Trail of Tears

TRAIL OF TEARS
At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on

millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and
Floridaland their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By
the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the
southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted
to grow cotton on the Indians land, the federal government forced them to
leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated
Indian territory across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes
deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears.
THE INDIAN PROBLEM
White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often
feared and resented the Native Americans they 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 President George
Washington, believed that the best way to solve this Indian problem was
simply to civilize the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization
campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as
possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and
read English, and adopt European-style economic practices such as the
individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances
in the South, African slaves). In the southeastern United States, many
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these
customs and became known as the Five Civilized Tribes.
DID YOU KNOW?
Indian removal took place in the Northern states as well. In Illinois and
Wisconsin, for example, the bloody Black Hawk War in 1832 opened to white
settlement millions of acres of land that had belonged to the Sauk, Fox and
other native nations.
But their land, located in parts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida
and Tennessee, was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white
settlers flooded the region. Many of these whites yearned to make their
fortunes by growing cotton, and they did not care how civilized their native
neighbors were: They wanted that land and they would do almost anything
to get it. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns;, and
squatted on land that did not belong to them.
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 a few cases, such as Cherokee
Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme
Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were
sovereign nations in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have
no force. Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew
Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Courts
rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would [fall]still
born. Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands
and would go to great lengths to secure this territory.
INDIAN REMOVAL
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 continued this
crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal
government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom
east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the Indian colonization zone
that the United States had acquired as part of the LouisianaPurchase. (This
Indian territory was located in present-day Oklahoma.)
The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly,
voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to
coerce Native nations into giving up their land. However, President Jackson
and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced
Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations. 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 died along the way. It was,
one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a trail of tears and death.
THE TRAIL OF TEARS
The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government
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.
The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the
governments 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 Treaty of New Echota,
which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi for $5 million,
relocation assistance and compensation for lost property. To the federal
government, the treaty was a done deal, but many of the Cherokee felt
betrayed: After all, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or
anyone else. The instrument in question is not the act of our nation, wrote
the nations principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate
protesting the treaty. We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received
the sanction of our people. Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Rosss petition,
but Congress approved the treaty anyway.
By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for
Indian territory. President Martin Van Buren sent GeneralWinfield Scott and
7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced
the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while whites looted their
homes and belongings. Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200
miles to Indian territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and
starvation were epidemic along the way, and historians estimate that more
than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.
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 1907, Oklahoma became a
state and Indian territory was gone for good.
Article Details:
Trail of Tears
Author
History.com Staff
Website Name
History.com
Year Published
2009
Title
Trail of Tears
URL
http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
Access Date
March 23, 2015
Publisher
A+E Networks
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

2015, A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Chief Joseph Surrenders

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (1840?1904) was known to his people as
"Thunder Traveling to the Loftier
Mountain Heights." He led his people in
an attempt to resist the takeover of their
lands in the Oregon Territory by white
settlers. In 1877, the Nez Perce were
ordered to move to a reservation in
Idaho. Chief Joseph agreed at first. But
after members of his tribe killed a group
of settlers, he tried to flee to Canada
with his followers, traveling over 1500
miles through Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, and Montana. Along the way they
fought several battles with the pursuing
U.S. Army. Chief Joseph spoke these
words when they finally surrendered on
October 5th, 1877.
Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in
my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead,
Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men
who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we
have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some
of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one
knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to
look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find
them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and
sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
Chief Joseph - Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain

Heights - 1877
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/joseph.htm 3/23/2015

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TRAIL OF TEARS

At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

Chief Joseph Surrenders

Chief Joseph - Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain

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