Brainerd Mission
Near Chattanooga, Tennessee
In eighteen seventeen, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established a school for Cherokee students on land south of Chattanooga, naming it for the colonial-era missionary David Brainerd. Over two decades, more than three hundred Cherokee men and women enrolled here, learning English, farming techniques, and trades alongside the Christian faith the missionaries were determined to spread.
When the Indian Removal Act came in eighteen thirty, the mission staff and the Cherokee Nation found themselves on the same side, jointly resisting forced relocation. Their efforts failed. The mission closed in eighteen thirty-eight as the removal marches began. The small cemetery that remains was certified by the National Park Service in two thousand three as a site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
