introduction for a trail of tears essay

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Trail of Tears

By: History.com Editors

Updated: September 26, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

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 Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. But 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 hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian Territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and oftentimes  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 to simply “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, enslaved persons).

In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people adopted 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 the Native Americans’ 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 often resorted to violent means to take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns; committed mass murder ; and squatted on land that did not belong to them.

Worcester v. Georgia

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 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 Court’s 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 Act

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 Louisiana Purchase . 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 ancestral lands. 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 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.

Treaty of New Echota

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 Treaty of New Echota, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi — roughly 7 million acres — for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property.

To the federal government, the treaty (signed in New Echota, Georgia) was a done deal, but a majority of the Cherokee felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. Most Cherokee people considered the Treaty of New Echota fraudulent, and the Cherokee National Council voted in 1836 to reject it.

“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. Senate protesting 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.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian Territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while his men 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. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.

Legacy of the Trail of Tears

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 considered lost.

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

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

The Trail of Tears — actually a network of different routes — is over 5,000 miles long and covers nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Today, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is run by the National Park Service and portions of it are accessible on foot, by horse, by bicycle or by car.

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. Associated Press . Justices limit 2020 ruling on tribal lands in Oklahoma. Associated Press . 

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Trail of Tears: Narrative Essay

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• Narrative Essay

Trail of Tears Narrative

Survivor Account- Samuel Cloud –Read the following account:

History of the Cherokee -- Samuel's Memory

     Samuel Cloud turned 9 years old on the Trail of Tears. Samuel's Memory is told by his great-great grandson, Michael Rutledge, in his paper Forgiveness in the Age of Forgetfulness. Michael, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is a law student at Arizona State University. It is Spring. The leaves are on the trees. I am playing with my friends when white men in uniforms ride up to our home. My mother calls me. I can tell by her voice that something is wrong. Some of the men ride off. My mother tells me to gather my things, but the men don't allow us time to get anything. They enter our home and begin knocking over pottery and looking into everything. My mother and I are taken by several men to where their horses are and are held there at gun point. The men who rode off return with my father, Elijah. They have taken his rifle and he is walking toward us.

     I can feel his anger and frustration. There is nothing he can do. From my mother I feel fear. I am filled with fear, too. What is going on? I was just playing, but now my family and my friends' families are gathered together and told to walk at the point of a bayonet. We walk a long ways. My mother does not let me get far from her. My father is walking by the other men, talking in low, angry tones. The soldiers look weary, as though they'd rather be anywhere else but here.

     They lead us to a stockade. They herd us into this pen like we are cattle. No one was given time to gather any possessions. The nights are still cold in the mountains and we do not have enough blankets to go around. My mother holds me at night to keep me warm. That is the only time I feel safe. I feel her pull me to her tightly. I feel her warm breath in my hair. I feel her softness as I fall asleep at night. As the days pass, more and more of our people are herded into the stockade. I see other members of my clan. We children try to play, but the elders around us are anxious and we do not know what to think. I often sit and watch the others around me. I observe the guards. I try not to think about my hunger. I am cold.

     Several months have passed and still we are in the stockades. My father looks tired. He talks with the other men, but no one seems to know what to do or what is going to happen. We hear that white men have moved into our homes and are farming our fields. What will happen to us? We are to march west to join the Western Cherokees. I don't want to leave these mountains. My mother, my aunts and uncles take me aside one day. "Your father died last night," they tell me. My mother and my father's clan members are crying, but I do not understand what this means. I saw him yesterday. He was sick, but still alive. It doesn't seem real. Nothing seems real. I don't know what any of this means. It seems like yesterday, I was playing with my friends.

     It is now Fall. It seems like forever since I was clean. The stockade is nothing but mud. In the morning it is stiff with frost. By mid-afternoon, it is soft and we are all covered in it. The soldiers suddenly tell us we are to follow them. We are led out of the stockade. The guards all have guns and are watching us closely. We walk. My mother keeps me close to her. I am allowed to walk with my uncle or an aunt, occasionally. We walk across the frozen earth. Nothing seems right anymore. The cold seeps through my clothes. I wish I had my blanket. I remember last winter I had a blanket, when I was warm. I don't feel like I'll ever be warm again. I remember my father's smile. It seems like so long ago. We walked for many days. I don't know how long it has been since we left our home, but the mountains are behind us. Each day, we start walking a little later. They bury the dead in shallow graves, because the ground is frozen. As we walk past white towns, the whites come out to watch us pass. No words are spoken to them. No words are said to us. Still, I wish they would stop staring. I wish it were them walking in this misery and I were watching them. It is because of them that we are walking. I don't understand why, but I know that much. They made us leave our homes. They made us walk to this new place we are heading in the middle of winter. I do not like these people. Still, they stare at me as I walk past. We come to a big river, bigger than I have ever seen before. It is flowing with ice. The soldiers are not happy. We set up camp and wait. We are all cold and the snow and ice seem to hound us, claiming our people one by one. North is the color of blue, defeat and trouble. From there a chill wind blows for us as we wait by a frozen river. We wait to die.

     My mother is coughing now. She looks worn. Her hands and face are burning hot. My aunts and uncles try to take care of me, so she can get better. I don't want to leave her alone. I just want to sit with her. I want her to stroke my hair, like she used to do. My aunts try to get me to sleep by them, but at night, I creep to her side. She coughs and it wracks her whole body. When she feels me by her side, she opens her blanket and lets me in. I nestle against her feverish body. I can make it another day, I know, because she is here. When I went to sleep last night, my mother was hot and coughing worse than usual. When I woke up, she was cold. I tried to wake her up, but she lay there. The soft warmth she once was, she is no more. I kept touching her, as hot tears stream down my face. She couldn't leave me. She wouldn't leave me.

     I hear myself call her name, softly, then louder. She does not answer. My aunt and uncle come over to me to see what is wrong. My aunt looks at my mother. My uncle pulls me from her. My aunt begins to wail. I will never forget that wail. I did not understand when my father died. My mother's death I do not understand, but I suddenly know that I am alone. My clan will take care of me, but I will be forever denied her warmth, the soft fingers in my hair, her gentle breath as we slept. I am alone. I want to cry. I want to scream in rage. I can do nothing. We bury her in a shallow grave by the road. I will never forget that lonesome hill of stone that is her final bed, as it fades from my sight. I tread softly by my uncle, my hand in his. I walk with my head turned, watching that small hill as it fades from my sight. The soldiers make us continue walking. My uncle talks to me, trying to comfort me. I walk in loneliness.

