The Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears

The Cherokee being forcefully moved while the soldiers dig up graves and carry rifles to keep them in line. (R. Michalson Galleries)

Imagine that you were having a nice family dinner and a stranger intrudes your home holding a rifle or a bayonet. This stranger then states that you and all of your community have to leave your homeland. Now you have to travel to a new designated place because your home is on valuable land. While you are leaving, your loved dead one's graves are being dug up and your home looted for goods. You have to travel across states during an extra cold winter only bringing along what you can carry in your hands. This definitely sounds like a terrible scenario. However, this is not a scenario at all because this is exactly what happened to the Cherokee Indians. 

Soldiers forcibly removing the Cherokee from their home. (Zinn Education Project)

The settlers illegally removed the Cherokees of Georgia who resisted with legal action. When the Georgia government threatened to take the Cherokee land, the Cherokees took this case to court. The U.S. Supreme Court realized how unjust this was and surprisingly ruled in favor of the Cherokee. To the Cherokee, this was an exciting victory. However, even though the Cherokees were legally protected, the Georgia government ignored this decision. President Jackson stated that "Mr. Marshall made his decision, now enforce it." Less surprisingly, the law was never enforced. This must have been extremely frustrating for the Cherokee; the law gave them protection in words but not in actions. 

In 1831, the Georgia government began to remove the Native tribes from their land. The Choctaws were the first to be removed by the army and were forced to travel to Oklahoma. In 1835, the Cherokee "agreed" to accept Western land and payment in exchange for their homeland. This is known as the Treaty of New Echota which was used to justify the forced removal. However, this treaty was not in fact just. According to National Park Service, there were only 300 to 500 Cherokees there and none of them were elected officials of the Cherokee nation. Only 20 signed the treaty. Twenty signatures from random Cherokee people? Yeah, that definitely makes it ok to remove 
17, 000 Cherokees now. Not only was removing the native tribes illegal but the treaty they used to justify it was illegal too! Fifteen thousand Cherokee members protested this treaty but in 1836, it was passed by Supreme Court by just one vote. The Cherokee ended up murdering the 20 people who signed the treaty. It was because of the 20 men who signed, 17,000 people lost their home since now it seemed that removing them was justified. 

The Cherokees trudging through the cold snow while members of their community are dying along the way. (sites.google).

Many of you may have heard about Black Hawk. No, not the hockey team, the actual man. In 1832, Sauk leader Black Hawk lead his tribe back to their homeland to plant corn. The soldiers believed the Natives were invading them when in reality it was the other way around. This is when the Black Hawk War occurred. Black Hawk ended up surrendering, but the soldiers still shot at their people. Black Hawk claimed, "the white man is so bad, they could not live on our land if they were Indians." As Black Hawk indicates the soldiers were very cruel and showed no mercy.

The sad, silent, cold and crying Cherokees. (New Vitruvian)

The Trail of Tears occurred in 1838. According to Dunbar Roxanne Ortiz, it was a dangerous journey from Georgia and Alabama to Oklahoma. According to James Mooney, "troops were sent to search out with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away and to seize all occupants as prisoners." Families at dinner, men at work, and children at play were all seized. Also according to Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, "The soldiers even robbed the dead in graves of any valuables." This shows how greedy the soldiers were. A Georgia volunteer, a colonial in the Confederate service, stated: “I fought through a Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew.”

All of this occurred during the winter: an unusually cold winter. The snow was frozen on the ground and there were huge masses of ice in the river. The wounded, old men, and newborn babies were brought on a train. The Cherokees did not have a tent or a wagon, but only their hands to carry any valuables. According to U.S. History.org, the Cherokees were marched westward at gunpoint. A quarter of them died during the journey, and the rest were left to seek survival in a completely foreign land. Twelve groups of about 1,000 had to travel 800 miles. Two-thirds of the Cherokees were trapped between ice bound Ohio and the Mississippi River during January. Just think about being trapped in Ohio in the middle of January with barely any equipment. This must have been miserable. According to the National Park Service, a survivor recalled hearing "Women's cry and make sad wails. Children cry and many men cry...but they say nothing and just put heads down and keep on going toward the West. Many days pass and people die very much." Elizur Butler who accompanied the Cherokee's missionary doctor claimed 4,000 Cherokee died on the journey. The Native tribes cried for the loss of their homeland and loved ones as they trudged along their difficult journey creating the trail of tears.

There is now a park in Birchwood, Tennesse in memory of the removed Cherokee. (Tennesse tourism).

Works Cited

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. "An Indigenous Peoples'."

"The Trail of Tears- Indian Removal." U.S. History. Accessed April 27, 2019, http://www.ushistory.org/us/24f.asp. 

"Trail of Tears." National Park Service. Accessed April 27,       2019, https://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/stories.htm. 

"A Brief History of the Cherokee Nation." Cherokee Nation. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://cherokee.org/About-The-Nation/History/Trail-of-Tears/A-Brief-History-of-the-Trail-of-Tears. 

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