New Beginnings at Trail's End

New Beginnings at Trail's End

When Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their Southern homelands on their relocation westward along the “Trail of Tears” in 1839, what they didn’t leave behind was their history, their culture, their faith in the future, and a remarkable written language.

All these are alive and well today in the new center of the Cherokee Nation in Talequah, Okla., where bilingual street signs–in both English and Cherokee—tell a visitor that this is unlike any other place in America. The signs pay tribute to one of the tribe’s most famous sons, Sequoyah, who developed an alphabet that enabled the Cherokee to become one the 19th century’s most literate people.

They arrived in Indian Territory almost 70 years before Oklahoma was granted statehood, and more than a third of the then-17,000 member tribe led by Chief John Ross had died on the trek, but the Cherokee soon ushered in their “Golden Age,” lasting until the Civil War. (The tribe sided with the Confederacy at one point, and so lost more land and rights in Oklahoma after the war.)

Vestiges of that era shade Tahlequah’s landscape with powerful images. At the Cherokee Heritage Center, for example, three stately columns memorialize the 1851 Cherokee Female Seminary—the first institution of higher learning for women west of the Mississippi. And the town’s tribally funded 1844 Supreme Court Building—the first public building in Indian Territory—is now undergoing restoration.

East of the center, the grand Murrell House, built by George and Minerva Ross Murrell in 1845, also speaks to the Cherokee glory days. The two-story frame house contains many original furnishings, including the 1851 piano Minerva (Cherokee Chief John Ross’ niece) played to entertain the territory’s most influential visitors. Now a state-operated museum, Murrell House provides insight into pre-statehood life for Tahlequah’s elite.

Other revelations unfold inside the Cherokee Heritage Center’s National Museum, where a million-dollar bilingual exhibit funded by a National Park Service grant traces the Cherokees’ journey to Indian Territory through a series of interactive video and audio presentations.

Charlie Soap (husband of former Chief Wilma Mankiller) was among tribal members who posed for the exhibition’s life-size statues. He also stars as a storyteller and grandfather in the exhibit’s opening video. “They had to coax me into it,” Soap admits, “but I’m pleased with the outcome. The (center) staff is working hard to preserve our culture and tell the history of our people.”

Outside the museum, actors in the Ancient Village also demonstrate their ancestors’ way of life, while the Adams Corner Rural Village recreates a typical 19th-century Cherokee Nation settlement. Meanwhile, new projects develop: An artists’ collective sells traditional pottery; the Clemente Course, a comparative arts program, studies Cherokee rituals; and a documentary film festival soon will be unveiled. All illustrate the center’s commitment to its community.

Chief Chad Smith says that commitment is to help “dispel the myths and stereotypes” the Cherokee and other American Indian tribes have lived with for generations.

On Labor Day, the town of 14,458, celebrates its American Indian heritage with Cherokee National Holiday, featuring traditional American Indian games and an intertribal powwow.

Renewed vigor is also evident in the revival this year of a drama, Trail of Tears, once held annually in the heritage center’s 1,800-seat Tsa-La-Gi (literally, Cherokee people) Amphitheater. The story has playing to audiences since 1969, and was “the no. 1 tourist attraction in the state of Oklahoma during the ’70s and ’80s,” notes Patrick Whelan, the show’s producer and promotions manager. But the show shut down in 1995, due, in part, to a “tired and overused script,” he says.

Now, Trail of Tears is back, running June 27 through Labor Day. Oklahoma native Joe Sears (who co-wrote and starred in the off-Broadway hit, Greater Tuna) penned the new script, incorporating elements that reflect the Cherokee “Golden Age.”

The drama, the museum, and the center’s other programs, says Chief Smith, teach lessons that not only reflect Tahlequah’s past but look toward its future.

Margaret Dornaus is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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