The Trail of Tears, “the Trail Where They Cried” - nu na hi du na tlo hi lu i - in Cherokee language, refers to Cherokee Removal, to their forced relocation in 1838, but the Cherokees were not the only Native Americans forced to emigrate as a result of the Indian Removal efforts of the United States.

About 4000 Cherokee died as a result of the removal and that route, the route they traversed and the journey itself from Georgia to Oklahoma, became known as “The Trail of Tears“.

The symbol of the pain and suffering of the “Trail Where They Cried” is the Cherokee Rose, now the official flower of the state of Georgia too; the legend says the mothers of the Cherokee grieved so much that the chiefs prayed for a sign to lift the mother’s spirits and give them strength to care for their children.. and from that day forward, a beautiful new flower - a rose - grew wherever a mother’s tear fell to the ground..

A rose white for the mother’s tears with a gold center for the gold taken from the Cherokee lands and with seven leaves on each stem for the seven Cherokee clans that made the journey then..

To this day, the Cherokee rose prospers along the route of the “Trail of Tears“…