     I know what it is to hate. I hate those white soldiers who took us from our home. I hate the soldiers who make us keep walking through the snow and ice toward this new home that none of us ever wanted. I hate the people who killed my father and mother.

     I hate the white people who lined the roads in their woolen clothes that kept them warm, watching us pass. None of those white people are here to say they are sorry that I am alone. None of them care about me or my people. All they ever saw was the color of our skin. All I see is the color of theirs and I hate them. ©1995 Michael J. Rutledge, All Rights Reserved.

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Trail Of Tears - Essay Examples And Topic Ideas For Free

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THE TRAIL OF TEARS – Essay by Dee Brown

• November 26, 2017

by Dee Brown

One of the most unhappy chapters in American history is the way whites treated Indians. American Indian policy, however, must be seen in the context of the entire European conquest of the New World. That conquest began with Columbus, who gave the people the name Indios and kidnapped ten San Salvador Indians, taking them back to Spain to learn the white man’s ways. In the ensuing four centuries, as Dee Brown writes in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee , “several million Europeans and their descendants undertook to enforce their ways upon the people of the New World, ” and when these people would not accept European ways, they were fought, enslaved, or exterminated.

Whites in North America joined the conquest in the colonial period, when they drove most of the eastern tribes into the interior. This pattern of “Indian removal” continued through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When Jefferson came to power, his administration began an official United States policy of Indian removal either by treaty or by outright warfare. During the next three decades, most tribes of the Old Northwest were “removed” in that manner to west of the Mississippi. When a thousand hungry Sac and Fox Indians recrossed the river into Illinois in 1832, militia and federal troops repelled the “invasion” in what became known as the Black Hawk War, in which young Abraham Lincoln commanded a militia company. The Sac and Fox retreated across the Mississippi into Wisconsin, but white soldiers pursued and needlessly slaughtered most of them.

The most forceful champion of removal was Andrew Jackson, whom the Indians called Sharp Knife. In their view, Jackson was an incorrigible Indian hater. In his frontier years he had waged war against the tribes in the South — the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chicasaw, Creek, and Seminole, known as the Five Civilized Tribes , because most had well- developed agricultural societies. These tribes were still clinging to their tribal lands when Jackson took office. At once, he announced that the tribes must be sent away to “an ample district west of the Mississippi, ” and Congress responded with the Indian Removal Act, which embodied his recommendations. Under Jackson’s orders, federal officials set about “negotiating” treaties with the southern tribes, with the implication that military force would be used if they did not consent to expulsion. In a subsequent act, passed in 1830, Congress guaranteed that all of the United States west of the Mississippi “and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana or the Territory of Arkansas” would constitute “a permanent Indian frontier. ”

But settlers moved into Indian country before Washington could put the law into effect. So United States policymakers were obliged to shift the “permanent Indian frontier” from the Mississippi to the 95th meridian, again promising that everything west of this imaginary line would belong to the Indians “for as long as trees grow and water flows. ” In the late 1830s, United States soldiers rounded up the Cherokees in Georgia and herded them west into Indian country in what ranks among the saddest episodes in the sordid story of white-Indian relations in this country. Nor were the Cherokees the only Indians who were expelled. The other “civilized tribes” also suffered on the Trails of Tears to the new Indian Territory. What happened to the Cherokee is the subject of the next selection, written with sensitivity and insight by Dee Brown, a prolific historian of the West and of Native Americans.

In selection 16, Robert Remini defends Jackson’s Indian policy, contending that the Five Civilized Tribes would have been exterminated had he not removed them. Remini is probably right. By this time, as Brown has said ebewhere, the Wampanoag of Massasoit “had vanished, along with the Chesapeakes, the Chicahominys, and the Potomacs of the great Powhatan confederacy. (Only Pocahontas was remembered.) Scattered or reduced to remnants were the Pequots, Montauks, Nanticokes, Madchapungas, Catawbas, Cheraws, Miamis, Hurons, Eries, Mohawks, Senecas, and Mohegans. . . . Their musical names have remained forever fixed on the American land, but their bones are forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders. ”

BOUDINOT, ELIAS  Coleader of a Cherokee delegation that agreed to resettlement in the West, he had established the Cherokee’s first tribal newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix . CROCKETT, DAVY  Member of Congress from Tennessee who sympathized with the Cherokee’s plight and damned the “cruel, unjust” way they were treated. RIDGE, MAJOR  Coleader of a Cherokee delegation that agreed to resettlement in the West. ROSS, JOHN  Cherokee leader who tried to save the Cherokee nation in Georgia; he protested to the federal government when the state of Georgia annexed all Cherokee lands within its borders. SCOTT, WINFIELD  Commander of the army forces that rounded up the Cherokee and herded them to present-day Oklahoma. TSALI  Aging Smoky Mountain Cherokee who resisted removal by force; Scott had him, his brother, and two of his sons executed by a firing squad. UTSALA  Chief of the Cherokee who avoided removal by hiding in the Smoky Mountains.

In the spring of 1838, Brigadier General Winfield Scott with a regiment of artillery, a regiment of infantry, and six companies of dragoons marched unopposed into the Cherokee country of northern Georgia. On May 10 at New Echota, the capital of what had been one of the greatest Indian nations in eastern America, Scott issued a proclamation:

The President of the United States sent me with a powerful army to cause you, in obedience to the treaty of 1835, to join that part of your people who are already established in prosperity on the other side of the Mississippi. . . . The emigration must be commenced in haste. . . . The full moon of May is already on the wane, and before another shall have passed away every Cherokee man, woman and child. . . must be in motion to join their brethren in the west. . . . My troops already occupy many positions . . . and thousands and thousands are approaching from every quarter to render resistance and escape alike hopeless. . . . Will you then by resistance compel us to resort to arms? Or will you by flight seek to hide yourselves in mountains and forests and thus oblige us to hunt you down? Remember that in pursuit it may be impossible to avoid conflicts. The blood of the white man or the blood of the red man may be spilt, and if spilt, however accidentally, it may be impossible for the discreet and humane among you, or among us, to prevent a general war and carnage.

