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Will Chavez

Will Chavez

Award-winning journalist and photographer; Assistant Editor at Cherokee Phoenix; co-author of "Riding the Trail: Cherokees Remember the Removal"

Jun 19, 2026

9:24
Can you give us a brief history of the trail itself and explain, remember the removal?
9:31
Okay.
9:33
Well, the Trail of Tears is a name used for, it could cover a lot of tribes that were removed from the southeastern part of the United States, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, Muskogee Creek, Seminole tribes, or mainly the five tribes that we focused on when we talk about the trail chairs, they all came from the same general area.
9:58
And the Cherokee were the last to leave.
10:00
They fought the longest, not physically, but in courts and legally trying to stay on their land.
10:07
And most of it was in Georgia.
10:08
Some was in North Carolina and Alabama and Tennessee, but they fought as long as they could in the courts to stay.

13 MINS LATER

22:54
I mean, Chad wrote about that and it was like, kind of takes your breath away when you think about it.

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