The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation of Native American nations from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act. It was a tragic and deadly journey, with thousands dying along the trails from exposure, disease, and starvation.
When did the Trail of Tears occur?
The Trail of Tears occurred in the 1830s. The Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, which allowed the government to negotiate removal treaties with Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River. The Cherokee nation was forced to sign a removal treaty in 1835 and began their journey west in 1838. Over 15,000 Cherokee were removed from their homes in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina and marched west. Thousands died along the journey west, which became known as the Trail of Tears.
What Native American nations were affected?
The main nations affected by Indian removal and the Trail of Tears were the Five Civilized Tribes – the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole nations. Other nations affected included the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Delaware, Seneca, Shawnee, and Miami people. Over 60,000 Native Americans were forcibly relocated westward.
Why were Native Americans forced to relocate west?
Native Americans were forced from their homelands in order for the U.S. government to open up more land for white settlement and agricultural development in the Southeast. There was immense pressure from white settlers to remove Natives and take their resource-rich lands. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the government to exchange Native-held lands in the East for lands west of the Mississippi River. Despite legal battles and resistance, the U.S. army eventually enforced the treaties and removals.
Was the Trail of Tears a voluntary relocation?
No, the Trail of Tears was in no way a voluntary relocation. Native Americans were forced by the U.S. government to leave their homes and ancestral lands where they had lived for centuries. Despite opposition and legal battles against removal, the Indian Removal Act allowed the government to use coercion, deception, intimidation, and military force to drive Native Americans westward.
How many Native Americans died on the Trail of Tears?
It is estimated that over 15,000 Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw people died on the Trail of Tears due to starvation, disease, and exposure. However, exact numbers are difficult to determine and death toll estimates range from 2,000 to 8,000 to as high as 15,000. Thousands died in the poorly planned removals, in the internment camps awaiting removal, or on the long treks westward. The journey west was endured through bitter winter cold and oppressive heat, leading to widespread sickness and death.
What were the primary causes of death?
The primary causes of death were disease, starvation, exhaustion, and exposure to the extreme weather conditions. Many were already weak and malnourished when they began the forced marches west. The lack of food, supplies, blankets, medicine, and shelter then exacerbated the spread of diseases like measles, whooping cough, typhus, cholera, dysentery, and pneumonia. Thousands died from hypothermia or heat stroke on the long treks in freezing winter rains or hot summer sun.
What routes did the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw nations take?
The different nations were forced along several land and water routes west. Many of the Cherokee and Creek traveled over land – hiking from Alabama and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas up to Oklahoma. Around 4,000 Cherokee died on this march. Other Cherokee as well as Choctaw traveled by steamboat and barge along waterways like the Tennessee River and Mississippi River to their new lands. Some Seminole were shipped from Florida to New Orleans then marched overland to Oklahoma. Various paths known as the Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee Trails of Tears forked off at different points leading west.
How many total miles did the Cherokee march?
The Cherokee were forced to travel over 1,000 miles from their homelands in the Southeast to the designated Indian Territory in current-day Oklahoma. Groups like those led by Chief John Ross left Alabama and Georgia, traveling north into Tennessee, through Kentucky, southern Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas before reaching Indian Territory after a devastating four-month journey of over 1,000 miles.
What role did President Andrew Jackson play in the Trail of Tears?
President Andrew Jackson played a central role in the Trail of Tears as he strongly supported Indian removal policies to open up more land for white settlers. Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, negotiated many of the removal treaties himself, and enforced these policies while president. Some even attribute the phrase “Trail of Tears” directly to Jackson since he drove the engines behind this cultural genocide, although the victimized Native Americans were the first to use it.
Was Andrew Jackson of Native American ancestry himself?
Ironically, some historical records suggest Andrew Jackson may have had Native American ancestry himself – including Creek and/or Cherokee heritage through his mothers side or a grandfather. However, he never claimed this ancestry and demonstrated no allegiance to Native populations, instead vigorously pushing forward legislation to drive indigenous tribes from their lands against their will.
How did Native Americans initially react to the Indian Removal Act?
The majority of Native Americans steadfastly opposed relocation under the Indian Removal Act and many refused to willingly leave their homelands. The Choctaw were the first forced out, then groups like the Seminole and Creek violently resisted the forced removals, leading the U.S. army to overpower them to enforce the law. Cherokee leaders brought their case against removal to the Supreme Court but lost. However they still refused and had to be forcibly marched out at gunpoint.
Did any Native Americans want to move west or voluntarily relocate?
While some leadership believed removal was inevitable and reluctantly agreed to U.S. government terms, the vast majority of Native Americans did not wish to leave their ancestral homelands. Most were involuntarily forced out by armed US troops carrying out brutal evictions ordered by President Jackson. However, small factions and scouts did voluntarily migrate west earlier in groups like Oklahoma’s “Old Settlers.” But these were a minority not representative of entire nations suddenly uprooted against their will.
What hardships did Native Americans face on the Trail of Tears?
Native Americans endured immense hardships and adversities on these forced marches west that made up the Trail of Tears. Having been forcibly driven from homes and land they had occupied for centuries, they then had to march hundreds of miles with limited food, supplies, and blankets through difficult terrain and temperature extremes. Thousands became sick with fever, frostbite, pneumonia and starved. The elderly, children and babies were most affected, but death ravaged entire populations on this devastating journey many were ill-prepared to survive.
What provisions were the Native Americans given?
The Native Americans were largely provided few provisions by the US government both for their relocation marches and once settled in new designated land in Oklahoma. In fact corruption led to insufficient food, blankets, shoes, medicine and shelter for the tens of thousands forced west, dooming many to disease and starvation. The trauma and upheaval also led to despair and many emotional hardships both during and after their marches along what became known as the trails of tears.
