From the late 1700's to 1807, the Cherokee chief Doublehead guarded this area, which both the Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations claimed as sacred hunting grounds, against encroachment by white settlers. He had a reputation for eating flesh from his victims and was known as a fierce warrior. Greed for land by the states and encroachment by early European settlers led to dissension between Native Americans and the U.S. Government, resulting in President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 and what was later known as the Trail of Tears. The act called for all of the Five Civilized tribes of the Southeast to be relocated west of the Mississippi River. In 1837 and 1838, more than 4,000, mostly Cherokee, were moved west from Ross' Landing in Chattanooga, TN, down the Tennessee River to the Ohio River, then down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River and west to Oklahoma. Because the Muscle Shoals were so shallow in this section of the Tennessee River, Native Americans were placed on a train in Decatur, AL, and traveled by railroad to Tuscumbia, AL, to avoid the shoals. This section of the Tennessee River between Decatur and Tuscumbia is the only section of the river from Chattanooga to where the Tennessee River empties into the Ohio that is not part of the National Trail of Tears Route. However, the only railroad recognized as a Trail of Tears route is less than 2 miles south of Doublehead Resort. The forced removal brought thousands of deaths and many escapes, and many people in Alabama are descendants of those escapees and still reside in Alabama today.