Context

(This section will be expanded with short biographies of other Bell Detachment members).

John Adair Bell was born to a Cherokee mother, Charlotte Adair Bell, and a white father, John Bell Sr. He ran for sheriff of Coosawattee District in 1829. His attempt to carry out the laws of the Cherokee Nation led to conflict with Georgia in 1831. Bell seized and sold the property of a white man (a sheriff’s auction) and arrested another white man charged with murder. Because the State of Georgia extended its laws over the Cherokee Nation, counteracting their authority, Bell was imprisoned for seven days.

By 1835, Bell claimed seven enslaved people, and had a 80-acre farm that produced 1500 bushels of corn (as revealed in the census). In addition to his farm, Bell claimed an improvement at New Echota, likely a temporary residence for Treaty Party meetings. Bell became closely associated with other Treaty Party leaders and was among the signers of the Treaty of New Echota. Bell was also a President of a committee formed to investigate Cherokee spoliation claims before Removal, and offered testimony in his father’s claim.

Due to his Treaty Party affiliation, Bell’s political opponents suspected him of undermining the Removal plans of John Ross and the National Party. These suspicions were shared for a time by Lieut. Edward Deas, who was shocked by Bell’s absence from the detachment after they ferried the Tennessee River at Ross’s Landing. Bell served as conductor of the Bell Detachment and also hired out four 4-horse wagons for use during emigration. After Removal, Bell continued to serve the Treaty Party as a leading delegate and attorney, and occasionally as an instigator of political violence, as mentioned in Conflict documents. Bell fled the Cherokee Nation to Arkansas and later Texas, where he died in 1860.

Despite the implied passivity of the term, “Removal” was a violent process. Cherokees left testimony describing their violent dispossession before emigration. Oolstooah recounted being “forcibly ejected” from his land in 1834. Cherokees attempting to recover horses stolen from Ahwekele were opposed by white men who “threatened to beat us,” they recalled. William Boling described being violently kidnapped by a gang of cattle rustlers. James Foster survived attempted murder when a white thief’s gun misfired. Arson was also common and is alluded to by Sweetwater. In addition to making threats, whites often killed large numbers of livestock on Cherokee farms, as was the case with Alcy Cockram’s hogs.

In contrast to popular conceptions, it was likely not U.S. troops who were responsible for most incidents of violence, but U.S. citizens. Cullanauhaskey described being hit in the head with a tomahawk by a white Georgian, suing for the injury alongside his lost property and land. Chahwahukee submitted a claim for damages from being shot in the hand by a U.S. citizen. Other Cherokees resisted their forced emigration, such as Deer in the Water, who escaped but was arrested again by U.S. troops who confiscated his two rifles. David M. Foreman was “forcibly detained” by troops.

For the Bell Detachment, their affiliation with the Treaty Party meant the prolonged threat of violence and displacement. In 1839 John A. Bell reported details of the killings of Treaty Party leaders including Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot. With other surviving Treaty Party leaders, John A. Bell planned to kill John Ross. In 1839 Andrew Jackson encouraged Bell to take violent action against Ross. When the plan to kill Ross did not succeed, Bell mobilized an insurgency, and according to one witness, Bell formed a new strategy: “stealing horses, robbing, and house-burning, and once in a while to kill persons.” Treaty Party members fled out of the Cherokee Nation, and Bell told the Secretary of War they needed assistance to return in safety. This led to property loss and damages for Treaty Party-affiliated Bell Detachment members including John Sanders who claimed “his life was threaten[ed]” by “his enimys [enemies].” Their livestock was also targeted, as in the case of Huckleberry’s horse, “killed by his enemies on the account of his politics.”

While conventional histories of Removal use sources that favor men’s voices (such as congressional records with messages from male Cherokee Nation politicians), other records offer insights on how women experienced the Trail of Tears. Women who may not have spoken English or received an English-language education nonetheless left testimony in claims records. Of the 1842 Claims of identifiable Bell Detachment members, 20 of 49 claims are for women.