Were Native Americans able to bring any of their belongings?
When the removal order was given, Native Americans were generally only allowed to bring what personal items they could carry, and much was left behind. There was no time or supply wagons to carry extensive household goods, farming tools, or herds of animals they relied on. Items that held sentimental value like ceremonial or artistic objects made the journey, but space was scarce. Most possessions had to be abandoned, stolen, or taken over by incoming settlers against their will as they were driven out.
Could they bring the remains of tribal ancestors on the Trail of Tears?
No, Native Americans were unable to bring the physical remains of their ancestors or tribe members who had passed away previously. This was emotionally devastating, as they were very spiritually connected to their ancestral burial grounds. They had to leave everything behind, and the gravesites of chiefs, warriors, mothers and fathers all rested in homelands now off limits and controlled by white settlers. The sorrow over abandoning their ancestral resting places added profound grief and trauma to the Trail of Tears.
Where did Native American lands originally come from?
Native American tribal lands originally came from ancestral domains that indigenous nations like the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole had inhabited for hundreds of years. Lands east of the Mississippi River were slowly taken or given up in various treaties as American settlers expanded west. But these Five Civilized Tribes continued ruling large areas of the American Southeast into the 1800s when they were forcibly expelled under the Indian Removal Act.
Did the Native Americans legally own the land taken from them?
Yes, the Five Civilized Tribes did legally own millions of acres of land in the Southeastern United States into the early 1800s as self-governing nations. However American settlers and the US government increasingly agitated to take over these lands not terra nullius open for claims. Despite legal ownership and treaties granting the lands, President Andrew Jackson pushed through the Indian Removal Act in 1830 to create bogus treaties. US Supreme Court Chief Justice at the time John Marshall even ruled the Cherokee owned their Georgia territory legally – a ruling ignored during these forced removals.
What were some of the most devastating and deadly crossings?
Some of the most devastating crossings were suffered by the Cherokee Nation during the frigid winter months of 1838-1839. Nearly a quarter of the tribe perished from disease, starvation and bitter cold during the march from Tennessee through Kentucky, Southern Illinois and Missouri into Eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas. Those marching over water also suffered deadly tragedies. Hundreds of Creek tribe members drowned when the boats transporting them across the Mississippi capsized.
What role did the weather play?
The weather played a major role in the devastation of Native American groups along the Trail of Tears. Late fall and winter crossings led vulnerable members to succumb to hypothermia, pneumonia and frailty. Those forced to make summer crossings suffered from heat stroke, dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever from spoiled food and contaminated water sources. Storms caused flooding that drowned tribe members or forced them to seek shelter under crude lean-tos providing little safety from the elements.
How many tribes were affected in total by the Trail of Tears?
In total around 100,000 Native Americans from dozens of tribes across the Eastern United States and later Canada were impacted by Indian Removal policies leading to various Trails of Tears. The most well-known removals along the main Southern route affected 17,000 Cherokee, as well as 16,000 Muscogee Creek, 2,200 Seminoles, 12,500 Choctaws, 1,000 Shawnees and hundreds of Chickasaws. Smaller groups of Kickapoos, Potawatomis, Mascoutens, Senecas, Wyandots and Lenape tribes suffered relocation. Overall tribes representing indigenous heritage across America endured similar devastating forced migrations.
Were any Canadian First Nation tribes affected?
Yes, the US administration also pressured indigenous tribes in parts of Canada it controlled during this expansionist era to move from coveted areas. Notably America strongarmed around 12,000 Chippewa and other Great Lakes region bands in Upper Canada to relocate from the northern Ohio River Valley during this period through tactic malnutrition. So Trail of Tears campaigns also impacted First Nations people as the US sought more land and resources Northward as well.
How did Native Americans keep their culture alive?
Native Americans sought to keep their culture alive through oral traditions, passing down language, spiritual practices, music, food traditions, tribal history and symbolic art forms to their children and future generations despite the Trail of Tears trauma. Leaders worked to maintain cultural identify in displacement and laws aimed to destroy traditions. Some Cherokee still return to homelands back east to practice seasonal ceremonies, gathering rare plants and conducting rituals revitalizing their uprooted culture.
What Native American traditions are still practiced today?
Many Native Americans still practice age-old cultural traditions and spiritual rituals today tied to nature, ancestry and oral history. This includes honoring sacred animals like eagles and wolves in dance and ceremony. Daily cultural acts like making traditional Cherokee river cane baskets or certain Pueblo oven breads keeps heritage alive. Tribes still perform cleansing sweat lodges, seasonal indigenous dances, ancestral storytelling and coming-of-age vision quests. Native craftwork, sports festivals and foods also connect younger generations to their roots.
Conclusion
The Trail of Tears stands as a dark, devastating moment in American history that profoundly impacted generations of Native Americans. The forced removals of the 1830s violently drove indigenous people from ancestral homelands to make way for US expansionism westward, showing callous disregard for tribes that had inhabited areas for hundreds of years prior. The journey resulted in thousands of deaths from exposure, disease and starvation of vulnerable populations marched by soldiers over 1,000 miles under brutal conditions. Cultural traditions were uprooted and tribal connections to revered lands severed, creating trauma that resonates with affected indigenous tribes to this day. However Native peoples showed resilience and resistance, striving to maintain spiritual practices, languages, art forms and histories despite policies aiming to eradicate their way of life. The complex saga of the Trail of Tears must be remembered – dwelling on its legacy of suffering but also understanding how tribes retained identity in its aftermath.
