Context

“Retracing the Bell Route” commemorates the Cherokee people who traveled through what is now Sewanee in October 1838. The project aims at a detailed study of identifiable Bell Detachment members in various sources to better understand their lives before, during, and after their forced emigration from their homes.

A lost journal, detailing the travel of Cherokee families on the Bell Route, is one of the dead ends which has limited scholarly interest in this history. Lieutenant Edward Deas kept the journal and evidently sent it to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, but the last official mention of the journal was in 1841 and it has not been located since. Deas also kept a Muster Roll with names of Bell Detachment members, but this source has also evaded the grasp of historians. At times a sympathetic observer, Deas may have recorded the deceased whose names are otherwise absent in his meticulous financial records.

Because the Bell Detachment was affiliated with the Treaty Party, and because the Bell Route was separate from the vast majority of Cherokee emigrants, it has remained one of the more understudied aspects of Cherokee Removal. In the 1990s, Dr. Duane King began to retrace the Bell Route by researching reports submitted by Lieutenant Deas from the Second Auditor’s “Indian Accounts” records (included on this site under “Vouchers”). A descendant of John Adair Bell—Wayne Dell Gibson—wrote “Cherokee Treaty Party Moves West: The Bell-Deas Overland Journey, 1838-1839,” Chronicles of Oklahoma Vol. 79 No. 3 (Fall 2001), which remains the only published study of the Bell Route. The National Trail of Tears Association (TOTA) coordinated with the National Park Service to add the Bell Route to the National Historic Trail. Members of TOTA’s Tennessee Chapter, including Floyd Ayers, Doris Trevino, Debbie Moore, and others, retraced the Bell Route to bring signage to Franklin and Marion Counties. With assistance from David Moore, President of the Franklin County Historical Society, signage was secured in 2017. Sewanee’s Domain Ranger, Sandy Gilliam, assisted in installing the signs in 2018 in and around Sewanee.

Building on this work, in summer 2023 Sewanee’s Indigenous Engagement Initiative supported Dr. Stuart Marshall’s research at the National Archives (NARA) to identify records pertaining to Bell Detachment members. Floyd Ayers offered key guidance with this research. TOTA Director At-Large Mike Wren and President Jack Baker assisted Marshall with research at NARA in December 2023. Mike Wren’s research and indexes have been invaluable in identifying Bell Detachment members and available records such as the 1842 Claims. During the 2023-2024 academic year, Marshall’s students in HIST 200: Native American History Survey I and II pursued research and transcriptions. In August 2024, a grant from the Smith Experiential Learning Fund enabled Marshall and his colleagues, Dr. Andy Maginn and Dr. Al Bardi, to develop this project within their First-Year Program courses. This cohort of Sewanee freshmen began their undergraduate studies by retracing the Bell Route by visiting related sites including New Echota, Red Clay, Ross’s Landing, and back to “Cumberland Mountain.”