For more than a century the Cherokees had beer, ceding their land, thousands of acres by thousands of acres. They had lost all of Kentucky and much of Tennessee, but after the last treaty of 1819 they still had remaining about 35,000 square miles of forested mountains, clean, swift-running rivers, and fine meadows. In this country which lay across parts o: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee they cultivated fields, planted orchards, fenced pastures, and built roads, houses, and towns. Sequoya had invented a syllabary for the Cherokee language so that thousands of his tribesmen quickly learned to read and write. The Cherokees had adopted the white man’s way — his clothing, his constitutional form of government, even his religion. But it had all been for nothing. Now these men who had come across the great ocean many years ago wanted all of the Cherokees’ land. In exchange for their 35,000 square miles the tribe was to receive five million dollars and another tract of land somewhere in the wilderness beyond the Mississippi River.

This was a crushing blow to a proud people. “They are extremely proud, despising the lower class of Europeans,” said Henry Timberlake, who visited them before the Revolutionary War. William Bartram, the botanist, said the Cherokees were not only a handsome people, tall, graceful, and olive-skinned, but “their countenance and actions exhibit an air of magnanimity, superiority and independence.”

Ever since the signing of the treaties of 1819, Major General Andrew Jackson, a man they once believed to be their friend, had been urging Cherokees to move beyond the Mississippi. Indians and white settlers, Jackson told them, could never get along together. Even if the government wanted to protect the Cherokees from harassment, he added, it would be unable to do so. “If you cannot protect us in Georgia,” a chief retorted, “how can you protect us from similar evils in the West?”

During the period of polite urging, a few hundred Cherokee families did move west, but the tribe remained united and refused to give up any more territory. In fact, the council leaders passed a law forbidding any chief to sell or trade a single acre of Cherokee land on penalty of death.

In 1828, when Andrew Jackson was running for President, he knew that in order to win he must sweep the frontier states. Free land for the land-hungry settlers became Jackson’s major policy. He hammered away at this theme especially hard in Georgia, where waves of settlers from the coastal low-lands were pushing into the highly desirable Cherokee country. He promised the Georgians that if they would help elect him President, he would lend his support to opening up the Cherokee lands for settlement. The Cherokees, of course, were not citizens and could not vote in opposition. To the Cherokees and their friends who protested this promise, Jackson justified his position by saying that the Cherokees had fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. He conveniently forgot that the Cherokees had been his allies during the desperate War of 1812, and had saved the day for him in his decisive victory over the British-backed Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. (One of the Cherokee chiefs who aided Jack-son was Junaluska. Said he afterward: “If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes I would have killed him that day at the Horseshoe.”)

Three weeks after Jackson was elected President, the Georgia legislature passed a law annexing all the Cherokee country within that state’s borders. As most of the Cherokee land was in Georgia and three-fourths of the tribe lived there, this meant an end to their independence as a nation. The Georgia legislature also abolished all Cherokee law’s and customs and sent surveyors to map out land lots of 160 acres each. The 160-acre lots were to be distributed to white citizens of Georgia through public lotteries.

To add to the pressures on the Cherokees, gold was discovered near Dahlonega in the heart of their country. For many years the Cherokees had concealed the gold deposits, but now the secret was out and a rabble of gold-hungry prospectors descended upon them.

John Ross, the Cherokees’ leader, hurried to Washington to protest the Georgia legislature’s actions and to plead for justice. In that year Ross was 38 years old; he was well-educated and had been active in Cherokee government matters since he was 19. He was adjutant of the Cherokee regiment that served with Jackson at Horseshoe Bend. His father had been one of a group of Scottish emigrants who settled near the Cherokees and married into the tribe.

In Washington, Ross found sympathizers in Congress, but most of them were anti-Jackson men and the Cherokee case was thus drawn into the whirlpool of politics. When Ross called upon Andrew Jackson to request his aid, the President bluntly told him that “no protection could be afforded the Cherokees” unless they were willing to move west of the Mississippi.

While Ross was vainly seeking help in Washington, alarming messages reached him from Georgia. White citizens of chat state were claiming the homes of Cherokees through the land lottery, seizing some of chem by force. Joseph Vann, a hard-working halfbreed, had carved out an 800-acre plantation at Spring Place and built a fine brick house for his residence. Two men arrived to claim it, dueled for it, and the winner drove Vann and his family into the hills. When John Ross rushed home he found that the same thing had happened to his family. A lottery claimant was living in his beautiful home on the Coosa Paver, and Ross had to turn north toward Tennessee to find his fleeing wife and children.

During all this turmoil, President Jackson and the governor of Georgia pressed the Cherokee leaders hard in attempts to persuade them to cede all their territory and move to the West. But the chiefs stood firm. Somehow they managed to hold the tribe together. and helped dispossessed families find new homes back in the wilderness areas. John Ross and his family lived in a one-room log cabin across the Tennessee line.

In 1834, the chiefs appealed to Congress with a memorial in which they stated that they would never voluntarily abandon their homeland, but proposed a compromise in which chey agreed to cede the state of Georgia a part of their territory provided that they would be protected from invasion in the remainder. Furthermore, at the end of a definite period of years to be fixed by the United States they would be willing to become citizens of the various states in which they resided.

“Cupidity has fastened its eye upon our lands and our homes,” they said, “and is seeking by force and by every variety of oppression and wrong to expel us from pur lands and our homes and to tear from us all that has become endeared to us. In our distress we have appealed to the judiciary of the United States, where our rights have been solemnly established. We have appealed to the Executive of the United States to protect chose rights according to the obligation of treaties and the injunctions of the laws. But this appeal to the Executive has been made in vain.”

This new petition to Congress was no more effectual than their appeals to President Jackson. Again they were told that their difficulties could be remedied only by their removal to the west of the Mississippi.

