The Trail Beneath the Trail: Walking the AT on Cherokee Ancestral Lands

As the Appalachian Trail Conservancy celebrates its 100th Anniversary, it is worth remembering that people were living and walking in the North Georgia mountains hundreds of years prior to this historical milestone for the Appalachian Trail. Heading out from Amicalola Falls State Park into the North Georgia mountains, Appalachian Trail thru-hikers are justifiably focused on their new adventure: how heavy their packs are, how their gear will work out, whether they packed enough food, the weather, getting to know their fellow hikers, and those 600 stairs to the top of the falls. 

Most hikers likely have seen, in AT guidebooks or on maps, names like Amicalola, Dahlonega, Chattahoochee, Ellijay, Tesnatee, Hiawassee, Unicoi, and, of course, Blood Mountain. Many may know how to pronounce these names correctly. A few hikers might even know the origin of the names. But all of these hikers are crossing the ancestral lands of the Cherokee and Muscogee (or Creek), and these place names have origins in the languages of these Indigenous peoples.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, these two Indigenous nations occupied territory in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. By the mid-nineteenth century, their lands had been reduced to parts of southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, northeastern Alabama, and northern Georgia. This same land is now traversed by the Appalachian Trail, the Benton MacKaye Trail, and the Pinhoti Trail.

A Very Different Kind of Trail

About 52 miles west of Amicalola Falls State Park and Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the AT, is the New Echota State Historic Site. New Echota is the “official” start of a very different long trail. The forced removal of the Cherokee people from their last remaining ancestral lands around New Echota in North Georgia by the US and Georgia Governments  became known as “The Trail of Tears.”

Over 4,000 Cherokee (one quarter of the population) perished in relocation camps in North Georgia or along the Trail of Tears, which ended on a reservation in eastern Oklahoma. The Muscogee people, or Creek as the English named them, suffered the same fate, being forcibly removed from Georgia and Alabama by the US and state governments to a reservation in Oklahoma. This is the tragic history of the land we now hike upon.

The irony is that many of the Cherokee and Creek tried to voluntarily assimilate into the society of the European colonizers. At the New Echota Historic Site, visitors can see buildings that demonstrate that a Cherokee village was very much like any early to mid-nineteenth-century European settler’s farming village.

New Echota Village, Cherokee Nation, Georgia

More significant is that New Echota was the Cherokee Nation capital. The Cherokee Nation had a written constitution with a bicameral legislature, a judicial branch, and a chief executive. There was a general store and even a printing shop that produced a newspaper in the Cherokee language. In the early nineteenth century, a Cherokee man named Sequoyah created symbols to represent each syllable of the spoken Cherokee language. Over a span of 12 years, Cherokee became the first Indigenous language in the US to have an original writing system.

Legislature Building, New Echota, Cherokee Nation

Printing Shop, New Echota, Cherokee Nation

Another interesting example of Cherokee history is the Chief Vann House State Historic Site, located about 46 miles west of Amicalola Falls State Park and Springer Mountain. James Vann was a Cherokee leader and wealthy businessman. He owned a plantation covering over 1,000 acres and built a manor house that rivaled many American colonial era mansions in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the coastal South. Despite his wealth and community standing, Vann’s family was also caught up in the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation along the Trail of Tears.

Chief Vann House, Cherokee Nation

Taking the Time To Reflect

Most thru-hikers have neither the time nor the resources to take a diversion to visit these historic sites in North Georgia. However, pausing to reflect on the history of the Indigenous people whose lands we hike upon is as easy as sitting on a bench at the top of Amicalola Falls and reflecting on their history. 

Take the time to learn how to pronounce Tesnatee, Unicoi, or Hiawassee while waiting for that shuttle ride into town. Listen in the wind for the lament of the legendary spirits who, in Cherokee mythology, inhabited Blood Mountain. Cry when your hike gets difficult and you feel like crying; let your tears honor those who “hiked” the Trail of Tears through these same lands, not of their own free will. Leave a note in a shelter journal acknowledging those who may have camped at this same spot hundreds of years ago as they walked their long trail.

Of course, the easiest way to honor the legacy of these Indigenous peoples is to respect their ancestral land by following Leave No Trace principles. Find your own way to connect to the land and honor the Indigenous people who inhabited it long before you started your hike.

Cherokee Glossary:

Amicalola = “tumbling waters”
Dahlonega = “yellow” or “gold”
Ellijay = “new ground”
Hiawassee = “meadow”
Tesnatee = “wild turkey”
Unicoi = “white”

Creek Glossary:

Chattahoochee = “painted rock”

Featured image: Photo via Andrea Stilwell. Graphic design by Chris Helm