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Bikers, many of whom have Cherokee or other Native American ancestry, met in Cherokee on Friday, Sept. 15 to take a long cross-state ride in tribute to their ancestors in the 1800s who were forced to leave the area by government mandate on the Trail of Tears.
Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
At 10 a.m. on the dot Friday, Sept. 15, dozens of motorcyclists revved up and drove out of Cherokee on a mission.
The event was the 30th annual Trail of Tears Commemorative Motorcycle Ride, with the first one having taken place in 1994.
The ride retraces the Trail of Tears route from the 1800s – starting in Cherokee and going to Ross’s Landing on Friday, and then Saturday, Sept. 16, traveling to Bridgeport, Alabama. From there they went to the Certified Trail of Tears National Historical Trail site in Waterloo.
On Friday, dozens of bikers, clad in leather and helmets, many of them Cherokee descendants, gathered outside in the Veterans’ Memorial Park in Cherokee with their bikes taking up much of the space in the lot. They shared stories and met one another, as several people traveled from out of state to join in solidarity. One man traveled from California, another, Mariner Teed, traveled from Ontario, Canada.
“I’m taking an extended vacation this year,” Teed said – he’d recently been in West Virginia for another motorcycle event and had taken more time off to come and ride in Cherokee.
The common thread was the emotional connection many felt from their ancestors’ harrowing, painful journey on the real Trail of Tears in the 1830s, when the U.S. government rounded up tens of thousands of Native Americans to move them out of the area that would later become the Deep South.
Around 1,070 of the Native Americans removed under that mandate took the route that the bikers undergo every year, according to a pamphlet from the AL-TN Trail of Tears Corridor Association, which puts on the ride every year.
Ike Moore, president of the AL-TN Trail of Tears Corridor Association, said the issue has been near and dear to him since childhood.
“I’m Cherokee, and I remember being in fourth or fifth grade and studying the Trail of Tears,” he said. “The way the teacher portrayed it, it touched my heart. I’ve always had a soft spot. I always like to take the ride.”
Kevin Hutto, who is on the Board of Directors of the Trail of Tears Corridor Association, said he thought this year’s ride would be one of their biggest turnouts yet, going by the response to the event beforehand. He said sometimes the line of bikers on the ride can reach up to 20 miles long.
Hutto showed off an old arrowhead attached to his belt, which he said belonged to his great-grandfather, a Cherokee tribe member in the 1800s who was about to be displaced but ended up hiding out in the forest to evade capture. The arrowhead has been passed down through his family for generations, he said.
“I do the ride so I can remember that sad time of history my ancestors had to endure. They didn’t know where they were going. The natives were moved out of these lush, beautiful mountains with the beautiful streams. They were moved to a place they didn’t know, forced to a land where they didn’t know how to survive,” he said.
Also in attendance was Russell Parker and his son Braxton Hutto, eight years old, who is Kevin Hutto’s grandson. Parker said it was their second year doing the ride.
“It’s really a good ride,” Parker said. “It’s about brotherhood, being able to communicate with other folks.”
Braxton chimed in: “In the exact language, too.”
“I don’t think you can speak Cherokee,” Parker told his son.
Right before 10 a.m., Moore gathered everyone around and spoke of the game plan – mapping out the places they’d stop and assuring everyone not to panic if they got separated from the group, as there would be a radio channel set up to make sure everyone was on the same page.
Then the group participated in a prayer together, before getting on their bikes and began to head for Highway 74 to begin their trek.