This week, the town of Murphy voted to transfer ownership of Fort Butler, a key site on the Trail of Tears, to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI).
EBCI Principal Chief Michell Hicks said preserving the fort’s history is a priority for the tribe.
“The opportunity to return places like Fort Butler to Cherokee stewardship is an important part of preserving our history and strengthening our sovereignty,” Hicks said in a statement on Tuesday.
“It allows us to ensure that this story is told truthfully, that those who suffered here are honored, and that future generations understand both the hardships our people faced and the resilience that continues to define the Cherokee people today.”
Hicks confirmed a community event to celebrate the tribe’s official acceptance of the property will be planned soon.
Shana Bushyhead Condill, director of the Museum of the Cherokee People on the Qualla Boundary, said she hopes the transfer inspires others to return Cherokee land. She said she looks forward to having Cherokee voices tell the fort’s story.
“As a public historian, something that is troublesome to me is that it’s more often than not non-Cherokee people telling our stories in these spaces,” Condill, who is an EBCI member, said. “Every opportunity that we have to be able to consider and reckon and mourn or celebrate at these spaces, I think, is incredibly powerful.”
The Trail of Tears starts in WNC
Fort Butler was the regional headquarters for military removal operations to take over Cherokee land in Western North Carolina in the summer of 1838.
Brett Riggs, the Sequoyah Distinguished Professor of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University, explained that the fort was the first stop for more than 3,000 Cherokee after being arrested in their homes. From there, they began their forced march across the country to Oklahoma.
“This particular place — even though it’s in the middle of traditional Cherokee heartlands — the significance of it is defined by this terrible moment in Cherokee history,” Riggs said.
The fort sits right on the Unicoi Turnpike, Riggs explained, which was the primary route for deportation out of North Carolina. He has done extensive research with military records, maps and other historical documents to understand where the Cherokee lived at the time and where forts along the Trail of Tears were located in the region.
“It didn’t just happen. We did it as a country,” Riggs said. “It happened to the ancestors of American citizens at the hands of American citizens. To better understand who we are, we have to face that sort of thing. We have to understand Fort Butler’s part of that story.”
Riggs’ research has continued to chart the paths of the Cherokee as they were taken to Fort Butler on their way to Tennessee. He explained that the farthest fort in the Cherokee Nation was Fort Lindsey, at the confluence of the Nantahala and Little Tennessee Rivers.
“The folks who are gathered up there make the very longest trip on the Trail of Tears,” he said. “We finally found a document that clearly points to the people from Fort Lindsey up there, [who] came through Franklin on their way to Fort Butler. That group gets to Fort Butler on the 4th of July of 1838.”
Riggs shared a 2006 report which highlights the Trail of Tears sites in WNC. The report explains that across the entire Southeast, more than 12,000 Cheorkee citizens were taken from their homelands between 1838 to 1839.
The federal government’s removal policy used the fraudulent Treaty of New Echota as the basis for a “voluntary migration,” which was then made mandatory by force. A quarter of the Cherokee population died on the forced march. The EBCI, the sovereign tribe now located mainly on the Qualla Boundary, are the descendents of those who stayed.
The National Historic Trail of Tears was designated in 1987, but Riggs saidys that it wasn’t until advocacy in Murphy that the trail included WNC. Riggs specifically highlights the work of the late Cherokee County resident Mary Ann Thompson.
In 2024, N.C. Trail of Tears Association added a new marker at the Unicoi Turnpike, according to the Cherokee Scout. Thompson and other longtime advocates were also honored.
“[Thompson] forcefully made the point to the National Park Service that North Carolina, and in fact, all these outlying communities should be on the trail because that’s where it started. It started at people’s homes,” Riggs said.
Land transfer proven possible
Murphy Mayor Tim Radford credited EBCI member Lumpy Lambert and his wife Tia for their advocacy on the land transfer.
“I think it’s a very important step for our community. It’s really not the town of Murphy stepping away from history. It’s about recognizing that history in a very honest way, showing respect to the tribe, and just basically placing stewardship back with those people that are most connected to the story,” Radford said.
At a recent meeting about long-term planning for the site of the fort, which had been managed as a city park, Tia Lambert suggested returning the property to the Eastern Band, he said. .
“Her idea was perhaps the tribe — because this is a painful part of their history — would like to be able to preserve that history and tell what happened there in their voice,” Radford said.
The Murphy Town Council’s subsequent vote to transfer the 0.8 acre property was unanimous. Radford said the transfer of the Noquisiyi Mound in Franklin, approved by that town’s council in January, helped Murphy leaders realize the move would be an option.
“It just seemed to make that process a little easier because it’s already been done before,” Radford said.
Condill with the Museum of the Cherokee People said regaining Cherokee land is powerful. Condill said modern-day tribal land is less than a thousandth of the original Cherokee landholdings, which stretched across eight states.
“Every acre of land, every portion of an acre that we get back, is an expression of our sovereignty,” Condill said.
“Land coming home to Cherokee people, I think it doesn’t have to be that hard. And so I’m grateful for every organization, every entity that has asked the question, ‘Why can’t we just return this?’”
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