andrew jackson trail of tears essay

American Indian Removal Policy and the Trail of Tears

Andrew Jackson's Policy Led to a Shameful Episode in US History

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The American Indian Removal policy of President Andrew Jackson was prompted by the desire of White settlers in the South to expand into lands belonging to five Indigenous tribes. After Jackson succeeded in pushing the Indian Removal Act through Congress in 1830, the U.S. government spent nearly 30 years forcing Indigenous peoples to move westward, beyond the Mississippi River.

In the most notorious example of this policy, more than 15,000 members of the Cherokee tribe were forced to walk from their homes in the Southern states to a designated territory in present-day Oklahoma in 1838. Many died along the way.

This forced relocation became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the great hardship faced by Cherokees. In brutal conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears.

Conflicts With Settlers Led to the American Indian Removal Act

There had been conflicts between Whites and Indigenous peoples since the first White settlers arrived in North America. But in the early 1800s, the issue had come down to White settlers encroaching on Indigenous lands in the southern United States.

Five Indigenous tribes were located on land that would be highly sought for settlement, especially as it was prime land for the cultivation of cotton . The tribes on the land were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.

Over time, the tribes in the South tended to adopt White ways, such as taking up farming in the tradition of White settlers and, in some cases, even buying and owning enslaved Black people.

These efforts at assimilation led to the tribes becoming known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Yet taking up the ways of the White settlers did not mean the Indigenous peoples would be able to keep their lands.

In fact, settlers hungry for land were actually dismayed to see these tribes, contrary to all the grotesque propaganda about them being "savages," adopt the farming practices of the White Americans.

The accelerated desire to relocate Indigenous peoples to the West was a consequence of the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 . Jackson had a long and complicated history with Indigenous tribes, having grown up in frontier settlements where stories of attacks by them were common.

At various times in his early military career, Jackson had been allied with Indigenous peoples but had also waged brutal campaigns against them. His attitude toward Indigenous tribes was not unusual for the times, though by today’s standards he would be considered racist, as he believed tribal members to be inferior to Whites. Jackson also believed them to be like children who needed guidance. And by that way of thinking, Jackson may well have believed that forcing Indigenous peoples to move hundreds of miles westward may have been for their own good, since he believed they would never fit in with a White society.

Of course, these Indigenous peoples, not to mention sympathetic White people ranging from religious figures in the North to the backwoods hero-turned-Congressman Davy Crockett , saw things quite differently.

To this day, Andrew Jackson's legacy is often tied to his attitude and actions toward Indigenous tribes. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press in 2016, many Cherokees will not use $20 bills because they bear the likeness of Jackson.

Cherokee Leader John Ross

The political leader of the Cherokee tribe, John Ross, was the son of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother. He was destined for a career as a merchant, as his father had been, but became involved in tribal politics. In 1828, Ross was elected the tribal chief of the Cherokee.

In 1830, Ross and the Cherokee took the audacious step of trying to retain their lands by filing suit against the state of Georgia. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Marshall, while avoiding the central issue, ruled that the states could not assert control over the Indigenous tribes.

According to legend, President Jackson scoffed, saying, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

And no matter what the Supreme Court ruled, the Cherokees did face serious obstacles. Vigilante groups in Georgia attacked them, and John Ross was nearly killed in one attack.

American Indian Tribes Forcibly Removed

In the 1820s, the Chickasaws, under pressure, began moving westward. The U.S. Army began forcing the Choctaws to move in 1831. The French author Alexis de Tocqueville, on his landmark trip to America, witnessed a party of Choctaws struggling to cross the Mississippi with great hardship in the dead of winter.

The leaders of the Creeks were imprisoned in 1837, and 15,000 Creeks were forced to move westward. The Seminoles, based in Florida, managed to fight a long war against the U.S. Army until they finally moved westward in 1857.

Cherokees Forced Along Trail of Tears

Despite legal victories by the Cherokees, the United States government began to force the tribe to move west, to present-day Oklahoma, in 1838.