For the first time now, a serious split occurred among the Cherokees. A small group of subchiefs decided that further resistance to the demands of the Georgia and United States governments was futile. It would be better, they believed, to exchange their land and go west rather than risk bloodshed and the possible loss of everything. Leaders of this group were Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot. Budge had adopted his first name after Andrew Jackson gave him chat rank during the War of 1812. Boudinot was Ridge’s nephew. Originally known as Buck Watie, he had taken the name of a New England philanthropist who sent him through a mission school in Connecticut. Stand Watie, who later became a Confederate general, was his brother. Upon Boudinofs return from school to Georgia he founded the first tribal newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, in 1827, but during the turbulence following the Georgia land lotteries he was forced to suspend publication.

And so in February 1835 when John Ross journeyed to Washington to resume his campaign to save the Cherokee nation, a rival delegation headed by Ridge and Boudinot arrived there to seek terms for removal to the West. The pro-removal forces in the government leaped at this opportunity to bypass Ross’s authority, and within a few days drafted a preliminary treaty for the Ridge delegation. It was then announced that a council would be held later in the year at New Echota, Georgia, for the purpose of negotiating and agreeing upon final terms.

During the months that followed, bitterness increased between the two Cherokee factions. Ridge’s group was a very small minority, but they had the full weight of the United States government behind them, and threats and inducements were used to force a full attendance at the council which was set for December 22, 1835. Handbills were printed in Cherokee and distributed throughout the nation, informing the Indians that those who did not attend would be counted as assenting to any treaty that might be made.

During the seven days which followed the opening of the treaty council, fewer than five hundred Chero-kees, or about 2 percent of the tribe, came to New Echota to participate in the discussions. Most of the other Cherokees were busy endorsing a petition to be sent to Congress stating their opposition to the treaty. But on December 29, Ridge, Boudinot and their followers signed away all the lands of the great Cherokee nation. Ironically, thirty years earlier Major Ridge had personally executed a Cherokee chief named Doublehead for committing one of the few capital crimes of the tribe. That crime was the signing of a treaty which gave away Cherokee lands.

Charges of bribery by the Ross forces were denied by government officials, but some years afterward it was discovered that the Secretary of War had sent secret agents into the Cherokee country with authority to expend money to bribe chiefs to support the treaty of cession and removal. And certainly the treaty signers were handsomely rewarded. In an era when a dollar would buy many times its worth today, Major Ridge was paid $30,000 and his followers received several thousand dollars each. Ostensibly they were being paid for their improved farmlands, but the amounts were far in excess of contemporary land values.

John Ross meanwhile completed gathering signatures of Cherokees who were opposed to the treaty. Early in the following spring, 1836, he took the petition to Washington. More than three-fourths of the tribe, 15,964, had signed in protest against the treaty.

When the governor of Georgia was informed of the overwhelming vote against the treaty, he replied: “Nineteen-twentieths of the Cherokees are too ignorant and depraved to entitle their opinions to any weight or consideration in such matters.”

The Cherokees, however, did have friends in Congress. Representative Davy Crockett of Tennessee denounced the treatment of the Cherokees as unjust, dishonest, and cruel. He admitted that he represented a body of frontier constituents who would like to have the Cherokee lands opened for settlement, and he doubted if a single one of them would second what he was saying. Even though his support of the Cherokees might remove him from public life, he added, he could not do otherwise except at the expense of his honor and conscience. Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Edward Everett, and other great orators of the Congress also spoke for the Cherokees.

When the treaty came to a final decision in the Senate, it passed by only one vote. On May 23, 1836, President Jackson signed the document. According to its terms, the Cherokees were allowed two years from that day in which to leave their homeland forever.

The few Cherokees who had favored the treaty now began making their final preparations for departure. About three hundred left during that year and then early in 1837 Major Ridge and 465 followers departed by boats for the new land in the West. About 17,000 others, ignoring the treaty, remained steadfast in their homeland with John Ross.

For a while it seemed that Ross might win his long fight, that perhaps the treaty might be declared void. After the Secretary of War, acting under instructions from President Jackson, sent Major William M. Davis to the Cherokee country to expedite removal to the West, Davis submitted a frank report: “That paper called a treaty is no treaty at all,” he wrote, “because it is not sanctioned by the great body of the Cherokees and was made without their participation or assent. . . . The Cherokees are a peaceable, harmless people, but you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty cannot be carried into effect except by the strong arm of force.”

In September 1836, Brigadier General Dunlap, who had been sent with a brigade of Tennessee volunteers to force the removal, indignandy disbanded his troops after making a strong speech in favor of the Indians: “I would never dishonor the Tennessee arms in a servile service by aiding to carry into execution at the point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people.”

Even Inspector General John E. Wool, commanding United States troops in the area, was impressed by the united Cherokee resistance, and warned the Secretary of War not to send any civilians who had any part in the making of the treaty back into the Cherokee country. During the summer of 1837, the Secretary’ of War sent a confidential agent, John Mason, Jr., to observe and report. “Opposition to the treaty is unanimous and irreconcilable,” Mason wrote. “They say it cannot bind them because they did not make it; that it was made by a few unauthorized individuals; that the nation is not party to it.”

The inexorable machinery of government was already in motion, however, and when the expiration date of the waiting period. May 23, 1838, came near, Winfield Scott was ordered in with his army to force compliance. As already stated, Scott issued his proclamation on May 10. His soldiers were already building thirteen stockaded forts — six in North Carolina, five in Georgia, one in Tennessee, and one in Alabama. At these points the Cherokees would be concentrated to await transportation to the West. Scott then ordered the roundup started, instructing his officers not to fire on the Cherokees except in case of resistance. “If we get possession of the women and children first,” he said, “or first capture the men, the other members of the same family will readily come in.”

James Mooney, an ethnologist who afterwards talked with Cherokees who endured this ordeal, said that squads of troops moved into the forested mountains to search out every small cabin and make prisoners of all the occupants however or wherever they might be found. “Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail that led to the stockades. Men were seized in their fields or going along the road, women were taken from their spinning wheels and children from their play. In many cases, on turning for one last look as they crossed a ridge, they saw their homes in flames, fired by the lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and pillage. So keen were these outlaws on the scent that in some instances they were driving off the cattle and other stock of the Indians almost before the soldiers had fairly started their owners in the other direction.”

Long afterward one of the Georgia milinamen who participated in the roundup said: “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the crudest work I ever knew.”

