Trail of Tears: Difference between revisions

The presidency of Andrew Jackson (1830-1938)was marked by policies that removed Native Americans from their ancestral lands. This relocation of American Indians was designed to make room for settlers into those locations as well as land spectators who made significant profits from the buying and selling of land. There was almost no political resistance to these policies because the main supporters of Jackson lived in the western and southern states and favored plans to free up the land that was occupied by Native Americans along the frontier west of the Mississippi River. The removal of First Nation people was often begun in the winter and the Native Americans had little in the way of protective clothing or shoes and no food was provided to them along the way. They were not allowed into the villages and towns in their way and this necessitated even longer and harder routes to reach their destination in Oklahoma. Resistance was met with armed militia and there was little that the Indians could do to defend themselves.  

In 1830 the United States Congress passed the "Indian Removal Act of 1830". The removal (ethnic cleansing) was intended to move Indians of the Muscogee (Creek), Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole, and Choctaw nations from their communally owned tribal homelands in the South Eastern United States to areas that had been designated as Indian Territory in what is now eastern Oklahoma. Other small bands of Indians were also moved along with both Jewish and Christian Americans of European descent, slaves, and African American freedmen. Native Americans and freedmen who owned private, individually owned lands were not subject to the Removal Act.<br>  

In 1987, over 2,100 miles of the original trails were named the "Trail of Tears National Historic Trail" by Federal Law. The trail crosses rivers, waterways and portions of nine states. Native Americans were marched through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.