A considerable force of the U.S. Army—more than 7,000 men—was ordered by President Martin Van Buren , who followed Jackson in office, to remove the Cherokees. General Winfield Scott commanded the operation, which became notorious for the cruelty shown to the Cherokee people.

Soldiers in the operation later expressed regret for what they had been ordered to do.

Cherokees were rounded up in camps, and farms that had been in their families for generations were awarded to White settlers.

The forced march of more than 15,000 Cherokees began in late 1838. And in the cold winter ​conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokee died while trying to walk the 1,000 miles to the land where they had been ordered to live.

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Trail of Tears

By: History.com Editors

Updated: September 26, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. But by the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian Territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and oftentimes  deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears.

The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved).

Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington , believed that the best way to solve this “Indian problem” was to simply “civilize” the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity , learn to speak and read English and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, enslaved persons).

In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people adopted these customs and became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

Did you know? Indian removal took place in the Northern states as well. In Illinois and Wisconsin, for example, the bloody Black Hawk War in 1832 opened to white settlement millions of acres of land that had belonged to the Sauk, Fox and other native nations.

But the Native Americans’ land, located in parts of Georgia , Alabama , North Carolina , Florida and Tennessee , was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white settlers flooded the region. Many of these whites yearned to make their fortunes by growing cotton, and often resorted to violent means to take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns; committed mass murder ; and squatted on land that did not belong to them.

Worcester v. Georgia

State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and rights and encroaching on their territory.

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations “in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have no force.”

Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would “[fall]…still born.” Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands and would go to great lengths to secure this territory.

Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal.” As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers.

As president, he continued this crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act , which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase . This “Indian territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma .

The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their ancestral lands. However, President Jackson and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations.

In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched double file,” one historian writes), and without any food, supplies or other help from the government.

Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death.”

The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

Treaty of New Echota

The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the government’s determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions.

In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi — roughly 7 million acres — for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property.

To the federal government, the treaty (signed in New Echota, Georgia) was a done deal, but a majority of the Cherokee felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. Most Cherokee people considered the Treaty of New Echota fraudulent, and the Cherokee National Council voted in 1836 to reject it.

“The instrument in question is not the act of our nation,” wrote the nation’s principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the Treaty of New Echota. “We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people.” Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross’s petition, but Congress approved the treaty anyway.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian Territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while his men looted their homes and belongings.

Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were epidemic along the way. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.

Legacy of the Trail of Tears

By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian Country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was considered lost.

A 2020 decision by the Supreme Court, however, highlighted ongoing interest in Native American territorial rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that a huge area of Oklahoma is still considered an American Indian reservation .

This decision left the state of Oklahoma unable to prosecute Native Americans accused of crimes on those tribal lands — only federal and tribal law enforcement can prosecute such crimes. (A later 2022 Supreme Court decision rolled back some provisions of the 2020 court finding.)

The Trail of Tears — actually a network of different routes — is over 5,000 miles long and covers nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Today, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is run by the National Park Service and portions of it are accessible on foot, by horse, by bicycle or by car.

Trail of Tears. NPS.gov . Trail of Tears. Museum of the Cherokee Indian . The Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources . The Treaty That Forced the Cherokee People from Their Homelands Goes on View. Smithsonian Magazine . Justices rule swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation. Associated Press . Justices limit 2020 ruling on tribal lands in Oklahoma. Associated Press . 

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The Trail of Tears: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act

The great Cherokee Nation that had fought the young Andrew Jackson back in 1788 now faced an even more powerful and determined man who was intent on taking their land. But where in the past they had resorted to guns, tomahawks, and scalping knives, now they chose to challenge him in a court of law. They were not called a “civilized nation” for nothing. Many of their leaders were well educated; many more could read and write; they had their own written language, thanks to Sequoyah, a constitution, schools, and their own newspaper. And they had adopted many skills of the white man to improve their living conditions. Why should they be expelled from their lands when they no longer threatened white settlements and could compete with them on many levels? They intended to fight their ouster, and they figured they had many ways to do it. As a last resort they planned to bring suit before the Supreme Court.

