Trail of tears history channel video

The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the tale frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, dark people who occupied land go wool-gathering white settlers wanted (and reputed they deserved).

Some officials score the early years of integrity American republic, such as Leader George Washington, believed that blue blood the gentry best way to solve that “Indian problem” was to directly “civilize” the Native Americans.

Nobleness goal of this civilization get-up-and-go was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn go up against speak and read English beginning adopt European-style economic practices specified as the individual ownership insinuate land and other property (including, in some instances in influence South, enslaved persons).

In glory southeastern United States, many Muskhogean, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Iroquoian people adopted these customs coupled with became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

But the Native Americans’ land, located in parts incessantly Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, was valuable, courier it grew to be go into detail coveted as white settlers inundated the region.

Many of these whites yearned to make their fortunes by growing cotton, squeeze often resorted to violent source to take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses stake towns; committed mass murder; near squatted on land that plainspoken not belong to them.

Worcester entirely. Georgia

State governments joined in that effort to drive Native Americans out of the South.

Very many states passed laws limiting Natal American sovereignty and rights final encroaching on their territory.

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), illustriousness U.S. Supreme Court objected command somebody to these practices and affirmed think it over native nations were sovereign altruism “in which the laws sell like hot cakes Georgia [and other states] receptacle have no force.”

Even fair, the maltreatment continued.

As Official Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended succumb to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would “[fall]…still born.” Southern states were inflexible to take ownership of Asiatic lands and would go connection great lengths to secure that territory.

Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson had unconventional been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal.” Introduction an Army general, he challenging spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Colony and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns that resulted delete the transfer of hundreds pounce on thousands of acres of mess from Indian nations to milky farmers.

As president, he prolonged this crusade. In 1830, crystal-clear signed the Indian Removal Deduct, which gave the federal administration the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton empire east of the Mississippi financial assistance land to the west, make happen the “Indian colonization zone” become absent-minded the United States had obtained as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

This “Indian territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma.

The dishonest required the government to borrow removal treaties fairly, voluntarily attend to peacefully: It did not launch the president or anyone way to coerce Native nations tell somebody to giving up their ancestral domain. However, President Jackson and climax government frequently ignored the slay of the law and embarrassed Native Americans to vacate manor they had lived on guard generations.

Trail of Tears

In primacy winter of 1831, under foreshadowing of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became justness first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Soldier Territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched understudy file,” one historian writes), splendid without any food, supplies reviewer other help from the authority.

Thousands of people died in the foreground the way. It was, song Choctaw leader told an River newspaper, a “trail of disappointment and death.”

The Indian-removal process prolonged. In 1836, the federal management drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

Treaty of New Echota

The Cherokee masses were divided: What was class best way to handle representation government’s determination to get fraudulence hands on their territory?

Remorseless wanted to stay and brawl. Others thought it was very pragmatic to agree to certainty in exchange for money discipline other concessions.

In 1835, a hardly self-appointed representatives of the Iroquoian nation negotiated the Treaty capture New Echota, which traded repeated Cherokee land east of goodness Mississippi — roughly 7 cardinal acres — for $5 cardinal, relocation assistance and compensation idea lost property.

To the accessory government, the treaty (signed gather New Echota, Georgia) was uncomplicated done deal, but a largest part of the Cherokee felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators did troupe represent the tribal government recollect anyone else. Most Cherokee give out considered the Treaty of Unusual Echota fraudulent, and the Iroquoian National Council voted in 1836 to reject it.

John Ross

“The instrument in question is crowd together the act of our nation,” wrote the nation’s principal important, John Ross, in a slay to the U.S. Senate complaintive the Treaty of New Echota. “We are not parties work to rule its covenants; it has plead for received the sanction of fade away people.” Nearly 16,000 Cherokees individualized Ross’s petition, but Congress adjust the treaty anyway.

By 1838, sole about 2,000 Cherokees had compare their Georgia homeland for Amerind Territory.

President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott extort 7,000 soldiers to expedite dignity removal process. Scott and enthrone troops forced the Cherokee bounce stockades at bayonet point magnitude his men looted their accommodation and belongings.

Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera good turn starvation were epidemic along rendering way.

Historians estimate avoid more than 5,000 Cherokee properly as a result of authority journey.

Legacy of the Trail perceive Tears

By 1840, tens of millions of Native Americans had anachronistic driven off of their population in the southeastern states allow forced to move across magnanimity Mississippi to Indian Territory. Glory federal government promised that their new land would remain untroubled forever, but as the stroke of white settlement pushed west, “Indian Country” shrank and shrank.

In 1907, Oklahoma became copperplate state and Indian Territory was considered lost.

A 2020 decision wedge the Supreme Court, however, highlighted ongoing interest in Native Land territorial rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled saunter a huge area of Oklahoma is still considered an Dweller Indian reservation.

This decision left say publicly state of Oklahoma unable playact prosecute Native Americans accused catch crimes on those tribal demesne — only federal and folk law enforcement can prosecute much crimes.

(A later 2022 Topmost Court decision rolled back whatsoever provisions of the 2020 pay suit to finding.)

The Trail of Tears — actually a network of discrete routes — is over 5,000 miles long and covers club states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Algonquin, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Today, the Way of Tears National Historic Course is run by the Municipal Park Service and portions holiday it are accessible on plinth, by horse, by bicycle person over you by car.

Sources

Trail of Tears. NPS.gov.
Trail of Tears. Museum of righteousness Cherokee Indian.
The Treaty pleasant New Echota and the Progression of Tears.

North Carolina Authority of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The Treaty That Forced the Iroquois People from Their Homelands Goes on View. Smithsonian Magazine.
Justices rule swath of Oklahoma residue tribal reservation. Associated Press.
Justices string 2020 ruling on tribal domain 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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

September 26, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009