Welcome to the new online home of the City of LaFayette, Georgia Downtown Development Authority

FORT CUMMING

Fort Cumming was a stockade that housed Cherokee Indians before their removal on the Trail of Tears. Nothing remains of the fort.

On December 29, 1835, at New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, some of the Cherokee leaders signed a treaty with the U.S. government agreeing to the removal of all Cherokees to the West. The Native Americans who signed the treaty also agreed to relinquish all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River.

The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on May 23, 1836, and the Cherokees were given two years to leave Georgia. Many Cherokees did not recognize the New Echota Treaty and refused to leave their homes. Gen. Winfield Scott was charged with gathering together the Cherokees and removing them from Southeast.

Stockades were built to house the Cherokees until they could be removed to the West. Fort Cumming in LaFayette was one of those stockades. Capt. Samuel Farris and a company of Georgia volunteers guarded the Cherokees until their removal. The fort is believed to have housed about 500 men, women and children. It was built in 1836 and named for David B. Cumming, a Methodist minister and missionary to the Cherokees.

The fort was a large enclosure of upright logs with a rifle tower in each corner. No photos or drawings of the structure have been found. The stockade with block house was built on a hill just above the area now known as Big Spring. Today the site is near the west end of Indiana Avenue.