(Editor's note: A recent federal bill memorializing as a National Historic Trail what has come to be known as the Cherokee Indian Trail of Tears is based on false history, argues William R. Higginbotham. In this article, the Texas-based writer delves into the historic record and concludes that about 840 Indians not the 4,000 figure commonly accepted died in the 1837-38 trek west; that the government-financed march was conducted by the Indians themselves; and that the phrase "Trail of Tears" was a label that was added 70 years later under questionable circumstances.) The problem with some of our accounts of history is that they have been manipulated to fit conclusions not borne out by facts. Nothing could be more intellectually dishonest. This is about a vivid case in point.

Congress recently passed a bill, later approved by President Reagan, to memorialize as a National Historic Trail what both professional and amateur historians call the Cherokee Indian Trail of Tears. The trail is the route by which the Cherokees moved west from their Georgia-Tennessee-Carolinas homeland into what is now Oklahoma.

The act caused a spate of articles about how the Cherokees lost 4,000 or more dead on a terrible trek, described as a "forced" march, presumably indicating they were prodded by bullet and bayonet as they moved during the hard winter of 1837-38.

The oddities are: 1) Voluminous records, including those of the Cherokee nation itself, show no loss approaching 4,000 (an actual figure of about 840 deaths was bad enough); 2) The word "forced" insults the Cherokees because they conducted their own march, paid for by Washington; 3) The phrase "Trail of Tears" was never used by a Cherokee in the 1830s, but came into existence under other circumstances some 70 years later.