Trail of Tears: predictive geospatial path modeling of lost regional feeder route Unicoy Turnpike

Keywords: least-cost path analysis, spatial modeling, historical GIS, Indian Removal, Cherokees, American South
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 38

Abstract

In 1830 the United States adopted a policy to dispossess and deport, by force if necessary, most Indigenous peoples from the southeastern states. This removal process and its varied deportation routes are recognized and interpreted through the NPS Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, which focuses on the primary emigration routes that link the southeast to present-day Oklahoma. Less well-known are the regional and local feeder routes by which the US Army gathered aggregated groups of people to launch onto the main routes. An important regional feeder for the southern Appalachian region was the Unicoy Turnpike, which routed Cherokee people from northern Georgia, western North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee to emigration depots in Tennessee in 1837-38. In an earlier phase of this project to document this route, we used historical surveys and ground-truthing to reconstruct the Turnpike in vector GIS, up to the NC-TN state line. Finding that survey data for the Tennessee side of this line were unavailable, we have created a predictive model for the Tennessee portion of this important regional feeder, based on characteristics of the surveyed route from Ft. Hembree (Hayesville, NC) to Unicoi Gap at the NC-TN state line, by way of Ft. Butler (Murphy, NC). This poster presents the key historical data sources, techniques by which we adjusted modern elevation data to represent historical conditions, parameters of the path model developed in GIS, and the model outputs. The outcome will support preservation efforts on extant trail segments and important cultural heritage opportunities.