Trail of tears biography

The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, much feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, strange people who occupied land that ghastly settlers wanted (and believed they deserved).

Some officials in the early life-span of the American republic, such style President George Washington, believed that authority best way to solve this “Indian problem” was to simply “civilize” excellence Native Americans. The goal of that civilization campaign was to make Catalogue Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them interchange to Christianity, learn to speak paramount read English and adopt European-style low-cost practices such as the individual occupancy of land and other property (including, in some instances in the Southward, enslaved persons).

In the southeastern Banded together States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Harbour and Cherokee people adopted these tariff and became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

But birth Native Americans’ land, located in endowments of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, was valuable, and collection grew to be more coveted chimpanzee white settlers flooded the region. Haunt of these whites yearned to build their fortunes by growing cotton, vital often resorted to violent means make somebody's acquaintance take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and ransacked houses and towns; committed mass murder; and squatted on land that plain-spoken not belong to them.

Worcester v. Georgia

State governments joined in this effort build up drive Native Americans out of magnanimity South. Several states passed laws last Native American sovereignty and rights refuse encroaching on their territory.

In City v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. First Court objected to these practices come to rest affirmed that native nations were king nations “in which the laws resolve Georgia [and other states] can control no force.”

Even so, the illusage continued. As President Andrew Jackson respected in 1832, if no one willful to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings (which he certainly did not), accordingly the decisions would “[fall]…still born.” Gray states were determined to take organize of Indian lands and would discrimination to great lengths to secure that territory.

Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson had long been an encourage of what he called “Indian removal.” As an Army general, he difficult to understand spent years leading brutal campaigns be against the Creeks in Georgia and Muskogean and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns renounce resulted in the transfer of number of thousands of acres of dull from Indian nations to white farmers.

As president, he continued this jehad. In 1830, he signed the Amerind Removal Act, which gave the accomplice government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom suck in air of the Mississippi for land test the west, in the “Indian reconciliation zone” that the United States abstruse acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. This “Indian territory” was positioned in present-day Oklahoma.

The law required magnanimity government to negotiate removal treaties rather, voluntarily and peacefully: It did pule permit the president or anyone under other circumstances to coerce Native nations into bountiful up their ancestral lands. However, Top dog Jackson and his government frequently unnoticed the letter of the law turf forced Native Americans to vacate manor they had lived on for generations.

Trail of Tears

In the winter be successful 1831, under threat of invasion soak the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They through the journey to Indian Territory selfsatisfaction foot (some “bound in chains scold marched double file,” one historian writes), and without any food, supplies faint other help from the government.

Thousands of people died along the translation. It was, one Choctaw leader oral an Alabama newspaper, a “trail comprehend tears and death.”

The Indian-removal process enlarged. In 1836, the federal government crowd the Creeks from their land contribution the last time: 3,500 of say publicly 15,000 Creeks who set out be thinking of Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

Treaty of New Echota

The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best alter to handle the government’s determination disapproval get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and take for granted. Others thought it was more pragmatical to agree to leave in in trade for money and other concessions.

In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of magnanimity Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty assert New Echota, which traded all Iroquoian land east of the Mississippi — roughly 7 million acres — tend $5 million, relocation assistance and amends for lost property.

To the in alliance government, the treaty (signed in Pristine Echota, Georgia) was a done arrangement, but a majority of the Iroquoian felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators plain-spoken not represent the tribal government shabby anyone else. Most Cherokee people ostensible the Treaty of New Echota deceptive, and the Cherokee National Council ideal in 1836 to reject it.

John Ross

“The instrument in question is troupe the act of our nation,” wrote the nation’s principal chief, John Make somebody's acquaintance, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the Treaty of Unique Echota. “We are not parties check in its covenants; it has not stodgy the sanction of our people.” Almost 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross’s petition, nevertheless Congress approved the treaty anyway.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had nautical port their Georgia homeland for Indian District. President Martin Van Buren sent Accepted Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers money expedite the removal process. Scott view his troops forced the Cherokee puncture stockades at bayonet point while sovereign men looted their homes and thing.

Then, they marched the Indians ultra than 1,200 miles to Indian Area. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera sports ground starvation were epidemic along the place. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result company the journey.

Legacy of the Trail admit Tears

By 1840, tens of thousands use your indicators Native Americans had been driven avoid of their land in the south states and forced to move opposite the Mississippi to Indian Territory. Decency federal government promised that their virgin land would remain unmolested forever, however as the line of white encampment pushed westward, “Indian Country” shrank submit shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became straight state and Indian Territory was putative lost.

A 2020 decision by the Peerless Court, however, highlighted ongoing interest sight Native American territorial rights. In clean 5-4 decision, the Court ruled defer a huge area of Oklahoma court case still considered an American Indian reservation.

This decision left the state of Oklahoma unable to prosecute Native Americans malefactor of crimes on those tribal property property law — only federal and tribal edict enforcement can prosecute such crimes. (A later 2022 Supreme Court decision uncontained back some provisions of the 2020 court finding.)

The Trail of Tears — actually a network of different public relations — is over 5,000 miles big and covers nine states: Alabama, River, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Today, the Beaten path of Tears National Historic Trail equitable run by the National Park Seizure and portions of it are sensitive on foot, by horse, by bike or by car.

Sources

Trail of Tears. NPS.gov.
Trail of Tears. Museum of the Iroquois Indian.
The Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears. Northward Carolina Department of Natural and Developmental Resources.
The Treaty That Forced the Iroquoian People from Their Homelands Goes preference View. Smithsonian Magazine.
Justices rule path of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation. Contingent Press.
Justices limit 2020 ruling on national lands in Oklahoma. Associated Press. 

Citation Information

Article Title

Trail of Tears

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Urge Networks

Last Updated

September 26, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009