Long before the first Europeans, Woodland Indians followed the buffalo trace later known as Pound (Sounding) Gap, a route between Kentucky and Virginia, and several Woodland tribes inhabited the region. The teardrop symbolizes their trials, tribulations, and triumphs, from the beginning of European contact with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, North America, and the tears shed in the name of the New World, through the slaughter of millions for gold, treasures, food, furs, homes, and lands. It also represents westward conquest in the 1800s, battles between the U.S. and Tribal Nations over land, continual forced migration, and the Removal Act and Trail of Tears, during which Woodland Indians were held for months in harsh conditions, forced from their ancestral homelands to territory west of the Mississippi River, and from 1830 to 1839 thousands of elders and children perished. It further stands for Indigenous people who fought for this country and their ancestral homelands before being considered citizens of America on June 2, 1924, for children taken from their families to Indian boarding schools, for missing and murdered Indian women, men, and people, and for the pain carried in the memory of massacres including The Wampanoag in Massachusetts, Ywahoo Falls in Kentucky, and Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Across more than 500 years of suffering, survival, and resilience, American Indian people are affirmed as still remaining, holding to traditions and culture, and continuing to fight through education and preservation to protect elders, children, and future generations.