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With every push of her pedals, Amaiya Bearpaw knows she has her tribe around her.

Astride her Fuji gravel bike, the 22-year-old member of the Cherokee Nation is part of a group of young amateur riders that are retracing the northern route of the infamous Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native American tribes by the U.S. government in the 1830s. Now 15 years running, the "Remember the Removal" ride stretches more than 950 miles, twisting through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas before finishing in Oklahoma.

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With each mile accomplished, with every taxing hill climbed and each monument visited, Bearpaw said, she is helping to reclaim what was lost.

"We are able to be with our ancestors and see what they went through and the perseverance they showed," Bearpaw said. "When we get back home, we can share with others how we can still walk this route and ride this route and through that we are able to keep their memories alive."

What began as a 1984 effort for Cherokee youth to gain insight into the challenges their ancestors endured during forced migration evolved into an annual tradition in 2009, with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians joining in 2011. It's become a "tremendous opportunity" to "learn that history and honor the legacy of their ancestors," Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.

Cherokee Nation bike riders gather together before beginning the Remember the Removal ride, a 950-mile journey retracing the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma. Photo courtesy of the Cherokee Nation

Bearpaw is one of six Cherokee members who kicked off this year's ride in New Echota, Georgia, the former capital of the Cherokee Nation.

The team, comprised entirely of Cherokee women for the second-straight year, includes Bearpaw, Faith Springwater, 19; Mattie Berry, 18; Kenzie Snell, 19; Samantha Cavin, 18; and mentor cyclist Libby Neugin, 40. Training for the ride took more than six months, as riders had to slowly build their endurance until they could average 60 miles per day. The hope is those grueling workouts will pay dividends when they reach the more challenging stretches of the trail, such as the Cumberland Gap in Tennessee or the rolling hills of Missouri.

Many portions of the routes, through Tennessee and other states, follow ancient trade routes, said Stephen Yerka, historic preservation specialist at the Tribal Historic Preservation Office for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

"A lot of times when we think of the Trail of Tears, we think of a line that goes from point A to point B," Yerka said. "But it really isn't. It involves all the communities around it."

Along the routes are burial places, old homesteads and other historic sites that were originally Cherokee-inhabited towns, Yerka said, especially in East Tennessee, where land had not previously been ceded to the U.S. government.

What the young riders learn on their journey through seven states is important not only for them, but the rest of the country, too, said Galen Gritts, a Missouri community leader, speaker and member of the Cherokee Nation.

"A lot of Americans don't even know we’re still here, so knowing that we’re here and knowing that we’re not an artifact," Gritts said. "We have been here, we are here, and we will be here."

Approximately 46,000 Native Americans, including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole, were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States during the Trail of Tears. The journey was marked by immense suffering, with thousands of Native Americans dying from starvation, exhaustion and disease.

Of the estimated 16,000 Cherokees forced to march to Indian Territory in the late 1830s, about 4,000 — about one in four — died along the way.

One of the last known survivors of the Trail of Tears was one of Libby Neugin's great grandmothers, Rebecca Neugin. On this year's ride, Neugin will be visiting the ancestral homeland of her family for the first time.

She said she grew up hearing the family's story passed down through generations: Soldiers from the U.S. military arrived at their home and told the family, at gunpoint, they had to leave immediately. Her grandmother begged the soldiers to allow her to grab pots, pans and bedding. They refused.

"It just blows my mind about how strong our Cherokee ancestors were," Neugin said. "Being taken from your home, losing everything that you had and leaving your homeland and not knowing where you’re going and to just be so strong and resilient. It's just powerful, and I want to be that strong."

Nine of the 13 Cherokee groups crossed the Mississippi River during harsh winter conditions in 1838 and 1839 as they were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma. That site is now known as the Trail of Tears State Park in Missouri. Photo courtesy of Missouri State Parks

More than 600 miles of the Trail of Tears runs through Missouri, more than any other state. Gritts told the NewsHour he's visited many of the sites where his ancestors were forced to travel against their will, something he said is necessary to better understand a story of a people whose culture and lives were systemically stolen, their identity erased.

