This account may come as a surprise, perhaps even a disappointment, to those who hold a romanticized view of the "Tear Dress" and its connection to the Trail of Tears. The popular narrative suggests that Cherokee women wore this distinct style of dress during the harrowing period of forced removal in 1838-39. However, historical evidence suggests this is not the case, for several key reasons. This article will delve into the true history of the Cherokee Tear Dress.
Firstly, it’s important to understand that the Cherokee people, prior to extensive European contact, did not possess a unique or ethnically distinct style of dress that significantly differed from other Indigenous tribes inhabiting the hot and humid Southeastern United States. Early European accounts describe the clothing of both men and women as relatively simple and minimal, primarily consisting of animal hides and furs used to cover essential areas. While the Cherokee possessed rudimentary finger weaving and netting skills, used to create items such as sashes, belts, and rope, they lacked the loom weaving technology necessary to produce larger pieces of woven fabric. This technology, which would revolutionize their clothing options, only became accessible with the arrival of missionaries, particularly the Moravians, and the opening of the frontier to trade.
As the Cherokee gained access to woven fabrics, either through their own weaving efforts or through trade with American and English merchants, they swiftly transitioned away from the more laborious process of preparing and working with animal hides. Woven cloth offered a softer, cooler, and more readily available alternative. Crucially, the patterns and styles of clothing adopted by the Cherokee were heavily influenced by the garments worn by white traders, white individuals who had intermarried into the tribe, and, later, the Moravian and other Christian missionary women.
The clothing that the Cherokee crafted during this period was largely based on the plain, simple, and utilitarian styles that they were taught to create. Frontier fashion, at the time, bore little resemblance to the elaborate and ornate dresses depicted in paintings and illustrations of fashionable ladies in eastern seaboard cities like Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. Therefore, the second reason the Tear Dress could not have been worn during the Trail of Tears is that its style simply does not align with the fashions of that era.
Women’s fashion throughout history has been characterized by distinct silhouettes, primarily defined by the position of the waistline and the shape and size of the skirt. During the late 1830s, the time of the Trail of Tears, women’s fashion in the major cities along the eastern seaboard was characterized by styles that costume historians often refer to as late Empire, Romantic period, or Early Victorian. These dresses featured high waists, bell-shaped skirts that were narrower than those of previous eras (dressmakers were just beginning to perfect the technique of cutting gores to achieve the desired shape), and short, puffy sleeves that would eventually evolve into elaborately wide and full bell shapes.
Fashion trends typically spread more slowly to the interior regions. Some historians estimate that for every 100 miles west, fashion lagged behind by at least five years. Consequently, the design of the modern Cherokee Tear Dress is definitely a style that emerged at a later date.
One existing painting of a Cherokee couple in Texas depicts the woman wearing a gown with a distinctly "Empire" style silhouette, featuring a high waist, bell-shaped skirt, and short puff sleeves. However, there is debate about whether the painting accurately captures a moment in time, with real Cherokee individuals as models, or if it was created later by an artist who used a model wearing contemporary city clothing. It was common practice for artists to use substitute models when portraying Native American subjects.
The early Cherokee were skilled in creating small woven articles like belts, but the knowledge of making woven fabrics suitable for garments was absent. Upon contact with Europeans, the Cherokee readily embraced trade goods and other aspects of European civilization, including their clothing. Cloth was among the first items traded to Indigenous peoples. Moravian missionaries introduced weaving to the Cherokee, aiming to "civilize" what they perceived as "naked savages." Many Cherokee became skilled weavers, as documented in federal census records that listed household members, their trades, and the number of looms and weavers within the Cherokee community. Christian missionaries insisted that converts dress "appropriately" for church services and school, requiring Cherokee women to cover their bodies with dresses prescribed by the missionaries. These women were taught to sew these garments by missionary wives and teachers, and the style was simple and plain.
A common style that was introduced was the "Mother Hubbard" dress, a shift-like garment resembling a modern-day nightgown. This style was widely adopted by various Indigenous tribes in schools, reservation churches, and as clothing for household servants throughout the 1800s. The Hawaiian Muumuu serves as a prime example of a Mother Hubbard dress that was embraced and is now considered a traditional tribal dress.
Because the Cherokee quickly adopted the lifestyle of early white settlers, they, along with the other four major tribes of the Southeast, became known as the "Civilized Tribes." They emulated the dress and customs of the surrounding white communities. Some individuals maintained a mixed wardrobe of both native and white clothing. Some paintings show that there were groups that continued to dress in the old Cherokee way until the late 1840s after the Cherokees had settled into their new homelands in Indian territory. George Caitlin’s sketches (c. 1830s at Ft. Gibson) show examples of Cherokee Indian women wearing leather garments during the early years of settlement in the newly opened Indian Territory prior to the full influx of Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. One memorable sketch shows a Cherokee woman in leather wearing a paisley shawl.
Between 1839 and the 1860s, the period in which the tribe established public schools, seminaries, and a formal government, the affluent Cherokees had largely abandoned traditional ethnic styles of dress. After the Civil War, a few traditionalists, perhaps those who were economically disadvantaged, continued to wear one specific item of ethnic clothing: the Hunting Jacket. The basic design for this jacket was adapted from a popular casual garment worn by white men called a Banyan. A picture of Samuel Wooster wearing a Banyan exists. A few rare old photographs still exist that show men wearing a native-made hunting coat.
These garments likely persisted because they were easy to make at home, using either store-bought trade cloth or fabric woven at home. Undoubtedly, women in these families also wore homemade clothing that was functional yet simple in design and construction. However, no photographs exist to definitively prove what these dresses looked like. Perhaps they were simple shifts or A-line dresses made similarly to the old leather deerskin garments, with straight panels front and back sewn across the shoulders and down the sides, leaving openings for the head and arms, similar to the pow-wow dresses of Plains Indians.
In conclusion, Cherokee women did not possess a single, traditional tribal dress. There was no specific reason to cling to any particular style because they had limited opportunities to interact with other tribes in the way they do today with pow-wows and inter-tribal events. Any style of clothing worn by a Cherokee woman at a particular time was discarded once the dress wore out, and merchants introduced new fashion ideas and new types of fabrics. This information clarifies the true history of the Cherokee Tear Dress.
The origin and adoption of the modern-day Cherokee Tear Dress is an interesting story. The garment came about to fulfill the needs of a particular situation and had more to do with embarrassment than it had to do with tribal pride or tradition. The situation arose in 1968 when a young Cherokee woman, named Virginia Stroud, was chosen as "Miss Indian America." She had competed and was crowned in a Kiowa buckskin dress that she had borrowed from a college friend.
W.W. Keeler, who was the appointed Cherokee Chief at the time, was approached by a group of Cherokee women about Virginia Stroud’s official wardrobe. They felt it was unacceptable for a Cherokee woman who was supposed to be representing the Cherokee people in the public eye to be appearing at public events dressed as a Kiowa. Chief Keeler agreed and appointed a committee of Cherokee women to find something more appropriate for Miss Stroud that would reflect the Cherokee’s eastern woodland traditions, history, and style.
They could not find an established precedence in Oklahoma for a traditional tribal dress. The answer they decided could only be found someplace in North Carolina, Georgia, or Tennessee. The ladies mounted a serious search for a record of a dress design that would be uniquely Cherokee and acceptable by Chief Keeler. They did not want to simply copy or adapt any other tribe’s style. And they did not want the dress to look anything like the Plain’s Indian dress. They also wanted the dress to be historically correct and if a dress could be found, it had to be documented. The true history of the Cherokee Tear Dress, therefore, is rooted in this search for identity and representation.