The Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears                                                                                                             

The long march, usually more than 1000 miles, in which thousands of Native Americans and others accompanying them perished, was known as the “Trail of Tears”.    

Although the forced removal of Native Americans began before the nineteenth century, the term “Trail of Tears” is most commonly associated with the “Five Civilized Tribes”. 

Shortages of wagons, food, livestock and other supplies made their march even more difficult, not to mention harsh, unforgiving weather. 

Native peoples included the Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw along with European Americans who had intermarried, 2,000 African-American freed men (slaves who had been freed by their owners) and other slaves, from their homelands in the Deep South to Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma.   

In 1831 the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek and Seminole, “The Five Civilized Tribes”,  were living as free and sovereign nations in America’s Southeast.

Five Civilized Tribes:  Those Native Americans considered “civilized” by Anglo-American settlers during the early colonial period (17^th century to early 18^th century) by adopting practices of western civilization including private property; permanent homes; agriculture performed by men, not women; education;  converting to Christianity.

The fixed boundaries of these autonomous tribal nations comprised large areas of the U.S. and were subjected to continued yielding of their rights to others, and annexation prior to 1830.  The reason was    they were pressured from squatters and the threat of military force in newly declared U.S. territories. 

As these territories became U.S. states, the state governments dissolved the boundaries of the Indian Nations within their borders and proceeded to expropriate the land.   These federally administered regions’ boundaries were in addition to Native Treaty claims which were ignored.    

With the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, President Andrew Jackson continued his political and military measures to remove these people even though former President George Washington and Henry Knox, who served under General Washington in the American Revolutionary War, were in favor of a gradual transformation which gained favor especially among the Cherokee and the Choctaw. 

But, the President chose to ignore the opposition and aggressively pursued the relocation of these people.          

In 1831 the Choctaws were removed; the Seminoles’ in 1832; the Creeks in 1834; the Chickasaws in 1837; the Cherokees in 1838.

By 1837, 46,000 Native Americans had been forcibly removed from their homelands thereby opening up 25 million acres of land for settlement by others.

The Trail of Tears was a tragic stain on this country’s history even as many European Americans and others voiced their strong opposition to it.          

Thousands died on this long march:  the old, the infirmed, sons and fathers, mothers and         

daughters, grandparents, newborns and children.

There is no way we can even begin to calculate the needless loss and suffering imposed upon these people and what they experienced.