The Trail of Tears and Fort Smith
The Trail of Tears stands as one of the darkest chapters in American history — the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 Native Americans from their homelands in the southeastern United States to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) between 1830 and 1850. Fort Smith, positioned at the confluence of the Poteau and Arkansas Rivers on the very edge of Indian Territory, was a waypoint in that removal, and the site’s legacy remains embedded in the city’s history and conscience.
Background: the Indian Removal Act
The Trail of Tears traces to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by President Andrew Jackson. The act authorized the federal government to pursue removal treaties with the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations, relocating them from their homelands in the Southeast to designated territory west of the Mississippi. The driving forces were settler demand for land — intensified by the 1828 discovery of gold in Cherokee country in Georgia — and state governments determined to assert control over tribal lands, over the opposition of leaders like Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross.
Fort Smith’s role
Fort Smith sat at a natural crossing point where the removal routes met the border of Indian Territory. Choctaw removal, which began in the early 1830s, used Fort Smith as one of its crossing points into the new Choctaw lands directly across the Poteau. During the Cherokee removal of 1838–1839, detachments moved through Arkansas on both overland and river routes: the water route followed the Arkansas River past Fort Smith, and overland parties crossed into Indian Territory at points along the western Arkansas border, including the Fort Smith area.
For the exhausted parties that passed through, the town at Belle Point was among the last places in the United States before the unfamiliar country beyond.
The human cost
The toll was staggering. Across the removals, thousands died of exposure, disease, starvation, and exhaustion — for the Cherokee alone, the missionary doctor Elizur Butler estimated over 4,000 deaths, roughly one-fifth of the nation. Families, communities, sacred sites, and ancestral lands were lost. That trauma remains a living memory for the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee, and Seminole nations, whose modern capitals all lie within a few hours’ drive of Fort Smith.
The site today
The Fort Smith National Historic Site preserves and interprets this history: a walking trail along the Arkansas River carries wayside exhibits on the removal, and the visitor center includes displays developed with tribal input. In 1987, Congress designated the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, and Fort Smith is recognized as a significant site along it.
FAQ
What was the Trail of Tears? The forced relocation of roughly 60,000 Native Americans from the southeastern U.S. to Indian Territory between 1830 and 1850 under the Indian Removal Act.
How was Fort Smith involved? It sat at the edge of Indian Territory where removal routes crossed the border — Choctaw parties crossed here in the early 1830s, and Cherokee river-route detachments passed the fort on the Arkansas in 1838–1839.
Where can I learn more in Fort Smith? The Fort Smith National Historic Site’s riverside walking trail and visitor center exhibits interpret the removal and the city’s role in it.