Prior to that action, they sent a delegation to Washington to plead their cause. They petitioned Congress to protect them against the unjust laws of Georgia that had decreed that they were subject to its sovereignty and under its complete jurisdiction. They even approached the president, but he curtly informed them that there was nothing he could do in their quarrel with the state, a statement that shocked and amazed them.

So the Cherokees hired William Wirt to take their case to the Supreme Court. In the celebrated Cherokee Nation v. Georgia , Wirt instituted suit for an injunction that would permit the Cherokees to remain in Georgia without interference by the state. He argued that they constituted an independent nation and had been so regarded by the United States in its many treaties with them.

Speaking for the majority of the court, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down his decision on March 18, 1831. Not surprisingly, as a great American nationalist, he rejected Wirt’s argument that the Cherokees were a sovereign nation, but he also rejected Jackson’s claim that they were subject to state law. The Indians were “domestic dependent nations,” he ruled, subject to the United States as a ward to a guardian. Indian territory was part of the United States but not subject to action by individual states.

When the Cherokees read Marshall’s decision they had honestly believed that the Nation had won the case, that Georgia lacked authority to control their lives and property, and that the courts would protect them. The Supreme Court, the principal chief told his people, decided “in our favor.” So they stayed right where they were, and missionaries encouraged them to stand fast.

They figured without Andrew Jackson—the man the Cherokees called “Sharp Knife”—and the authorities of Georgia, the government would have to honor their wishes. Then in late December 1830, the state passed another law prohibiting white men from entering Indian country after March 1, 1831, without a license from the state. This move was obviously intended to keep interfering clergymen from inciting the Indians to disobey Georgia law. Eleven such missionaries were arrested for violating the recent statute, nine of whom accepted pardons from the governor in return for a promise that they would cease violating Georgia law. But Samuel A. Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler refused the pardon, and Judge Augustin S.J. Clayton sentenced them to the state penitentiary, “there to endure hard labor for the term of four years.” They appealed the verdict and their case came before the Supreme Court.

On March 3, 1832, Marshall again ruled in Worcester v. Georgia , declaring all the laws of Georgia dealing with the Cherokees unconstitutional, null, void, and of no effect. In addition, he issued a formal mandate two days later ordering the state’s superior court to reverse its decision and free the two men.

Jackson was presently involved in a confrontation with South Carolina over the passage of the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The state had nullified the acts and threatened to secede from the Union if force were used to make it comply with them. The last thing Jackson needed was a confrontation with another state, so he quietly nudged Georgia into obeying the court order and freeing Butler and Worcester. A number of well-placed officials in both the state and national governments lent a hand and the governor, Wilson Lumpkin, released the two men on January 14, 1833.

With the annoying problem of the two missionaries out of the way, both Georgia and Jackson continued to lean on the Cherokees to get them removed. They claimed that “some of the most vicious and base characters that the adjoining states can produce” squatted on their land and stole “horses and other property,” and formed a link with as many “bad citizens” of the Cherokee Nation “as they can associate into their club.” Missionaries decried what was happening to the Cherokees. If only “whites would not molest them,” wrote Dr. Elizur Butler in The Missionary Herald . They have made remarkable progress in the last dozen years and if left alone they can and will complete the process toward a “civilized life.”

But allowing eastern Indians full control of their eastern lands was virtually impossible in the 1830s. There was not army enough or will enough by the American people to bring it about. As Jackson constantly warned, squatters would continue to invade and occupy the land they wanted; then, if they were attacked, they would turn to the state government for protection that usually ended in violence. All this under the guise of bringing “civilization” to the wilderness.

Even so, the Cherokees had a strong leader who had not yet given up the fight. They were led by the wily, tough, and determined John Ross, a blue-eyed, brown-haired mixed-blood who was only one-eighth Cherokee. Nonetheless he was the principal chief, and a most powerful force within the Nation. He was rich, lived in a fine house attended by black slaves, and had influence over the annuities the United States paid to the tribal government for former land cessions. His appearance and lifestyle were distinctly white; in all other respects he was Indian.

