Trail of Tears

The **Trail of Tears** was a forced movement of Native Americans in the United States between 1836 and 1839. The United States government forced Native Americans to leave their lands and move outside the United States. The U.S. then took over the Native Americans' lands and made them part of the country. Many Cherokee died from the harsh weather, disease, or the lack of food and water.

Because thousands of Native Americans died during the forced move, it is called the "Trail of Tears."

## Reasons

In 1827, gold was found near Dahlonega, Georgia, which caused a gold rush.  However, a Native American nation, the Cherokee, then lived in Georgia. Many Cherokee children went to American schools. The Cherokee had their own newspaper and built three-story houses. Some even owned slaves.

Even so, U.S. President Andrew Jackson wanted this land to belong to the United States. The land was worth over $7,000,000 (about $179.5 million in 2015 U.S. dollars).  Jackson signed a law that forced the Cherokee to move, called the Indian Removal Act. However, the Cherokee then had their own nation and their own government. They did not have to follow laws made by the United States. Therefore, Jackson signed laws that let him take nearly all the Cherokee's rights.

The Cherokee did not want to accept those laws or the Indian Removal Act and so their chief, John Ross, decided to try to defend the Cherokee rights through the United States courts. In 1832, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the Cherokee were living in their own country "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force."  It also decided Georgia had no right to make the Cherokee do anything.

Nevertheless, the U.S. government used a treaty, called the Treaty of New Echota, to remove the Cherokee nation by force. The treaty was signed by the leader of a small group of Cherokee that had different opinions from those of the rest of the antion.  Since the treaty was not signed by an official Cherokee leader, it was not legal under Cherokee law.  About 15,000 Cherokee signed a petition against the treaty.  Newspapers and people around the United States (including U.S. Representative John Quincy Adams) protested the treaty.<sup>pp. 36, 41</sup>  The U.S. Senate approved the treaty by just one vote. Jackson signed the treaty into law on May 23, 1836. The treaty gave the Cherokee two years to leave their lands.<sup>p. 36</sup>

## Forced removal

The deadline for the Cherokee to leave their land voluntarily was on May 23, 1838.<sup>p. 36</sup>  President Martin Van Buren sent General winfield Scott to lead the soldiers who would force the Cherokee to leave.<sup>p. 41</sup> Scott ordered his soldiers to "show every possible kindness to the Cherokee and to arrest any soldier who [gave] a [cruel] injury or insult [to] any Cherokee man, woman, or child."

On May 26, the operation began, and 7,000 soldiers forced about 15,000 Cherokee and 2,000 of their slaves to leave their land. All Cherokee had to leave their homes right away. Within three weeks, the Cherokee were all forced into internment camps and were forced to stay there for the summer of 1838;<sup>pp. 41–42</sup>  353 of them died from dysentery and other diseases.

Finally, Chief Ross got Scott to agree to a deal. Ross promised that he and other Cherokee leaders would bring the Cherokee people to their new lands on their own. Scott agreed and even got the U.S. Army to pay the costs for the trip.

The Cherokee traveled in groups of 1,000 to 3,000 people on three main routes.  Different groups started in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Guntersville, Alabama; and Charleston, Tennessee. Most Cherokee had to walk; others, if they were wealthy, could use wagons. The U.S. government also gave the Cherokee about 660 wagons.

The trip was about 1,200 miles long. During the trip, the Cherokee had to deal with winter weather, blizzards, and diseases. Not everybody agrees on how many people died on the trip. Some say 2,000, and others say 6,000, but most say that it was about 4,000 people. That was one out of every four people in the Cherokee population.  They died from diseases like pneumonia, from freezing to death, from drinking bad water, and from other causes.  About half of them died in camps, and the other half during the trip.

It is said that many Cherokee sang a Cherokee version of the song "Amazing Grace", which became a kind of anthem for the nation.

Finally, the Cherokee who were still alive arrived in what is now Oklahoma.

## Routes

There were different routes that the Cherokee took. Some were by land and others by water. Some boats were destroyed, which was a danger on water routes. On the ground, people had to walk through mud and cold weather, which made it harder to walk on land.

### Water route

This route was taken by three groups that had a total of 2,800 Cherokee. The first group left on June 6 and reached the territory after 13 days. All of the groups started at Ross's Landing, on the Tennessee River, and used boats to travel to the Ohio River. They then took it southward, which took them to the Mississippi River. From there, they moved westward on the Arkansas River. They arrived near Fort Coffee, Oklahoma. The second and third groups had a lot of problems with diseases, which their trip take longer.

### Land routes

All of the others took land routes. They traveled in groups with a size of 700 to 1,600 people, all led by conductors chosen by Chief Ross, except for those who had signed the Treaty of New Enchota, who were led by U.S. soldiers and usually took the southern route. Most Cherokee and Ross's groups took the northern route. Both sides used existing "roads.".

The route lead through central Tennessee, southwestern Kentucky, and southern Illinois. The groups crossed the Mississippi River north of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and traveled through southern Missouri and west of Arkansas. Many died because of diseases, lack of water, and bad road conditions. Most of the land routes ended near Westville, Oklahoma.

There were many more different land routes, which were taken by only a few people and covered more than 2,200 miles in nine states.

## Related pages

- Forced migration
- Manifest destiny, the idea that the U.S. had the God-given right to take the lands that it wanted
- Native Americans in the United States

## Other websites

- Videos about the Trail of Tears (free online) from the National Park Service
- Trail of Tears video  from PBS
- Cherokee Removal - The Trail Where They Cried

## Infobox (news event)

- **image name**: Fort Marr.JPG
- **caption**: Fort used as a concentration camp for Cherokee before the Trail of Tears
- **date**: Began May 26, 1838
- **place**: Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to Oklahoma
- **cause**: Indian Removal Act, U.S. expansion, racism
- **participants**: 15,000 Cherokee; 7,000 United States Army, U.S. soldiers
- **outcome**: Forced migration, Forced removal of the Cherokee from their land
- **casualties1**: 353 Cherokee in concentration camps
- **casualties2**: 4,000 Cherokee on the Trail