Red Clay State Historic Park

Red Clay State Historic Park
Eternal Flame of the Cherokee Nation
Type	Tennessee State Park
Location	Bradley County, Tennessee
Area	263 acres (1.06 km2)
Open	year round
Red Clay Council Ground
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Nearest city	Cleveland, Tennessee
Area	150 acres (61 ha)
Website	Red Clay State Park
NRHP reference No.	72001229[1]
Added to NRHP	September 14, 1972

Red Clay State Historic Park is a state park located in southern Bradley County, Tennessee established in 1979. The park is also listed as an interpretive center along the Cherokee Trail of Tears. It encompasses 263 acres (1.06 km²) of land and is located just above the Tennessee-Georgia stateline.

The park was the site of the last seat of the Cherokee national government before the 1838 enforcement of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by the U.S. military, which resulted in most of the Cherokee people in the area being forced to emigrate West. Eleven general councils were held at the site between 1832 and 1838.^[2]

Before the site was a government council site, it was used for many different Cherokee rituals because of its famous spring named the Blue Hole Spring. The site is considered sacred ground to the Cherokees.^[3]

History[]

Cherokee history[]

Before the arrival of the first European settlers, the area was inhabited by the Cherokees, an Iroquoian-speaking people believed to have migrated south from the Great Lakes area, where other Iroquoian tribes arose. Their territory encompassed parts of present-day western North Carolina, western South Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, northeastern Georgia, and northern Alabama.^[4] The Cherokee peoples in Tennessee were known by European settlers as Overhill Cherokee because they lived west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.^[5] In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Cherokees organized a national government modeled on the United States Constitution, and were recognized by European Americans as one of the Five Civilized Tribes.^[6][7] After the Hiwassee Purchase of 1819, in which the Cherokees ceded their lands between the Hiwassee and Little Tennessee rivers to the federal government, the Indian Agency was moved to the site of present-day Charleston along the Hiwassee in 1821, which is located approximately 23 mi (37 km) northeast of Red Clay.^[8] In anticipation of a forced removal of the Cherokees by the federal government, White settlers began rapidly moving into the area.^[9]

Between 1827 and 1831, Georgia legislators passed a series of laws that prohibited the Cherokees from holding public meetings and nullified all Cherokee laws within their borders.^[10] In 1830, the federal government passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized then-President Andrew Jackson to negotiate removal treaties with Native American tribes in the Southeastern United States.^[11] As a result of these actions, the Cherokee began to vacate their capital in New Echota, with the council temporarily meeting in Chatooga in Alabama in 1831.^[12] In 1832, the Cherokee Nation officially permanently moved the seat of their government to Red Clay, due to the site's central location.^[10][13] A total of eleven general councils were held at Red Clay between 1832 and 1838, each attended by an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Cherokees.^[14] During the meetings, the Cherokees repeatedly rejected agreements to surrender their lands east of the Mississippi River and move west.^[13] On December 29, 1835, a small faction of Cherokees, led by Major John Ridge, Treaty of New Echota at their former capital, without authorization from the national council at Red Clay. This faction believed that removal was inevitable, and in the best interest of the Cherokee peoples.

The Treaty of New Echota was rejected by the council at Red Clay on February 2, 1836.^[15] Later that month, two councils convened at Red Clay and Valley Town, North Carolina (now Murphy, North Carolina) and produced two lists totaling some 13,000 names, written in the Sequoyah writing script of the Cherokee language, of Cherokees who were opposed to the treaty. The lists were dispatched to Washington, D.C., and presented by Chief John Ross to Congress. Nevertheless, a slightly modified version of the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a single vote on May 23, 1836, and signed into law by Andrew Jackson. The treaty provided a grace period until May 1838 for the Cherokees to voluntarily relocate themselves. In an effort to prevent a Cherokee uprising, Brigadier General John E. Wool ordered approximately 300 men to take up position near the Red Clay Council Grounds in the summer of 1836. The final council at Red Clay took place in August 1837, in which the Cherokees in a final unsuccessful effort to retain their lands. The Cherokee removal officially began on May 26, 1838, and the Cherokee agency at Charleston served as the military operational headquarters for the removal. Many detention camps were located in northern Bradley County between Charleston and Cleveland, with two of the largest at Rattlesnake Springs.^[14] The removal became known as the Trail of Tears.

Post-removal[]

A village known as Red Clay was established south of the park on February 29, 1840 in the present location of Cohutta, Georgia.^[16] A large tract of land that includes the site of the park was sold by the state government to Frank Kincannon and John D. Traynor in 1841. Another tract was sold to John B. Marston the following year.^[15] The railroad, which had been planned through the area prior to the Cherokee removal, was completed in 1852, and a train depot and section house known as both "Red Clay" and "State Line" was constructed on the site. Most of the council grounds remained farmland. At least three skirmishes took place along the railroad at Red Clay during the American Civil War. On November 27, 1863, two days after the end of the Chattanooga Campaign, Union troops destroyed the depot and tracks at Red Clay in an attempt to prevent the Confederate Army from using the railroad through the area. Beginnin in 1864, the site was used by the Army of the Ohio as a staging ground in preparation for the Atlanta Campaign, with additional troops under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman arriving months later. A group of Union scouts got into a skirmish nearby on May 3 of that year, and the troops began moving south four days later.^[15]

