FEATURE
Technology Navigates the Trail of Tears
Looking upstream beside the Mountain Fork River. This river separated where Tiajuana's ancestors settled in today's McCurtain County, Oklahoma, from "The Big Tree," the largest bald cypress west of the Mississippi River. This tree marked the "end of the trail" for Tiajuana's ancestors and was about 10 miles west of where they settled. Photo by Tiajuana King Cochnauer.
As a little girl in extreme southeastern Oklahoma, I knew the road behind me in this picture was important. It was the road that we travelled to go to church and all-night Choctaw singings. It was the road for my school bus to take me to the second grade in Eagletown. It was the old highway between DeQueen, Arkansas, and Broken Bow, Oklahoma.
What I didn’t know then was this road was also the original military trace, the last section my ancestors survived from our Choctaw homelands in what is now western Alabama. This military trace, or road, eventually became known as a Choctaw Trail of Tears and Death.
Spurred by a neighbor’s invitation to look at the horizon on his property for remaining evidence of that roadway, I began several decades of research using first the “Muster Rolls of the Company of Indians about to emigrate West of the Mississippi River” that lists my great-great ancestors, including Moses Dyer. Moses was “mustered out” on October 8, 1832. These Rolls are located in the National Archives and Records Administration.
Many forms of technology from the late 1800s continuing today have unearthed our sad story of “Removal,” and then the story of survival. From burying my head in the dark hoods of the microfilm readers at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., and Fort Worth, Texas, to today’s amazing LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) images, I can now trace my ancestors’ plight for survival.
Briefly, my Choctaw ancestors were the first of the tribal nations forced from their homelands in what was becoming the southeastern states of the U.S. Colonizers demanded the U.S. government allow Euro-American settlement on our homelands. Resisting the surrender of Choctaw culture to become U.S. citizens, Choctaws’ fate was sealed with the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. This was the first treaty signed under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Some Choctaws survived the Trail of Tears and Death to settle in lands west of the Mississippi River in an area that had not become a state – yet. The area just beyond the Arkansas Territory line became the Choctaws’ new home. My maternal and paternal ancestors ended their emigration within miles of the Arkansas line. The lands became the Indian Territory, ultimately becoming the State of Oklahoma.
The "Big Tree" marked the end of the trail for Tiajuana's ancestors. This bald cypress was 45 feet in circumference and was 125 feet tall. Its top, rising above the pine canopy, was visible to the weary emigrants. It stood on the Mountain Fork River, from where her ancestors settled. Photo by the late Dr. Lewis Stiles.
A December 1932 map of one of these routes, called the Little Rock – Fort Towson Military Road, was in our Choctaw oral history and was captured in “Recollections of Peter Hudson,” published by the Oklahoma Historical Society. The map marks in red the home of Moses Dyer’s son, James, my maternal great-grandfather, along this Military Road.
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation provided an 1899 map, again, showing the home site of James Dyer. The home itself is no longer standing.
The red box on this 1932 map, included in the “Recollections of Peter Hudson,” highlights the Dyer homeplace. Photo by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
This revised 1899 Government Land Office plats map shows James Dyer’s farm where the trails merge. Photo courtesy of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
Another confirmation of the Military Trace as my ancestors’ Trail of Tears and Death was established by author Louis Coleman, now deceased. Mr. Coleman’s research for his book on Reverend Cyrus Byington examined letters from the early 1800s maintained by the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reverend Byington, an early missionary with the Choctaws after “Removal,” established the Stockbridge Seminary. His letters provide a description of location, buildings, trails, and Choctaws he assisted and who assisted him. He describes the two-story building that was a dormitory for young Choctaw girls and its surroundings. A well was part of that description. Mr. Coleman told me, in his later years, that the old well on my grandparents’ land alongside the road we now know as the Military Trace was the well that served the Stockbridge school. My grandfather had attempted to fill in the old well for many years because he did not want his cattle to fall into the well. The current owner succeeded in filling in the well (this land has been pasture for eighty or more years now), but it is still visible on a method of technology.
The old well (circled in blue) as seen on the Google Maps Terrain Layer for the location (34.053958, - 94.568323). Photo by Google Maps.
A mere fifty years after surviving the “removals,” Choctaws were again targeted by the U.S. government. The U.S. government developed and implemented an allotment process on the lands that had been promised to the Choctaws in their new lands. Tribal Allotment was the tool the U.S. government used in preparing for the lands known as Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory to become the State of Oklahoma. The General Allotment Act of 1887 intended to disrupt tribal cultures by assigning individual land assignments. The allotment assignments would force tribal members to “assimilate” into the Euro-American society. This allotment process disintegrated communal land and severely disrupted the “removed” Choctaw communities and families. An additional consequence of breaking up the allotments into Homesteads and Surplus Lands was that “Surplus Lands” could be sold to white settlers, further reducing Choctaw-owned lands. Natural resources were sold. In this century, the U.S. government was found to be unaccountable for those monies held in trust.
The Original Application for Allotment documents had been managed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) since the late 1800s. NARA used microfilm technology to save individual allotment records.
Imagine my excitement when I saw a high-resolution image of the marks on the land that matched the indentations on the land the neighbor showed me, the old military trace. The high-resolution LiDAR images were of private land, land owned and managed by the Weyerhaeuser Company. As explained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, LiDAR is “a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to the Earth. These light pulses—combined with other data recorded by the airborne system—generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape of the Earth and its surface characteristics.” Weyerhaeuser now owns what had been Choctaw allotments in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I could see the outlines of the buildings that were likely the Stockbridge Seminary buildings. I could see evidence of the trails made by the Choctaws in the 1830s, including the trail through the forest when I rode my grandpa’s horse home from the Eagletown school and Grandpa walked beside me all the way.
