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The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans within that were ethnically cleansed by the United States government.
- 1830–1850
Trail of Tears, in U.S. history, the forced relocation during the 1830s of Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region of the United States (including Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.
- The 'indian Problem'
- Worcester v. Georgia
- Indian Removal Act
- Trail of Tears
- Treaty of New Echota
- John Ross
- Legacy of The Trail of Tears
- Sources
White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americansthey encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved). Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as Presi...
State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and rights and encroaching on their territory. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Courtobjected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations “in which the law...
Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal.” As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers. As president, he c...
In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched double file,” one historian writes), and without any food, supplies or other help from the government. Thousands of people...
The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the government’s determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions. In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the T...
“The instrument in question is not the act of our nation,” wrote the nation’s principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senateprotesting the Treaty of New Echota. “We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.” Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross’s petition, but Congress approved the treaty anyway. B...
By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian Country” shrank and shrank. In 19...
Trail of Tears. NPS.gov. Trail of Tears. Museum of the Cherokee Indian. The Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The Treaty That Forced the Cherokee People from Their Homelands Goes on View. Smithsonian Magazine. Justices rule swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation. Associat...
Aug 3, 2023 · What Happened on the Trail of Tears? Federal Indian Removal Policy. Early in the 19th century, the United States felt threatened by England and Spain, who held land in the western continent. At the same time, American settlers clamored for more land.
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Jan 29, 2024 · The Trail of Tears is the name given to the forced migration of the Cherokee people from their ancestral lands in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina to new territories west of the Mississippi River. The journey, undertaken in the fall and winter of 1838–1839, was fatal for one-fourth of the Cherokee population.
Trail of Tears, Forced migration in the United States of the Northeast and Southeast Indians during the 1830s. The discovery of gold on Cherokee land in Georgia (1828–29) catalyzed political efforts to divest all Indians east of the Mississippi River of their property. The Indian Removal Act (1830) authorized the U.S. president to negotiate ...
The infographic’s central visual is a map showing the routes of the Trail of Tears in 1838–39. It was by these routes that some 15,000 Cherokee were to set out for the West. Of that number, it is thought that about 4,000 died, having succumbed to hunger, exhaustion, cold, or disease, whether in removal camps in the East, on the westward ...