Knowing that resistance was futile, most of the Cherokees surrendered quietly. Within a month, thousands were enclosed in the stockades. On June 6 at Ross’s Landing near the site of present-day Chattanooga, the first of many departures began. Eight hundred Cherokees were forcibly crowded onto a flotilla of six flatboats lashed to the side of a steamboat. After surviving a passage over rough rapids which smashed the sides of the flatboats, they landed at Decatur, Alabama, boarded a railroad train (which was a new and terrifying experience for most of them), and after reaching Tuscumbia were crowded upon a Tennessee River steamboat again.

Throughout June and July similar shipments of several hundred Cherokees were transported by this long water route — north on the Tennessee Raver to the Ohio and then down the Mississippi and up the Arkansas to their new homeland. A few managed to escape and make their way back to the Cherokee country, but most of them were eventually recaptured. Along the route of travel of this forced migration, the summer was hot and dry. Drinking water and food were often contaminated. First the young children would die, then the older people, and sometimes as many as half the adults were stricken with dysentery and other ailments. On each boat deaths ran as high as five per day. On one of the first boats to reach Little Rock, Arkansas, at least a hundred had died. A compassionate lieutenant who was with the military escort recorded in his diary for August 1: “My blood chills as I write at the remembrance of the scenes I have gone through.”

When John Ross and other Cherokee leaders back in the concentration camps learned of the high mortality among those who had gone ahead, they petitioned General Scott to postpone further departures until autumn. Although only three thousand Cherokees had been removed, Scott agreed to wait until the summer drought was broken, or no later than October. The Cherokees in turn agreed to organize and manage the migration themselves. After a lengthy council, they asked and received permission to travel overland in wagons, hoping that by camping along the way they would not suffer as many deaths as occurred among those who had gone on the river boats.

During this waiting period, Scott’s soldiers continued their searches for more than a thousand Cherokees known to be still hiding out in the deep wilderness of the Great Smoky Mountains. These Cherokees had organized themselves under the leadership of a chief named Utsala, and had developed warning systems to prevent captures by the bands of soldiers. Occasionally, however, some of the fugitives were caught and herded back to the nearest stockade.

One of the fugitive families was that of Tsali, an aging Cherokee. With his wife, his brother, three sons and their families, Tsali had built a hideout somewhere on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. Soldiers surrounded their shelters one day, and the Cherokees surrendered without resistance. As they were being taken back toward Fort Cass (Calhoun, Tennessee) a soldier prodded Tsali’s wife sharply with a bayonet, ordering her to walk faster. Angered by the brutality, Tsali grappled wnth the soldier, tore away his rifle, and bayoneted him to the ground. At the same time, Tsali’s brother leaped upon another soldier and bayoneted him. Before the remainder of the military detachment could act, the Cherokees fled, vanishing back into the Smokies where they sought refuge with Chief Utsala. Both bayoneted soldiers died.

Upon learning of the incident, Scott immediatelv ordered that Tsali must be brought in and punisht Because some of his regiments were being transferred elsewhere for other duties, however, the general realized that his reduced force might be occupied for months in hunting down and capturing the escaped Cherokee. He would have to use guile to accomplish the capture of Tsali.

Scott therefore dispatched • a messenger — a white man who had been adopted as a child by the Cherokees — to find Chief Utsala. The messenger was instructed to inform Utsala that if he would surrender Tsaii to General Scott, the Army would withdraw from the Smokies and leave the remaining fugitives alone.

When Chief Utsala received the message, he was suspicious of Scott’s sincerity, but he considered the general’s offer as an opportunity to gain time. Perhaps with the passage of time, the few Cherokees remaining in the Smokies might be forgotten and left alone forever. Utsala put the proposition to Tsali: If he went in and surrendered, he would probably be put to death, but his death might insure the freedom of a thousand fugitive Cherokees.

Tsali did not hesitate. He announced that he would go and surrender to General Scott. To make certain that he was treated well, several members of Tsali’s band went with him.

When the Cherokees reached Scott’s headquarters, the general ordered Tsali. his brother, and three sons arrested, and then condemned them all to be shot to death. To impress upon the tribe their utter helplessness before the might of the government. Scott selected the tiring squad from Cherokee prisoners in one of the stockades. At the last moment, the general spared Tsali’s youngest son because he was only a child.

(By this sacrifice, however, Tsali and his family gave the Smoky Mountain Cherokees a chance at survival in their homeland. Time was on their side, as Chief Utsala had hoped, and that is why today there is a small Cherokee reservation on the North Carolina slope of the Great Smoky Mountains.)

With the ending of the drought of 1838. John Ross and the 13.000 stockaded Cherokees began preparing for their long overland journey to the West. They assembled several hundred wagons, tilled them with blankets, cooking pots, their old people and small children, and moved out in separate contingents along a trail that followed the Hiwassee River. The first party of 1,103 started on October 1.

“At noon all was in readiness for moving,” said an observer of the departure. “The teams were stretched out in a line along the road through a heavy forest, groups of persons formed about each wagon. The day was bright and beautiful, but a gloomy thoughtfulness was depicted in the lineaments of every face. In all the bustle of preparation there was a silence and stillness of the voice that betrayed the sadness of the heart. At length the word was given to move on. Going Snake, an aged and respected chief whose head eighty summers had whitened, mounted on his favorite pony and led the way in silence, followed by a number of younger men on horseback. At this very moment a low sound of distant thunder fell upon my ear… a voice of divine indignation for the wrong of my poor and unhappy countrymen, driven by brutal power from all they loved and cherished in the land of their fathers to gratify the cravings of avarice. The sun was unclouded — no rain fell — the thunder rolled away and seemed hushed in the distance.” .

Throughout October, eleven wagon trains departed and then on November 4, the last Cherokee exiles moved out for the West. The overland route for these endless lines of wagons, horsemen, and people on foot ran from the mouth of the Hiwassee in Tennessee across the Cumberland plateau to McMinnville and then north to Nashville where they crossed the Cumberland Paver. From there they followed an old trail to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and continued northwestward to the Ohio Paver, crossing into southern Illinois near the mouth of the Cumberland. Moving straight westward they passed through Jonesboro and crossed the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Some of the first parties turned southward through Arkansas; the later ones continued westward through Springfield, Missouri, and on to Indian Territory.

