river on "Berry's Ferry" which typically charged twelve cents, equal to $ today. They were not allowed passage until the ferry had serviced all others wishing to cross and were forced to take shelter under "Mantle Rock", a shelter bluff on the Kentucky side, until "Berry had nothing better to do". Many died huddled together at Mantle Rock waiting to cross. Several Cherokee were murdered by locals. The Cherokee filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government through the courthouse in Vienna, suing the government for $35 a head (equal to $ today) to bury the murdered Cherokee. As they crossed southern Illinois, on December 26, Martin Davis, commissary agent for Moses Daniel's detachment, wrote: There is the coldest weather in Illinois I ever experienced anywhere. The streams are all frozen over something like thick. We are compelled to cut through the ice to get water for ourselves and animals. It snows here every two or three days at the fartherest. We are now camped in Mississippi [River] swamp from the river, and there is no possible chance of crossing the river for the of ice that comes floating down the river every day. We have only traveled on the last month, including the time spent at this place, which has been about three weeks. It is unknown when we shall cross the river.... A volunteer soldier from Georgia who participated in the removal recounted: I fought through the civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew. It eventually took almost three months to cross the on land between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The trek through southern Illinois is where the Cherokee suffered most of their deaths. However a few years before forced removal, some Cherokee who opted to leave their homes voluntarily chose a water-based route through the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It took only 21 days, but the Cherokee who were forcibly relocated were wary of water travel. Environmental researchers David Gaines and Jere Krakow outline the "context of the tragic Cherokee relocation" as one predicated on the difference between "Indian regard for the land, and its contrast with the Euro-Americans view of land as property". This divergence in perspective on land, according to sociologists Gregory Hooks and Chad L. Smith, led to the homes of American Indian people "being donated