Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears

A few Cherokee Indians were tricked into signing a contract in which they agreed that their whole tribe would relocate to an Indian Reservation. Most of the Cherokee refused to leave their land. However, the United States government forced them off their land by bringing in the army under the leadership of General Winfield Scott. Beginning in 1838, 12,000 Cherokees began the long and deadly journey, but fewer than 8000 made it to their destination.

The Trail of Tears

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 for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property.

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. 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.

BrainPop Trail of Tears: https://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/trailoftears/

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 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.

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; committed mass murder; and squatted on land that did not belong to them.

"Without any waring the troops burst into Cherokee homes, dragged the people outside, and drove them toward staging camps. Anyone moving too slowly was prodded by a soldier's bayonet. Following the soldiers the neighboring whites would sweep the Cherokee homes of personal possessions. Like pirates, the whites stuffed sacks with pots, pans, silverware, and musical instruments, all looted from Cherokee houses and cabins"

Social Studies Techbook: https://bcps.discoveryeducation.com/learn/player/c715ae28-fc9d-4d2d-99ec-2135daf87e8c

Red Clay Council Group

…We are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is non to regard our complaints…We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumed the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty. We are overwhelmed!...And therefore, we, the parties to be affected by the result, appeal with confidence to the justice, the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of the compact, in the formation of which we have no agency.

Red Clay Council

Group

Social Studies Techbook:

https://bcps.discoveryeducation.com/learn/player/5d8acf3b-cc57-4f3f-8c99-7676185ce10e

Transcript

of

Andrew Jackson

“It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.

Transcript

of

Andrew

Jackson

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on account of the Indians. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good directions, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.”