in collecting the…Creeks, which he is principal chief," and for his using “his influence in collecting his people for Emigration.”¹⁵ The party went overland from Tuscumbia to Waterloo, from which they departed by boat.

In August, 1837, the last Creek contingent went through Tuscumbia. This group, under chief Tuckabatche Hadjo, had left Tuskegee on August 3 and traveled by way of West Point, Lafayette, Elyton, Plum Creek, Courtland, Town Creek, and Tuscumbia. On August 26 and 27, Lieutenant John Sprague wrote, "Monday 26th. The party left camp at 7 a.m. arrived at Tuscumbia at 2 P.M. Camped 1/2 mile from town: distance 15 miles; road good. Tuesday 27th. Left Tuscumbia 1/2 past 7 A.M. Camped at Caney Creek, road hilly, water scarce, distance 9 miles."¹⁶

Tuscumbia and Chickasaw Removal

Tuscumbia was the site of the Chickasaw Agency and residency of Agent Benjamin Reynolds at the time of Chickasaw removal. One major contingent of Chickasaws was gathered at Tuscumbia in preparation for their removal to Indian Territory. The North Alabaman, a newspaper published in Tuscumbia, was quoted in early December of 1837 as saying: “the whole of the tribe has left that place [Tuscumbia] in the early part of last month under Col. Upshaw…Chickasaw Indians have ever stood high as a nation…They have ever been found the friend of the white men, and they have often poured out their blood in his behalf.”¹⁷

Tuscumbia and Cherokee Removal

President Andrew Jackson’s government officials and the Ridge Party of Cherokee Nation signed the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835. The treaty ceded Cherokee lands in the East in exchange for lands in Indian Territory.

In spring of 1837, a party of 466 Cherokees was the first to go west voluntarily under government assistance provided by the Treaty of New Echota. This party “included Stand Watie, [and] Major Ridge and his wife” and “was under the charge of Dr. John S. Young, and the physician Dr. C. Lillybridge, plus three assistants and three interpreters, one of whom was Elijah Hicks.”¹⁸ The party traveled by eleven flatboats divided into three sections from Ross’s Landing, Tennessee, to Gunter’s Landing, Alabama, arriving there on March 6. There they landed the steamboat Knoxville, to which they lashed the flatboats, and traveled to Decatur. From there, they took the Decatur and Tuscumbia Railroad to Tuscumbia, where the Steamer Newark, awaited them.¹⁹

The journal of Lillybridge notes that the contingent arrived at Tuscumbia at 8:30 on the evening of March 10. The doctor’s entries from March 11 to the 14 note cases of “whiskey frolic…measles…pain & fullness in [the] abdomen…high fever and obstinacy of the bowels… influenza… headache… [and] a number of children complaining of common colds.” While at Tuscumbia these Cherokees “were badly exposed for the present weather…the rain during the night poured down most copiously.”²⁰

Lillybridge was discontented with the fact that the purchasing agent arrived late to Tuscumbia. Under orders from the Office of Indian Affairs, this agent was unwilling to purchase the medical supplies that Lillybridge had requested, except for a few basic medicines. “He utterly declined paying for a Cupping apparatus, which had been ordered…This was particularly regrettable by the Physician as it is an article much needed; the Indians are partial to the practice [and] practice it themselves.” Lillybridge goes on to say “it will be found that the present supply embraces no more than which was contemplated in the treaty."²¹

In his journal, Lillybridge also notes his discontent with the transportation that the Cherokee were required to take out of Tuscumbia. The Newark had two-keelboats in tow. “The Boats prepared for the transportation of the Emigrants, are entirely too limited in room and conveniences for the party…The Keel Boats are without Stoves or fires in them, water in the hold, & present to those accustomed as many of the Emigrants are, to many of the comforts of civilized life, rather a revolting spectacle.”²²

The first Cherokee party to be forcibly removed under the War Department's authority came through Tuscumbia in early April, 1838. They numbered 249, and included some who had been held in camp at Rawlingsville, Alabama, and others who had been brought in by militia groups from various places in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Still others who went with the party were Cherokees who had taken the government's offer of $20 per person in the family to pay their own way to the West. Removal Superintendent Nathaniel Smith brought them down the Tennessee on the George Guess to Tuscumbia. From there they continued to Waterloo, where he turned them over to Lieutenant Edward Deas, who conducted them to the West aboard the Smelter.²³