The railroad depot and section house were rebuilt sometime after the Civil War, and later demolished, probably in the 1930s. The land that is now Red Clay State Park was sold and divided multiple times in the roughly 100 years after the Civil War, and continued to be used as farmland. An African American church and cemetery is also speculated to have existed on the site some time after the Civil War.^[15] By the 1930s, the exact location of the council grounds had been forgotten, and some speculated that they may have been located in Georgia. This misunderstanding likely resulted from the Red Clay community's location in present-day Cohutta.^[17] Local historian John Morgan Wooten conducted research in 1934 and 1935 that established the approximate location of the council grounds;^[15] however, the Georgia chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a historical marker commemorating the less than 1⁄2 mi (0.80 km) south of the state line on November 10, 1935.^[17]

State park history[]

In the late 1950s, an effort arose, spearheaded by a number of local historians, to preserve the land of the Red Clay Council Ground, then private land, and turn it into a state park.^[18] Local historian James F. Corn purchased 150 acres of the property on June 15, 1964, and five months later, the Cherokee-Red Clay Association was incorporated.^[15] In January 1970, the Bradley County Quarterly Court agreed to purchase the land from Corn for the purpose of developing it into a recreation area and tourist attraction. Shortly thereafter, Bill Jenkins, then the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Conservation, worked with then-Governor Winfield Dunn to appropriate funds for the establishment of the state park.^[19] A series of archaeological excavations of the site took place between 1973 and 1975 uncovered a small number of artifacts, but failed to determine the location of the council house.^[15] The Red Clay Council Grounds were added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on September 14, 1972,^[1] and the state of Tennessee purchased the land for the park in 1974.^[15] A dedication for the park took place on May 8, 1976, in a ceremony attended by members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and local and state leaders.^[19] Groundbreaking for the park occurred on April 26, 1978,^[20][21] and Red Clay State Park opened to the public on September 28, 1979.^[22][23] The southeasternmost 1.11 acres (0.45 ha) were added to the park on July 2, 1980.^[15]

The eternal flame was placed on the site on April 6, 1984, at an event attended by both the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the first time both tribes were reunited since the removal.^[24][25] Between April 17 and 19, 2009, a joint council again convened at Red Clay to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1984 event.^[26] On August 22 and 23, 2015, the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes; the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians; reconvened at Red Clay State Park for the first time since the removal.^[27]

Description[]

The Blue Hole Spring at Red Clay State Park

Red Clay State Park is located on approximately 263 acres (1.06 km²) of land, with the Tennessee-Georgia state line and the city of Cohutta, Georgia forming the southern boundary of the park. It is situated in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains. Elevations in the park range from slightly over 800 ft (240 m), where the council grounds were located, to more than 1,050 ft (320 m) atop a ridge.^[28] It contains a replica of a Cherokee farmstead, homes, and the council house where the final council of the Cherokee was held prior to the removal. All of these structures once stood on the site.^[29] The Eternal Flame of the Cherokee Nation is also located on the site, which serves as a memorial to the Cherokees who suffered and died during the removal and is permanently kept lit.^[30]

The park contains the iconic Blue Hole Spring, also known as the Council Spring, which was considered sacred to the Cherokees. The spring, which rises out of a bowl-like depression and takes its name from its deep blue color, has runoff which flows into Coahulla Creek, a tributary of the Conasauga River, and has a daily flow of 414,720 gallons.^[31] The grave of Sleeping Rabbit, a prominent Cherokee who fought in the War of 1812, is reportedly located in the eastern part of the park. His grave, however, is unmarked.^[32]

The park contains three trails, the Connector Trail, Blue Hole Trail, and Council of Trees Trail, with lengths of 0.15 miles (0.24 km), 0.2 miles (0.32 km), and 1.7 miles (2.7 km), respectively. The latter has a stone overlook tower. The park also contains a pavilion and an amphitheater which can seat about 500 people. Both of these facilities must be reserved.^[29]

The James F. Corn Interpretive Center is a museum which features exhibits about 18th and 19th century Cherokee culture, government, economy, recreation, religion, and history. A series of stained glass windows depicts the forced removal of the Cherokee and subsequent Trail of Tears emigration. There is also a short film about the history of the site.^[15]

Between 1982 and 2001, an event called the Cherokee Days of Celebration (originally Cherokeefest) was held at the park in August and sponsored by the state.^[15] The festival returned in 2003 as the Cherokee Cultural Celebration. The event, sponsored by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and other groups, features exhibitions about Cherokee culture and heritage.^[33] Friends of Red Clay was established in 2007, and hosted an annual pow wow in October up until 2019.^[34]

See also[]

• New Echota
• Chatata
• Fort Cass
• Hiwassee River Heritage Center

References[]

Notes[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Red Clay State Park.

• Red Clay State Park (Official site)
• Wildernet information about the park
• Red Clay Council Grounds