Each plant produces about 19 string-free pods, and there will be about 5 beans per pod. The pods turn purple coloured as they ripen, and are about 4 ½ inches (12 cm) long x ½ inch (1 cm) wide.
The pods can be used fresh as green beans when young, or grown longer and dried for use as dry beans.
Cherokee Trail of Tear Beans are smallish, shaped like kidney beans, and have glossy black smooth skin.
80 to 90 days from seed.
History Notes
The Cherokee’s original home was in the north of the state of Georgia, US, where they farmed and had prosperous villages. Pressure grew upon them as white settlement increased. The United States Supreme Court ruled that because the Cherokee were a sovereign nation, Georgia’s land confiscation rules didn’t apply to them. But a handful of them, largely mixed-blood Cherokees, thought they might as well try to get the best of a bad deal that was inevitable, and signed a Treaty giving up the land, which was then applied to all Cherokee. The United States government decided that the 17,000 Cherokee would be relocated to Oklahoma. They were rounded up by militia. Hundreds were killed during this first step.
The relocation began in the winter of 1838-1839. Approximately 16,500 Cherokee made the trek. Though a few were able to make a part of the trip by boat, most made the march on foot half-way across the United States. Over 4,000 Cherokee perished on the journey. Today the Cherokee refer to this route as “Nunna daul Tsuny” (“The Trail Where They Cried “), which is most often translated as “The Trail of Tears.”
There was actually one water route and around 10 different land routes. The one actually called “Trail of Tears” started near Rattlesnake Springs, Tennessee, heading north-west to Kentucky via Nashville, Tennessee, crossing the Ohio River near where it met the Tennessee River, then southwest into what is now Oklahoma. This route was made more difficult along the way by white settlers who didn’t want the Indians passing near their towns.
Cherokee Trail of Tear Beans were reputedly carried on the march with them to Georgia, but no doubt many other types of beans and crop seeds were as well.