In April 1838, General Winfield Scott arrived at the Cherokee Nation to take over the roundup of Cherokees in order to initiate his plans for Indian removal.²⁴ The Military Orders No. 25, signed May 17, 1838 at the Cherokee Agency East by General Scott state: “The Cherokees, by the advances which they have made in Christianity and civilization, are by far the most interesting tribe of Indians in the territorial limits of the United States. Of the 15,000 of those people who are now to be removed—(and the time within which a voluntary emigration was stipulated, will expire on the 23rd instant--) it is understood that four fifths are exposed, or have become adverse to a distant emigration; and altho’ none are in actual hostilities with the United States, or threaten a resistance by arms, yet the troops will probably be obliged to cover the whole country they inhabit, in order to make prisoners and to march or to transport the prisoners, by families,…to be finally delivered over to the Superintendent of Cherokee Emigrations.”²⁵

Soon after Deas returned from taking the first group to the West, he conducted another contingent of an estimated 650 Cherokee in June of 1838.²⁶ In his journal, Deas states: “The present party of Cherokees consists mostly of Indians that were collected by the Troops and inhabited that portion of the Cherokee embraced within the limits of Georgia.”²⁷ In Decatur, the party boarded railroad cars departing for Tuscumbia where the contingent planned on boarding the Steamboat Smelter headed for Memphis. “Unfortunately, the Smelter left Tuscumbia with only the first half of the Cherokees because the river was falling and the boat had to get past Colbert Shoals below Tuscumbia...Deas and the second half of the party encamped at the Tuscumbia landing on that night of June the 10…The next morning he discovered that over one hundred of the party had escaped during the night… By June 12 his party numbered only 489.”²⁸ Lieut. Deas’ journal notes, “At Tuscumbia…I had purchased 4 day supply of beef, but owing to the heat of the weather and of the party most of it became spoiled and unfit for use.”²⁹

A party of Cherokees under Lieut. R. H. K. Whiteley arrived in Tuscumbia by train from Decatur on June 21, 1838. One Cherokee who had been consuming alcohol jumped off the train car to retrieve his hat and was crushed to death. Whiteley’s contingent waited for transport boats on the Tennessee River just below Tuscumbia from June 22 until June 26. During this time period, four children faced a death “caused in the opinion of the doctors by the fresh beef” intended for these Cherokees.³⁰ At Tuscumbia, the contingent purchased “one thousand and fifty five pounds fresh beef at 5 cents per pound,” bacon, flour, corn meal, salt, and “medicines for the use of the sick emigrating Cherokees.”³¹ These medicines included chloride of lime (used for disinfectant), ointment, and adhesive plaster. On June 26, the combined party boarded the steamer Smelter and traveled to the Arkansas River.

Whiteley’s contingent was joined by another led by Nathaniel Smith, Superintendent of Cherokee removal. Smith wrote: “At Dicatur…I learned Leut. Whiteley’s party were yet at Tuscumbia. I followed on and overtook him and party at Waterloo…”³² Led originally by Captain Drane, Smith’s party had been rebellious, and a number had escaped at Bellefonte. When the Cherokees had learned that the Cherokees would thereafter direct their own removal, they had urged Smith to delay their removal through what he called “a touching petition to halt the movement of the party and either return them to their former encampment or establish them in a new one where they could share in the respite until a more healthful season and join in the movement in the autumn under the permission of General Scott.”³³ After the rebellion at Bellefonte, Smith ordered out local militia to help Drane round up those who had escaped. Smith took part of the party on to Tuscumbia, leaving Drane to take the remaining Cherokees under militia escort to Waterloo.³⁴

After these removals, the Cherokee Nation assumed responsibility for removing its own people. When removal resumed in October of 1838, only one of the thirteen contingents traveled by way of Tuscumbia. This party, the Drew contingent, included Chief Ross and his family. In “A rough estimate of the probable cost of the water detachment of emigrant Cherokees conducted by Capt. John Drew,” Ross noted: “ 1 Steam Boat at Cost (bought at Tuscumbia) 10,000.00.” The Victoria took the party from Tuscumbia to the mouth of the Illinois River in the Cherokee Nation West.³⁵

Notes

1. http://www.cityoftuscumbia.org/Our_History/index.html.

2. Ibid.

3. http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ok/nations/creek/history/letters/emigletter.txt

4. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/creeks.pdf.

5. Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Second Printing of New Edition. (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), 142.

6. Amanda Paige, Fuller Bumpers, and Daniel Littlefield, Jr., The North Little Rock Site on the Trails of Tears National Historic Trail : Historical Context Report. Revised April 20, 2004 (Little Rock: American Native Press Archives, 2004), 24-25.

7. Gaston Litton, ed., "The Journal of a Party of Emigrating Creek Indians, 1835-1836," Journal of Southern History 7 (May 1941), 232-233.

8. Paige, et al., The North Little Rock Site, 24-25.

9. Foreman, Indian Removal, 143.

10. National Archives Record Group75, Records of the Commissary General of Subsistence, Letters Received, Box 9 Creek—1836.

11. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/creeks.pdf.

12. Foreman, Indian Removal, 163; Paige, et al., The North Little Rock Site, 30.

13. National Archives Record Group75, Records of the Commissary General of Subsistence, Letters Received, Box 9 Creek—1836.