The 1842 claims provide incredible detail about Cherokee women’s lives in the Removal era. These sources hint at women’s labor and material culture, such as with Nancy Smith, who had to abandon her cattle farm when she “was rudely forced away by the soldiery,” leaving behind silk dresses, earrings (“bobs”), a bonnet, beads, and various toiletry items. She recalled these with great detail and frustration as “no opportunity was afforded her to save one thing.” For some Cherokee women, dispossession and harassment were among their earliest memories, such as Ahwekele who remembered white men stole her family’s livestock “when she was a small girl.” Nor were women spared from violence, as Chahwahukee testified—a white citizen shot her in the hand, perhaps in a dispute over property.

Bell Detachment women actually sued for more lost property than their male counterparts. Though women were the minority of claimants— 20 of 49 claims—they comprised the majority of claim amounts. From this data we can investigate some possible conclusions: women lost more property than men; women were more insistent in submitting claims than men; women were targeted more than men. Cherokee matriarchal and matrilocal customs are likely factors—land ownership and farm management were traditionally women’s roles, so perhaps they suffered adversely from the upheaval of Removal in that regard. More investigation of the Bell Detachment and comparable data from other detachments is needed to better understand this data.

Of these 1842 claims, the claimant with the highest claim amount was a woman—Alcy Cockram—whose claim included a ferry, the most valuable asset she was deprived of. Some Cherokee women appointed men to attend to their business for them, such as Betsy Pack. Although not a part of the Bell Detachment, Pack instructed her Wills Valley neighbor, John Bell, to transport her furniture and two enslaved people to the west.

Of the Bell Detachment, Aggy Foster stands out as the most vocal woman, or perhaps a propertied woman who was especially determined to obtain compensation. Though she is not a well-known figure, a fairly detailed biography can be extracted from her valuation of her property in 1836; several 1838 claims including this spoliation claim for stolen horses; an 1842 claim after she resettled in Goingsnake District in the West.

Other women are identifiable in multiple sources despite variations in spelling of their names. Cahuka (Cahueka, Kahuekah, etc.) can be found in sources including the valuation of her property; a payment to her in a voucher for wagon hire; her 1842 claim; and an 1846 claim. From these sources, we learn that Cahuka was separated from her husband before Removal; she was involved in labor ranging from textile production, beekeeping, to hog farming; she was forced from home by troops and forced to abandon property including three rifles; she had a two-horse wagon which she hired out on the Bell Route; she resettled at Salisaw in Flint District until 1845, when she fled to Arkansas because of her Treaty Party affiliation—targeted by “theaves & life distroyers,” as she called them.

John Adair Bell would have been killed in 1839 if not for the warning of an enslaved man named Mike. In this and various other ways, slavery shaped the history of Cherokee Removal. Our project aims to investigate the lives of the enslaved people who traveled the Bell Route. Like the Cherokee families in the Bell Detachment, there is no known surviving muster roll or list of names of enslaved people who traveled the Bell Route. Furthermore, we do not have a tally of enslaved people or know if they were included within the total of 650-700 Cherokees in the detachment. Other sources, however, allow us to create a fuller picture of the context of slavery as it pertains to Bell Detachment families.

The 1835 Census of the Cherokee Nation suggests some possible tallies for enslaved people within the Bell Detachment, but without guarantees—the enslaved listed in the 1835 census cannot be assumed to be equivalent with those who were the detachment in 1838 (tallies would be affected by any births, deaths, self-emancipation, abduction, and sales between 1835 and 1838). For instance, Bell Route namesake John Adair Bell is listed as having seven “slaves”—four of whom were male, and three of whom were female (their ages are not listed). Other Bell Detachment heads-of-households are listed as slaveholders, including John Sanders, George Blair, and George Baldridge. Suggestions of slaveholder wealth are indicated in some valuations including that of Lovely Rogers, whose property is described as a “plantation” with multiple cabins.

