New Echota

 The Trail of Tears began in New Echota, which was the capital of the Cherokee Nation. It’s 85 miles north of Stone Mountain, a short trip, but one that demands your time and thoughts long after you’re home.

New Echota was once a thriving community, with a statehouse, supreme court and The Phoenix, a bilingual newspaper. It’s now a state historic site. The quiet is part of the charm. It’s a sobering charm.

The Cherokee adopted European technologies. The reconstructed houses, cabins, barns and corncribs were familiar to me. Buildings like that were still in use when I was a boy. My grandfather farmed with mules in a way the Cherokee would have understood.

The Cherokee also used European legal devices and strategies to try to keep the people of European descent at bay. American populism is old and ugly, and one of its ugliest eras was a period of land grabs, one after the other. There was nothing profound or great in this story. It was greed and theft.

People today wonder how Americans could have been so unjust. Americans had a system for seeking justice, and a court upheld justice in this case — ruling in favor of the Cherokee.

But Americans sometimes indulge a taste for “strong” presidents who ignore court orders and simply do what their followers want. Andy Jackson was one. If you can’t think of another example, you’re not paying attention.

On the grounds of New Echota is a marble marker next to a tree planted in honor of the 4,000 people who died in route to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. That appalling number included new mothers, day-old babies and people who were too old and sick to walk from Georgia to Oklahoma.