As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, many communities are reflecting on the events that shaped the nation. In North Alabama, historians and members of Native communities say that history must include the forced removal of Indigenous people from the land they once called home.
For generations, Native American tribes lived throughout what is now Alabama before European settlement expanded across the Southeast. As the United States grew, Native nations were increasingly displaced through treaties and warfare.
One of the most significant forced removals was the Trail of Tears, which led thousands of Cherokee people from their homes in the Southeast to present-day Oklahoma. The removal followed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which was signed by a small group of non-appointed Cherokee representatives, many of whom would be killed by their own people for signing the document. The treaty ceded roughly 7 million acres of Cherokee land, and thousands of Cherokee people called the document fraudulent…