TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma – Reunification of the Cherokee people after the forced removal from their homelands required resilience and determination to overcome extreme hardships and forge a united nation.
A new exhibit at the Cherokee National History Museum shares the story of the Cherokees’ arrival to new lands west of the Mississippi River after being forcibly removed from the southeastern United States. The exhibit, “One Land, One Nation: Cherokee Unification After Removal,” opened July 30 and runs through March 1, 2025.
“This exhibit not only honors that complicated history and the leaders who spurred our tribal Nation forward, but it also reminds us of the strength and unity that define us as a Cherokee people,” said Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr.
The team that put together the exhibit, headed by Exhibits Manager Karen Shade-Lanier of Cherokee Nation Businesses, followed the process typical of all new exhibits.
Shade-Lanier said it involved doing research, finding images, sourcing responsibly, gaining permissions and writing the exhibit plan, and from there, creating the design.
“This is the 185th year since the events we are examining in this exhibit,” Shade-Lanier said. “The events of that time are so significant to who we are today that it’s something worth looking at every chance we get.”
Meeting the people who were involved in the historical events through their letters, quotations, and writings, the designers got a sense of who the players were, and the truth and humanity in the decisions made by their Cherokee ancestors, Shade-Lanier said.
“I think it makes it so personal and so immediate, and it’s very exciting to be able to look at the history and research and attempt to convey that in such a way a person who comes to this exhibit can get a glimpse of that life and times,” Shade-Lanier said.
A visitor from Owasso, Linda Stewart, said her father was from the area, and she was there with a tour group to see the new exhibit. She said it was well put together and displays a lot of fascinating history.
One section of the exhibit shares some of the challenges to unity, and how three weeks after his arrival, John Ross wrote to the three chiefs of the Old Settlers and proposed a council between the eastern and western Cherokee leaders to speak of reuniting the people.
“On June 3, 1839, more than 6,000 Cherokees gathered at the Takatoka Camp Ground northwest of present-day Tahlequah at Double Springs,” states the information in this section.
Principal Chief John Brown, of the Old Settlers, welcomed the Ross followers to “our country” and gave permission for them to live among them on the condition they subject themselves to the pre-Removal immigrants’ government. The story continues with how the eastern Cherokees didn’t accept the terms and the talks came to an abrupt end.
Both Rev. Jesse Bushyhead and Sequoyah made a joint plea to assemble a “people’s council” to chart the course of reunification. Other elements of the exhibit share the story of a divided people and how they dealt with the issue of reunification.
“We wanted people to understand that what is commonly referred to as the ‘Trail of Tears’ – and we often call the ‘Cherokee Removal’ – wasn’t only relegated to the end of 1838 into 1839,” Shade-Lanier said. “Cherokee removal policies had been strategized and imposed for decades prior to that. And not just Cherokees, but many other Native people across what is now the United States.”
The exhibit team focused on the Cherokee story with the three groups: the Old Settlers, the Treaty Party and the Ross Party, whom the majority of the people went with, Shade-Lanier said.
“I thought it was tremendously important for people to get a sense of what brought them together as a single group,” Shade-Lanier said. “Then you read about what it was that they were up against to reunite the three groups into one.”
It was a complicated time on the heels of one of the most tragic events to take place for the Cherokees and all of humanity, Shade-Lanier said.
The fact they were able to accomplish reunification after removal is tremendous, Shade-Lanier said. The events explored begins with the very last day of 1838, when President Martin Van Buren signed the Cherokee Land Patent, and goes to the arrival of the Cherokee people through the 13 detachments in 1839 in the present-day Cherokee Nation.
The development of the Cherokee Nation Constitution ties in closely with the fact that every Labor Day weekend the Nation hosts the Cherokee Nation Holiday. The Holiday is about the passage and adoption of the Constitution, Shade-Lanier said.
“When we study and remember our past, we build a stronger future for all our citizens,” Hoskin said.