A New Englander traveling eastward across Kentucky in November and December met several contingents, each a day apart from the others. “Many of the aged Indians were suffering extremely from the . fatigue of the journey,” he said, “and several were quite ill. Even aged females, apparently nearly ready to drop into the grave, were traveling with heavy burdens attached to their backs — on the sometimes frozen ground and sometimes muddy streets, with no covering for the feet except what nature had given them. . . . We learned from the inhabitants on the road where the Indians passed, that they buried fourteen or fifteen at every stopping place, and they make a journey of ten miles per day only on an average. They will not travel on the Sabbath . . . they must stop, and not merely stop — they must worship the Great Spirit, too; for they had divine service on the Sabbath — a camp meeting in truth.”

Autumn rains softened the roads, and the hundreds of wagons and horses cut them into molasses, slowing movement to a crawl. To add to their difficulties, toll-gate operators overcharged them for passage. Their horses were stolen or seized on pretext of unpaid debts, and they had no recourse to the law. With the coming of cold damp weather, measles and whooping cough became epidemic. Supplies had to be dumped to make room for the sick in the jolting wagons.

By the time the last detachments reached the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau it was January, with the river running full of ice so chat several thousand had to wait on the east bank almost a month before the channel cleared. James Mooney, who later heard the story from survivors, said that “the lapse of over half a century had not sufficed to wipe out the memory of the miseries of that halt beside the frozen river, with hundreds of sick and dying penned up in wagons or stretched upon the ground, with only a blanket overhead to keep out the January blast.”

Meanwhile the parties that had left early in October were beginning to reach Indian Territory. (The first arrived on January 4, 1839.) Each group had lost from thirty to forty members by death. The later detachments suffered much heavier losses, especially toward the end of their journey. Among the victims was the wife of John Ross.

Not until March 1839 did the last of the Cherokees reach their new home in the West. Counts were made of the survivors and balanced against the counts made at the beginning of the removal. As well as could be estimated, the Cherokees had lost about four thousand by deaths — or one out of every four members of the tribe — most of the deaths brought about as the direct result of the enforced removal. From that day to this the Cherokees remember it as “the trail where they cried,” or the Trail of Tears.

From “The Trail of Tears” by Dee Brown in American History Illustrated , June 1972.

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Multi-state: trail of tears national historic trail.

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Guided by policies favored by President Andrew Jackson, who led the country from 1828 to 1837, the Trail of Tears (1837 to 1839) was the forced westward migration of American Indian tribes from the South and Southeast. Land grabs threatened tribes throughout the South and Southeast in the early 1800s. Across the United States, the Federal Government consolidated and relocated tribes to reservations forcing them to surrender their lands in pieces by negotiating one treaty after another with the tribes. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, the impetus for the Trail of Tears, targeted particularly the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southeast. As authorized by the Indian Removal Act, the Federal Government negotiated treaties aimed at clearing Indian-occupied land for white settlers. The Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole were among the resettled tribes. The National Park Service Trail of Tears National Historic Trail interprets the Trail of Tears primarily as it relates to the Cherokee.

Following the Indian Removal Act, a treaty determined the fate of the Cherokee in the eastern United States. Named after the capital of the Cherokee Nation in New Echota, Georgia, the Treaty of New Echota (1835) gave tribal lands east of the Mississippi River to the Federal Government in exchange for $5,000,000. This agreement preserved the Cherokee Nation but at a great cost. Conceived as a land swap, the Treaty of New Echota was a trade of Cherokee land in the East for land in the West. This arrangement relied on the assumption that most would be willing to abandon an established life in the East for a long journey to an unknown life further west. Not all Cherokee walked the Trail of Tears; some remained in North Carolina where they today form the Eastern Band of the Cherokee.

Negotiations between the government and the Cherokee occurred not with official tribal representatives but instead with a group of four men. Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot (also named Buck Watie), and Andrew Ross spoke for the tribe. As soon as word of the actions by this unauthorized group spread, petitions were organized and more than 14,000 signatures were obtained against the treaty. Nevertheless, President Jackson signed the treaty in 1836, and the State of Georgia began to limit the rights of Cherokee. Removal began in 1836 with the first group of Cherokee leaving in 1837 and the majority traveling in 1838. Many went west with little warning, when federal troops drove them from their homes giving them no time to prepare for a long journey. In 1839, most of the group of men who signed the treaty were murdered for signing away Cherokee lands in the East.

The Trail of Tears records the Cherokees’ journey from its beginning, routes along the way, campsites, and the gravesites and disbandment sites that mark the end of the journey. From a “beginning,” soldiers took the Cherokee to forts, emigration depots, or other areas to form them into larger groups (detachments) for the march west. Next, traveling a series of routes, both overland and by water, the Cherokee made the difficult journey. Campsites help document the Cherokee on their journey. Gravesites and disbandment sites are reminders of the hardships the Cherokee experienced not only while going to the Indian Territory in the West, but also in their new lives that began at end of the trail. Rather than one Trail of Tears, several routes with different origins and destinations in more than a half-dozen States tell the story. This description of the Trail of Tears is able to highlight only a handful of the interesting sites for visitors to see on the Trail of Tears.

Beginnings The removal of the Cherokee began in 1838 under the leadership of General Winfield Scott who, with 7,000 soldiers and members of various State militias, escorted the Cherokee and other Indians west. At the time of removal, the Cherokee were primarily in Georgia, though tribal lands extended into Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and other States. At New Echota, Georgia, the pro-treaty faction of the Cherokee signed away Cherokee lands in Appalachia and began the removal process. Negotiations for the treaty--despite a petition and vote to reject the terms--took place at nearby Red Clay Council Ground, approximately 13 miles south of Cleveland. Visitors to Red Clay Council Ground can see where the meeting occurred and view exhibits on the Cherokee. Five miles northeast of Cleveland is Rattlesnake Springs, an assembly site and location of the last council of the Cherokee before their westward removal. Here, the Cherokee resolved, despite relocation, to carry on Cherokee culture, language, and traditions in the new land. For many, the long walk west began in earnest from Rattlesnake Springs. Perhaps as many as 13,000 Cherokee left from here, though not all would reach Indian Territory. In all, 4,000 Cherokee died on the way to present-day Oklahoma.

