This weekend, area residents are invited to remember one of the shameful moments of American history with a commemorative walk at Trail of Tears State Park in Cape Girardeau County.

The event, sponsored by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday. The date is close to the actual date in 1838 when about 9,000 American Indians, who after being removed from their homeland in the East, passed through Cape Girardeau County on a forced march to Western reservations.

Participants will begin at the park's Wescoat Shelter and walk a half mile to the Bushyhead Memorial and then back along Moccasin Springs Road.

Beginning in 1838, more than 17,000 Cherokee Indians from southeastern states were forced to relocate -- mostly on foot -- to reservations in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Several removal routes were used, but one of the main ones began in Charleston, Tenn., crossed through Kentucky and Illinois before entering southern Missouri. The more than 800-mile journey passed through Springfield, Mo., before ending in Tahlequah, Okla. More than 4,000 Cherokee eventually died along the way due to disease and exposure to the elements.

"Imagine a soldier coming to your house in the summertime and saying you've got to collect your things and be ready to leave," said Denise Dowling, interpretive resource coordinator for the park.

"Many of them were unprepared for winter and this was one of our worst winters with ice floes on the river stranding people waiting for the ferry to cross."

The crossing took more than a month because of the ice. But Dowling said the cold was not the only difficulty these refugees had to contend with.

"There was really a lot of disease and suffering, and as they entered different towns, some people might help them but quite a few others tried to take advantage of them economically," she said.

A clipping from the Southern Advocate, a Jackson newspaper from that time, gives a glimpse at the impression made by the Cherokee. "Cherokee Indians -- During the present week 1,900 of this tribe of Indians, which the Government is engaged in removing, passed through our town. Some of them have considerable wealth, and make a very respectable appearance; but most of them are poor and exceedingly dissipated," reads the notice dated Dec. 1, 1838.

The commemorative walk will pause at the monument of Nancy Bushyhead, a Cherokee and 17-year-old daughter of the Rev. Jesse Bushyhead, who was buried after dying during the march.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245