14. Paige, et al., The North Little Rock Site, 32.

15. National Archives Record Group75, Records of the Commissary General of Subsistence, Letters Received, Box 9 Creek—1836.

16. John Sprague, Journal of my Journey with two thousand Creek Indians Emigrating to Arkansas, Tuck e batch e hadjo principal Chief, August 3, 1837, National Archives Record Group 217, General Accounting Office, Treasury Department, Second Auditor, Indian Affairs, Settled Accounts and Claims, John C. Reynolds, Box 238, File 1687A.

17. Arrell M. Gibson. The Chickasaws (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 173.

18. http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/cherokees.pdf.

19. Foreman, Indian Removal, 275.

20. Grant Foreman, “Journey of a Party of Cherokee Emigrants.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 18 (September, 1931), 238-239.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 239.

23. Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., ed., Lieut. Edward Deas' Journal of Occurrences, April-May 1838. Resources on Indian Removal No. 3 (Little Rock: Sequoyah Research Center, UALR, 2006), 1-5.

24. http://ngeorgia.com/people/scott.html.

25. http://oai.sunsite.utk.edu/sgm/tl220.html.

26. Paige, et al., The North Little Rock Site, 46.

27. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness6.htm.

28. Paige, et al., The North Little Rock Site, 46.

29. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness6.htm.

30. http://www.mindspring.com/~wayne.gibson/JP3.gif. For the earlier experiences of this group see Jamie Metrailer, Gunter's Landing, Alabama, on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: A Site Report. Resources on Indian Removal No. 4 (Little Rock: Sequoyah Research Center, UALR, 2006) and Metrailer, Decatur, Alabama, on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: A Site Report. Resources on Indian Removal No. 5 (Little Rock: Sequoyah Research Center, UALR, 2006).

31. National Archives Record Group 217, General Accounting Office, Treasury Department, Second Auditor, Indian Affairs, Settled Accounts and Claims, R.H.K. Whiteley, Box 294, File 3486B.

32. Foreman, Indian Removal, 298.

33. Ibid., 297.

34. For an account of earlier events related to this contingent, see Jamie Metrailer, Decatur, Alabama.

35. See Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., The John Drew Detachment. Resources on Indian Removal No. 2 (Little Rock: Sequoyah Research Center, UALR, 2006).

Bibliography

�

Published Sources

About North Georgia. Winfield Scott. http://ngeorgia.com/people/scott.html.

Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The Cherokees.
http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/cherokees.pdf

Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The Creeks.
http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/preservation-services/trail-of-tears/pdfs/creeks.pdf

Foreman, Grant. Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Second Printing of New Edition. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956.

Foreman, Grant. “Journey of a Party of Cherokee Emigrants.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. 18, No. 2. (Sept., 1931), pp.232-245.

Gibson, Arrell M. The Chickasaw. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971.

Hall, Lance. Creek Nation, Indian Territory, Creek Emigration Letters.
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ok/nations/creek/history/letters/emigletter.txt

Litton, Gaston, ed. “The Journal of a Party of Emigrating Creek Indians, 1835-1836,” Journal of Southern History 7 (May 1941), 225-242.

Official Website of the City of Tuscumbia, AL. Attractions. http://www.cityoftuscumbia.org/Attractions/index.html.

Official Website of the City of Tuscumbia, AL. Our History. http://www.cityoftuscumbia.org/Our_History/index.html.

Official Website of the City of Tuscumbia, AL. Parks and Recreation. http://www.cityoftuscumbia.org/Parks_Recreation/index.html.

Paige, Amanda, Fuller Bumpers, and Daniel Littlefield. The North Little Rock Site on the
Trails of Tears National Historic Trail : Historical Context Report. Revised April 20, 2004.

Sequoyah Research Center. Edward Deas Journal of Occurences June 1838. http://anpa.ualr.edu/trail_of_tears/indian_removal_project/eye_witness_accounts/eye-witness6.htm.

University of Tennessee Digital Library Database. Tennessee Documentary History, 1796-185 http://oai.sunsite.utk.edu/sgm/tl220.html.

Whiteley, R. H. K. Journal, http://www.mindspring.com/~wayne.gibson/JP3.gif

Unpublished Sources

National Archives Record Group 75, Records of the Commissary General of Subsistence Letters Received, Creek—1836.

National Archives Record Group 217 (General Accounting Office, Treasury Department, Second Auditor’s Records), Indian Affairs, Settled Accounts and Claims, Box 220, Edward. Deas, File 1180B.

National Archives Record Group 217 (General Accounting Office, Treasury Department, Second Auditor’s Records), Indian Affairs, Settled Accounts and Claims, Box 294, R. H. K. Whiteley, File 6217..