From the beginning of Jackson’s administration Ross urged his people to stand their ground and remain united. “Friends,” he told them, “I have great hopes in your firmness and that you will hold fast to the place where you were raised. If you all unite together and be of one mind there is no danger.” And the Cherokees cheered his determination. They approved wholeheartedly of his leadership and they took comfort in what he said. So, with the Nation solidly behind him, Ross resolutely resisted any thought of leading his people from their ancient land into a godforsaken wilderness.

Still the Cherokees held out, even though even they had begun to feel the unrelenting pressure. A so-called Treaty Party emerged within the Nation, made up of chiefs and headmen who understood Jackson’s inflexible will and had decided to bow to his wishes and try to get the best treaty possible. They were led by very capable, hard-headed, and pragmatic men, including the Speaker of the Cherokee National Council, Major Ridge; his son, the educated and politically ambitious John Ridge; and the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix , Elias Boudinot.

John Ridge took a leading role in the emergence of the Treaty Party, for when the Worcester decision was first handed down, he instantly recognized that Chief Justice Marshall had rendered an opinion that abandoned the Cherokees to their inevitable fate. So he went to Jackson and asked him point-blank whether the power of the United States would be exerted to force Georgia into respecting Indian rights and property. The president assured him that the government would do nothing. He then advised Ridge most earnestly to go home and urge his people to move themselves west. Dejected, the chief left the president with the melancholy conviction that he had been told the truth. From that moment, he was convinced that the only alternative to save his people from moral and physical death, was to make the best terms they could with the government and move out of the limits of the states. This conviction he did not fail to make known to his friends, and hence rose the “Treaty Party.”

The members of this Treaty Party certainly risked their lives in pressing for removal, and indeed all of them were subsequently marked for assassination. Not too many years later, Elias Boudinot and John Ridge were slain with knives and tomahawks in the midst of their families, while Major Ridge was ambushed and shot to death.

John Ross, on the other hand, would not yield. As head of the National Party that opposed removal, he was shrewd enough to recognize immediately that the president would attempt to play one party off against the other. “The object of the President is unfolded & made too plain to be misunderstood,” he told the Nation. “It is to create divisions among ourselves, break down our government, our press & our treasury, that our cries may not be heard abroad; that we may be deprived of the means of sending delegations to Washington City to make known our grievances before Congress . . . and break down the government which you [Cherokees] have, by your own free will & choice, established for the security of your freedom & common welfare.”

Under the circumstance, Ross decided to go to Washington and request a meeting with the president in order to try again to arrange some accommodation that would prevent the mass relocation of his people to what was now the new Indian Territory, which Congress had created in 1834 and which eventually became the state of Oklahoma. He was tormented by the knowledge that his people would be condemned to a prairie “badly watered and only skirted on the margin of water courses and poor ridges with copes of wood.” Worse, districts would be laid out for some “fifteen or twenty different tribes, and all speaking different languages, and cherishing a variety of habits and customs, a portion civilized, another half civilized and others uncivilized, and these congregated tribes of Indians to be regulated under the General Government, by no doubt white rulers.” The very thought of it sent shivers through Ross’s entire body.

Since he had fought with Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War,  he reckoned that his service during that battle would provide him with a degree of leverage in speaking with the president. And, as principal chief, he could speak with the duly constituted authority of the Cherokee Nation as established under the Cherokee Constitution of 1827. He had another reason for requesting the interview. He had heard a rumor that Jackson had commissioned the Reverend John F. Schermerhorn, an ambitious cleric who had assisted in the removal of the Seminoles from Florida, to negotiate with Ridge and his associates and see if a deal could be worked out that would result in a treaty. Definitely alarmed, Ross asked to speak with the President at which time he said he would submit his own proposal for a treaty.

Jackson never liked Ross. He called him “a great villain.” Unlike Ridge and Boudinot, said Jackson, the principal chief headed a mixed-blood elite, and was intent on centralizing power in his own hands and diverting the annuities to those who would advance his authority and their economic self-interests. Real Indians were full-blooded Indians, not half-breeds, he declared. They were hunters, they were true warriors who, like Ridge and Boudinot, understood the president’s concern for his red children and wished to prevent the calamity of certain annihilation that would ensue if they did not heed his pleas to move west. As for Ross’s authority under the Cherokee Constitution, Jackson denied that it existed. He said that this so-called Constitution provided for an election in 1832 and it had not been held. Instead the principal chief had simply filled the National Council with his henchmen— another indication, claimed Jackson, of an elitist clique who ruled the Nation and disregarded the interests of the majority of the people.