Names of the enslaved are rare in available documents, with one exception being Armistead, an enslaved blacksmith held by the Bell family. John Bell (father of John A. Bell) filed a claim for costs associated with a dispute around “a negro man named Armistead which boy is a valuable blacksmith.” John A. Bell offered testimony about this enslaved man, claiming that a legal dispute caused his father “to buy up the execution on the negro”—paying for another man’s debt to retain ownership of his chattel “property.” It is unknown if Armistead accompanied the Bells on the Bell Route, but his mechanic skills would have been valuable in the wagon train. Another 1838 claimant, John Love, describes the presence of enslaved men in future Bell Detachment families. Love stated that around 1826, “he sent a negro man into the state of georgia on Business” (enslaved people exercising some mobility with errand work was not uncommon) when white men stole two of his horses.

Of the enslaved in the Bell Detachment, it is likely that some were teamsters or wagon drivers for some of the group’s 56 wagons. One possible mention of enslaved labor includes John A. Bell’s expense report for services of “a man in my private employ,” sent on errands in October 1838 as the detachment passed through the Sewanee area. Two enslaved men were sent by Betsy Pack to join the Bell Detachment, part of a settlement for her son’s debts. Somewhat surprisingly, none of the 1842 claims here make mention of enslaved people, but they do provide indications of wealth of slaveholders and references to possible labor of the enslaved, such as with George Blair’s mention of cotton processing. Cahueka/Kahhuekah evidently produced cotton before and after Removal, claiming 50 pounds of cotton in her 1842 claim, and two bags of cotton with cotton cards in her 1846 claim.

Recommended viewing:

Cherokee Almanac: The Cherokee Slave Revolt (1842), OsiyoTV

Cherokee Freedmen History Explored in New Museum Exhibit, Cherokee Nation

Our Cherokee Family: Chief Hoskin Discovers Family History, Cherokee Nation

Recommended Reading:

Wayne Dell Gibson, “Cherokee Treaty Party Moves West: The Bell-Deas Overland Journey, 1838-1839,” Chronicles of Oklahoma Vol. 79 No. 3 (Fall 2001)

Treaty of New Echota, Tribal Treaties Database, Oklahoma State University Libraries

Signatures on the Treaty of New Echota, National Archives

Benjamin Nance, The Trail of Tears in Tennessee: A Study of the Routes Used During the Cherokee Removal of 1838, National Park Service

Databases and Digitized Resources:

1838 Cherokee Claims Online Database, Trail of Tears Association

1842 Cherokee Claims Online Database, Trail of Tears Association

Cherokee Phoenix, Special Collections, Western Carolina University

Cherokee Claims and Related Records, Tennessee Virtual Archive

John Ross Papers, Gilcrease Museum

Records Pertaining to Cherokee Removal, 1836-1839, National Archives

Cherokee Agency, M234-Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, National Archives

1835 Census of Cherokees Living East of the Mississippi River, National Archives

Benjamin Nance, 

Tribal Treaties Database, Oklahoma State University Libraries

Videos:

Wes Studi Discovers His Connection to the Trail of Tears, PBS Finding Your Roots

Cherokee Almanac: Removal Stockades, OsiyoTV

Our Cherokee Family: Deputy Chief Bryan Warner Explores Family History, Cherokee Nation

Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, National Park Service

Other

Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears, Digital Public Library of America

Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, National Park Service

Remember the Removal Bike Ride, National Park Service

For Further Reading

Claudio Saunt, “Indian Removal,” aeon.co, April 23, 2020

Christina Snyder, "Teaching Removal with an Expanding Archive," The Panorama

Jeffrey Ostler, “Trails of Tears, Plural: What We Don’t Know About Indian Removal,” Humanities Vol. 45, No. 3

Christina Snyder, “Many Removals: Re-evaluating the Arc of Indigenous Dispossession,” Journal of the Early Republic Vol. 41 No. 4

Theda Perdue, “The Legacy of Indian Removal,” Journal of Southern History Vol. 78 no. 1