Before leaving, the Cherokee were an established people. The partially reconstructed Cherokee capital at New Echota is accessible for visitors to tour the home and school of Samuel Worcester, a print shop (from which pro-treaty faction member Elias Boudinot edited the English and Cherokee-language  Cherokee Phoenix ), the tribal Supreme Court Building, and a relocated tavern. As the tribal capital for 13 years (1825-1838), New Echota was the legislative, judicial, and literary center of Cherokee culture. In addition to constructing government buildings at New Echota, some Cherokee built substantial homes. The Georgia residences of two major Cherokee leaders, Chief John Ross and Major Ridge, remain and are open for tours. The Ross House is in Rossville, Georgia and the plantation home of Major Ridge is in Rome, Georgia. Built by a wealthy Cherokee family, the Vann Home (1804), at Spring Place, Georgia also is still standing and open to the public. Most other evidence of Cherokee settlement is gone.

From these homes and other buildings that no longer remain, the Cherokee were driven to cramped, unhealthy assembly centers in each State which served as temporary holding locations from which larger groups would then go to one of three emigration depots. Though the Trail of Tears began with the forcing of individuals from their homes, the National Park Service interprets the trail as primarily having three trailheads--the emigration depots at Fort Cass (near Charleston, Tennessee), Ross’s Landing (near Chattanooga, Tennessee) and near Fort Payne (Alabama). While changed from its days as a ferry landing and starting point for many of the Cherokee, Ross’s Landing has an outdoor Trail of Tears exhibit. From these starting points, thousands of Cherokee traveled an average of 1,000 miles to the lands they had received in the Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma.

Routes Most of the displaced Cherokee walked west on the roads, although some went by boat. Rounded up into assembly centers, sent to emigration depots, and then herded west, most Cherokee followed the overland route of Lieutenant B.B. Cannon. Cannon led a group of Cherokee who voluntarily relocated west in 1837. Armed soldiers flushed the Cherokee out of their homes and stripped them of valuable possessions. Tightly packed in holding centers, they found that food and water were scarce and disease and death were common. From those assembled at Rattlesnake Springs, for example, 13 organized detachments made the journey west. While most walked, the infirm and mothers with young children traveled in wagons. Space was limited because food, blankets, and other supplies occupied most of the room. Those who were still alive five months later found themselves in Indian Territory.

Of the 17 total detachments of Cherokee that traveled along the Trail of Tears, the majority went by foot. Those who walked to present-day Oklahoma left mostly between August and November 1838, following a variety of overland routes. As tens of thousands of feet stepped west and wagon train after wagon train followed, the travelers wore down both new paths and old. The Springfield to Fayetteville road segment near Elkhorn Tavern close to Pea Ridge was the supply link between Springfield, Missouri and Fort Smith Arkansas before the Civil War. In 1838, it carried more than mail and goods, as thousands of Cherokee were marched along the road. Today, visitors to Pea Ridge can see part of the path the Cherokee took and learn more about the march west on the park’s auto tour route. Some Cherokee who traveled west on the Trail of Tears returned to fight at Pea Ridge during the Civil War. Other trail locations feature portions of the Memphis to Little Rock Road, along which the Cherokee traveled. Some intact segments are visible today at Village Creek State Park, near Newcastle, Arkansas, or on Henard Cemetery Road, near Zent, Arkansas.

Campsites The long march took the Cherokee and their military escorts several months. At campsites, the travelers spent a few nights resting between stages of the trip or waiting for weather conditions to improve so they could continue west. Locations like Mantle Rock, today part of Mantle Rock Nature Preserve near Smithland in Livingston County, Kentucky, contain part of the roadbed used by the Cherokee and a Cherokee campsite. A large natural sandstone arch, Mantle Rock, offered a good shelter for the Cherokee. Not all campsites were in ideal locations. Continuing from Mantle Rock, the 11 of 13 overland detachments of Cherokee that passed through the area next crossed the Ohio River by ferry from Kentucky to Illinois. The ferry could only transport a limited number at any one time, forcing the Cherokee camped at Mantle Rock to wait. An unusually cold winter froze both the Ohio and Mississippi rivers halting the last detachment at Mantle Rock. This waiting in cramped, often unhealthy, conditions meant that some of the Cherokee died at Mantle Rock.

Gravesites and Disbandment Sites Burial sites of Cherokee who died while at Mantle Rock are largely unknown. Other gravesites along the trial have markers. Whitepath and Fly Smith, two Cherokee elders, traveled in the second detachment and died near Hopkinsville, Kentucky in October of 1838 along the highway from Nashville to Hopkinsville. Honored as elders and defenders of Cherokee traditions and culture, they lie in well-marked graves within the local Trail of Tears Park. Visitors to the park can see their graves and learn more about Cherokee culture at a heritage center.  The Cherokee who successfully made the trip west “exited” the Trail of Tears at disbandment sites like Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. Today, the fort and surrounding land are open to visitors. Other groups simply began to spread out upon reaching the Indian Territory. At the time of its construction in 1824, Fort Gibson was on the southwestern edge of “settled” land and was the main presence of the Federal Government on the western frontier.

Having endured the long removal process west, the Cherokee in the Indian Territory began building a new life in Tahlequah, the new tribal capital. The Indian Territory combined with the Oklahoma Territory in 1907 to form the State of Oklahoma. Some families, like the Murrells, rebuilt successful lives in Oklahoma despite the removal process. Visitors can tour the Murrell Home and grounds in Park Hill just outside Tahlequah, Oklahoma.  A people with a strong commitment to maintaining their cultural identity, the Cherokee survived the Trail of Tears. Amid great personal loss and circumstances difficult to imagine today, individual Cherokees emerged as protectors of the people and culture. One of these leaders, Chief John Ross, who was influential before removal and a source of constancy amid change, lies buried near Tahlequah at Ross Cemetery in Park Hill, Oklahoma. The area around this cemetery was one of the first places the Cherokee established themselves after coming west. The cemetery is open to visitors who can see the grave of John Ross as well as other family members. Beginning a new life in a new land was not easy, and the graveyard documents both the life of Chief John Ross and the difficulties faced by settlers in the Indian Territory.

The Trail of Tears is a story of conquest, but it is also a story of victory. The Cherokee still speak their language today and tribal traditions endure--testaments to the strength of a people, resolute in their desire to preserve their culture and heritage on their way for hundreds of miles to life in a new land.