"When you’re losing one out of four of your people, there's enough Cherokee blood in this state … [that] we have a relationship to it, even though we’re not from here," Gritts told the NewsHour.

The Northern Route, the Hildebrand Route and the Benge Route, all stretches of the Trail of Tears, meandered through the state. Nearly two hours from St. Louis sits the Trail of Tears State Park in Jackson, a place that honors the thousands of Cherokee people who crossed the Mississippi River in the dead of winter, some of whom died along the way.

Gritts's father was born in Oklahoma and would not learn to speak English until he was 8 years old out of fear of being sent to a boarding school. He’d later attend Oklahoma University before becoming a teacher and then an art director for a sports outlet in St. Louis. According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a nonprofit founded in 2012 under the laws of the Navajo Nation, the United States was home to more than 350 government-funded Native American Boarding schools during the 19th and 20th centuries. Often led by religious organizations, they sought to strip Native youth of their culture and languages. Missouri was home to at least three.

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It's this history Gritts hopes the Remember the Removal riders will learn as they make their way through the state. For him the young Cherokee "are a link to who we are, what we have all suffered and what we have risen to become."

Participants in the 2019 Remember the Removal Ride etch names onto paper at the Blythe Ferry Memorial. Photos courtesy of the Cherokee Nation

Faith Springwater, one of the trail's riders, said that along the route, she was looking forward to visiting some of the memorials – particularly one near the start of the trail at Blythe Ferry, less than an hour from Chattanooga.

William Blythe began operating the ferry in 1809, according to the Cherokee Nation. Between September and November of 1838, the ferry transported nine of the 13 Cherokee detachments across the Tennessee River – around 10,000 people. The landing was the last time many Cherokee people would have been in their home lands.

Today, the site is home to the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park, at the convergence of the Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers, "a significant cross road for development of Indian culture for centuries," according to the National Park Service.

Blythe Ferry was the departure point for the northern route, taking travelers on the difficult road through the Cumberland Mountains, one part of the trip Springwater was told might be tough.

"Several [past riders] warned about the Cumberland Gap in Tennessee and how that can be such a challenge," Springwater said. "We know there will be hot days and we know there will be long and difficult days but to keep our ancestors in our minds as they crossed those same areas is what is important. They did it on foot and we are on bikes so it's really a privilege to us to be able to do this."

Bearpaw said she and her teammates are ready to push each other along the way, encourage each other during the most grueling stretches and remind each other why they are riding in the first place.

READ MORE: Interior Department report identifies more Native American boarding schools and burial sites

Six Cherokee Nation bike riders begin the Remember the Removal ride, retracing the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma. Photo Courtesy of the Cherokee Nation

"Opening up a wound like this isn't pretty," Bearpaw said. "But this wound is always going to be open. But we will still prevail. We’re still here. It didn't drag us down. It didn't completely wipe us all out. We have flourished and came back stronger."

Gritts said he's hopeful efforts like the ride are a way for young Native Americans to gain purpose, get educated and connect their ancestors to generations to come.

"Are we going to get our land back? No. But can we get a strong sense of who we are in the modern era and in the future," he said. "I think we can."

Left: Six Cherokee Nation bike riders begin the Remember the Removal ride, retracing the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma. Photo Courtesy of the Cherokee Nation

By Terry Tang, Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press

By Allison Kelliher, The Conversation

By Suman Naishadham, Associated Press

By Associated Press

Adam Kemp Adam Kemp

Adam Kemp is a Communities Reporter for the PBS NewsHour based in Oklahoma.

Gabrielle Hays Gabrielle Hays

Gabrielle Hays is a Communities Reporter for the PBS NewsHour out of St. Louis.

Hannah Grabenstein Hannah Grabenstein