The eternal flame at Red Clay symbolizes the continuation of
Cherokee culture today. In 1832 things were looking grim for the
Cherokee nation. Stripped of their rights in the state of
Georgia, members of the tribe moved their seat of government
from New Echota in northwest Georgia to Red Clay, just across
the Tennessee state line. But Red Clay would not be the Cherokee
capital for long. Only six years later the tribe would be sent
west on a journey we now know as the Trail of Tears. The Red
Clay grounds are now a state historic park. We're going to show
it to you and tell you its story. By the 1820s the Cherokee
tribe owned the land shown with the number 36 on this map. As we
point out in the Eighth Grade text, the Cherokee tribe once
ruled over a large part of the southeast United States. But as
white settlers moved west and forced their way onto Cherokee
land, Cherokee leaders signed away or sold large chunks of the
land, sometimes under political or military pressure. As you can
see from this map, by the 1