This high-resolution LiDAR image of private land owned and managed by the Weyerhaeuser Company shows how this land was once Choctaw allotments, including the outlines of what are likely the Stockbridge Seminary buildings and evidence of trails made by the Choctaws in the 1830s—and used by Tiajuana when she rode the horse home from the Eagletown school with her Grandpa walking beside her. Edited image, courtesy of the Weyerhaeuser Company.
Today, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) assists tribal members in pursuing our tribal history through its Historic Preservation Department and Cultural GIS Program. The mission is to use geospatial technology to record Choctaw cultural and historical knowledge in assisting the community in protecting and preserving Choctaw sacred sites, historic sites, and traditional culture. The major projects include areas of historic interest, Choctaw treaties and Choctaw land cessions, Trail of Tears routes, cultural landscapes, and Choctaw place names. Knowing this resource was available to me, I contacted the Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation Department for assistance with piecing together all the information that I had collected.
CNO now has copies of the allotment information and can employ a digital format to assist CNO tribal members with the allotment history for their family. CNO Cultural Research Associate and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist Ryan Spring employed his GIS skills to georeference historic maps, including an 1899 Government Land Office plat showing Reverend James Dyer’s home site. Ryan, also a CNO member, supplied the “magic” that affirmed the Choctaw oral history location of the Trail of Tears and Death with the nearby allotment assigned to Reverend Dyer, my maternal great-grandfather. The features align with the Hudson map, with the 1899 map, the tribal allotment maps, historic topographic 1902 map, and with the Weyerhaeuser LiDAR images! He pieced it all together by navigating the technologies to show the story of the Dyer Trail of Tears and Death.
Although a number of methods of technology were combining to tell the Choctaw story of surviving and thriving, we still did not know the location of Reverend James Dyer’s grave in the Eagletown, Oklahoma, cemetery. A technology offered by the CNO for its tribal members was the equipment and technicians for Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technology to locate unmarked graves of deceased Choctaws. In 2016, CNO technicians brought the GPR equipment to the Eagletown cemetery and found readings indicating the extreme likelihood of a grave next to the grave of my grandfather: a son of Reverend Dyer. They also found evidence of the four small posts that would have supported the low grave house that would have covered the grave when it was new. We can only conclude that this site must be the gravesite documented in the Indian-Pioneer History Interviews maintained by the Oklahoma Historical Society and digitized for the public to use.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma technicians applying GPR technology. Photo by Tiajuana King Cochnauer.
CNO technicians confer with Eagletown Cemetery Committee. Photo by Tiajuana King Cochnauer.
Our story of survival is greater than survival. CNO, one of three Federally Recognized Choctaw Tribes, is now the third largest U.S. Federally Recognized Tribes with more than 230,000 members around the world. The CNO service area, or Reservation, covers 10.5 counties in southeastern Oklahoma. CNO has a 3.2 billion dollar economic impact on the State of Oklahoma. CNO uses its income to provide services primarily to tribal members in the CNO service area with a hospital, clinics, child care centers, housing, land stewardship, commerce and infrastructure.
But, back to the road behind me in the photograph with the piggies… The combination of all the technologies and research has now produced the probable path of my ancestors once they gathered in 1832 at Starkville, Mississippi, to begin the horrible emigration from their homelands. They walked from Starkville to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where they were placed on barges to go up the Mississippi River near today’s Arkansas City, Arkansas. From there, they walked a long route above Little Rock, Arkansas, and finally crossed out of Arkansas near DeQueen to stop and build a settlement that became Eagletown.
The road behind me and the piggies became State Highway 70 for many years; it followed almost exactly my ancestors’ Trail of Tears and Death. Using very rough calculations, it appears my ancestors walked over 550 miles. And, it was one of the coldest winters on record for those days. One story recalls their horses became stranded in the swamps. It was so cold that the horses froze in those swamps. But, my ancestors and other Choctaws survived and thrived!
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma generated our Dyer family Trail based on technologies and research. Photo by Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Historic Preservation Department and Cultural GIS Program.
I am indebted to my colleague Ryan Spring and many others within the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma for their assistance, guidance, support and friendship over the years as I followed these trails of research through Historic Projects, Historic Preservation, Choctaw Cultural Center, Tribal Membership, and the Chahta Foundation. I thank the Weyerhaeuser Company and its Broken Bow, Oklahoma, Timberlands Office and the DeQueen, Arkansas, Southern Timberlands Office in their support of the federal Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. The Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, supplied me with multiple sets of information in their microfilm records from the 1860s on, and later, they also supplied records in digitized format to the Choctaw Cultural Center. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation assisted with historical maps, even those created before Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907. The National Archives and Records Administration, both in Washington, D.C., and Fort Worth, Texas, have provided sources from early days of my formal research using microfilm to learn of my ancestors’ allotments and Census Card information. The Oklahoma Historical Society’s Oklahoma History Center Indian Archives is my home-away-from-home for information on the Five Civilized Tribes, including Choctaw, that has not been digitized. And, I appreciate the support and interest of NAI and members who are learning about the country we live in that is still Indian Country.