The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, a unit of the National Park System, stretches across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. For more information, visit the National Park Service  Trail of Tears National Historic Trail  website or call 505-988-6098. To assist with planning your visit, view trail-related sites listed by State at  Places to Go  and a list of trail-related sites managed by the Federal Government on  Nearby Attractions . Other locations along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail listed in the National Register may be found  here . Not all of these sites are open to the public and some may be on private land. A list of certified trail locations that specifically encourage public access is also available on the trail’s  website . Rattlesnake Springs, the John Ross house, and the Major Ridge house are also the subject of an online lesson plan,  The Trail of Tears and the Forced Relocation of the Cherokee Nation . The lesson plan has been produced by the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places program, which offers a series of online classroom-ready lesson plans on registered historic places. • Red Clay Council Ground is part of  Red Clay State Park •  New Echota Historic Site ; a  National Historic Landmark •  John Ross House ; a  National Historic Landmark •  Major Ridge Plantation Home;  a  National Historic Landmark •  Vann Home ;  Historic American Buildings Survey •  Ross’s Landing •  Springfield to Fayetteville Road - Elkhorn Tavern Segment, Pea Ridge National Military Park •  Memphis to Little Rock Road - Village Creek Segment, Village Creek State Park •  Mantle Rock Nature Preserve ; National Register of Historic Places file:  text  and  photos . •  Whitepath and Fly Smith Gravesite in Trail of Tears Commemorative Park ; National Register of Historic Places file:  text  and  photos .  •  Fort Gibson ; a  National Historic Landmark ;  Historic American Buildings Survey . •  Murrell Home ; a  National Historic Landmark ; National Register of Historic Places file:  text  and  photos ;  Historic American Buildings Survey . •  Ross Cemetery  (located near the Murrell Home in Park Hill, OK); National Register of Historic Places file:  text  and  photos

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Last updated: August 10, 2017

Home — Essay Samples — History — Trail of Tears — A Latent Genocide: Historic Background of the Trail of Tears

A Latent Genocide: Historic Background of The Trail of Tears

• Categories: Trail of Tears

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Published: Aug 16, 2019

Words: 1383 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

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Introduction, historic background, legal controversy over the cherokee removal, the trail of tears as latent genocide.

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5 THINGS TO KNOW: How to participate in annual Trail of Tears Memorial Walk

May 1—The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma gives information on how to participate in this year's Trail of Tears Memorial Walk in Tvshka Homma on May 18.

1 What is the Trail of Tears Memorial Walk?

The annual walk is held to honor the Choctaws that were forced to march from their homelands in Alabama and Mississippi, to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. With the first wave in 1831, Choctaws were the first tribe to cover the Trail of Tears.

This year marks the 193rd anniversary of the first Choctaws who journeyed from their ancestral homes. Around one-quarter of those who were removed perished on the journey.

2 Who can participate in the walk?

Members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and all others wanting to honor and remember those tribal ancestors who made the original Trail of Tears journey in the 1830s are invited to join in.

3 What other events will be held before the walk?

Gates will open on the Living Village of the historic capitol grounds at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 18. In the Living Village before the walk begins, member service booths will be available with live cultural demonstrations.

Opening ceremonies will begin at 10 a.m. and will include prayer, a presentation by Choctaw Royalty, and an address by Chief Gary Batton. Chief Batton, Assistant Chief Jack Austin Jr., and the Choctaw Honor Guard are scheduled to lead the walk.

4 How long is the walk?

The walk is 2.5 miles. Water stations will be placed throughout the walk.

5 How many people on average participate in the walk?

An average of 500 tribal members participate in the walk every year with more present to show their support.

—Derrick James

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72 The Trail of Tears Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best the trail of tears topic ideas & essay examples, 🥇 most interesting the trail of tears topics to write about, 📌 simple & easy the trail of tears essay titles, ❓ trail of tears research questions.

• Summary of “Trail of Tears” by John Ehle This analysis by John Ehle is about the rise and fall of the Cherokee nation resulting from the forced removal of the Cherokees who were Native Americans from their ancestral lands in Georgia to the […]
• “Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears” by Robert Conley The book under consideration in this paper, “Mountain Windsong: A novel of the trail of tears” by Robert Conley depicts the events of those times showing the tragedy of the Indian people of the Cherokee […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Native Americans History: Trail of Tears Therefore, The Trail of Tears was a battle between the Europeans and Native Americans, often referred to as the American Holocaust because it completely outcast a group of people due to the fact they were […]
• Cherokee Removal: The Trail of Tears, 1833-1839 Thus, I should state that the Cherokees had many reasons to discuss the forced relocation as the ‘Trail of Tears’ because they suffered significantly and saw a lot of deaths during the journey.
• Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation However, the primary advantage of the book is that it presents a different perspective and casts light on some facts of relationships between Native and White Americans that people, whether intentionally or not, tend to […]
• The Keys of Territorial Expansion: The Trail of Tears The parties opposing the removal were advancing their arguments around the following points; one of them is that the US should implement policies that were applicable to the cases of the affected and that they […]
• The Trail of Tears: Historical Overview The trail of tears was a term that was used to refer to the forced movement and the relocation of these native Indians tribes.
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• What Is “The Trail of Tears” and What Happened?
• What Was the Reason for “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Are Facts About “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Many Days Did It Take To Walk “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Did “The Trail of Tears” End?
• How Long Did “The Trail of Tears” Last?
• Who Tried to Stop “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Tribes Walked “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Many Survived “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Many Native Americans Were Killed by “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Percent of People Died in “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Was It Like Walking “The Trail of Tears”?
• Can You Walk the Whole “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Many Months Did It Take to Travel “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Did the Native Americans Eat on “The Trail of Tears”?
• Who Was the First Tribe on “The Trail of Tears”?
• Who Was the Last Survivor of “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Tribe Was Most Affected by “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Many of the Cherokees Died on “The Trail of Tears”?
• Does “The Trail of Tears” Still Exist?
• Where Is “The Trail of Tears” Now?
• What Did the Cherokee Call “The Trail of Tears”?
• How Much Is “The Trail of Tears”?
• Who Was President During “The Trail of Tears”?
• What Was One of the Major Causes of Death Along “The Trail of Tears” for the Cherokee People?
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