About this Exhibit

From 1885 to 1899, twelve Cherokee and Chickasaw students attended Vanderbilt. Indian Removal policies were within the living memory of their parents and grandparents. Traveling the Trail of Tears in reverse, the students arrived at a new university built on ancestral territory. Never anonymous but fully engaged in campus life, they distinguished themselves in classrooms and on debating stages and playing fields. Eight became lawyers, shaping tribal affairs from Indian Territory to Washington, D.C. Together, Vanderbilt’s first indigenous scholars represent a bridge generation who sustained their nations through an era of forced assimilation.