Despite his feelings about the chief, Jackson decided to grant Ross’s request for a meeting. Above all else, he wanted Cherokee removal and if that meant seeing this “great villain” and hearing about his proposal for relocating the tribe, then he would do it. As a consummate politician, Jackson understood the value of playing one party off against another, so when he granted the interview, he directed that Schermerhorn suspend his negotiations with the Treaty Party and wait for the outcome of his interview with the principal chief.

In fact, Jackson and Ross were much alike. Both were wily, tough, determined, obsessed with protecting the interests of their respective peoples, and markedly dignified and polite when they came together in the White House on Wednesday, February 5, 1834. It was exactly noon when the principal chief arrived, and the Great Father greeted him with the respect due Ross’s position. The chief returned the compliment. For a few minutes,  their conversation touched on pleasantries, then they got down to the matter and began playing a political game that involved the lives of thousands, both Native Americans and white settlers.

Unfortunately, despite his many talents and keen intelligence, Ross was no match for the president. He simply lacked the resources of his adversary.

The principal chief opened with an impassioned plea. “Your Cherokee children are in deep distress,” he said, “because they are left at the mercy of the white robber and assassin” and receive no redress from the Georgia courts. That state, he declared, has not only “surveyed and lotteried off” Cherokee land to her citizens but legislated as though Cherokees were intruders in their own country.

Jackson just listened. Then the principal chief acted imprudently and made impossible demands on the president. To start, he insisted that in any treaty the Nation must retain some of their land along the borders of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia—land that had already been occupied by white settlers. He even included a small tract in North Carolina. He then required assurances that the United States government would protect the Cherokees with federal troops in the new and old settlements for a period of five years.

Jackson could scarcely believe what was being demanded of him. Under other circumstances, he would have acted up a storm in an attempt to frighten and cower the chief. But on this occasion he decided against it. Instead, in a calm and quiet but determined voice, he told Ross that nothing short of an entire removal of the Cherokee Nation from all their land east of the Mississippi would be acceptable.

Having run into a stone wall, Ross headed in another direction. In view of the gold that had recently been discovered in Georgia and North Carolina, he wanted $20 million for all their eastern land plus reimbursement for losses sustained by the Nation for violations of former treaties by the United States. He also asked for indemnities for claims under the 1817 and 1819 Cherokee treaties. The total amount almost equaled the national debt.

On hearing this, Jackson also changed direction. His voice hardened, his intense blue eyes flared, and the muscles in his face tightened and registered his growing displeasure. Obviously the principal chief had not caught the president’s meaning when he rejected the first demand. Jackson snapped at Ross, rejected the proposal as “preposterous” and warned Ross that the Great Father was not to be trifled with. If these demands were the best the chief could offer then there was no point in continuing the discussion.

That brought Ross up short. Completely surprised by Jackson’s reaction, he reaffirmed his own sincerity, and to prove it he offered to accept any award the Senate of the United States might recommend. Apparently, the chief was attempting to set up a bidding contest between the upper house and the chief executive. Surprisingly, Jackson accepted the offer and assured Ross that he would go as far as the Senate in any award that might be proposed. And on that conciliatory note, the interview ended.

In less than a week, Ross received his answer about what the Senate would offer. John P. King of Georgia chaired the Committee on Indian Affairs that considered the question. That was bad enough. Then the committee came up with an offer of $5 million. The figure shocked the principal chief. Jackson probably knew beforehand what would happen and therefore agreed to Ross’s suggestion. Now the Indian was faced with rejecting the money outright or accepting this paltry sum and thereby losing credibility with his people. Naturally, he chose the former course. He claimed he had been misunderstood, that he could not possibly agree to such an amount, and that his reputation among the Cherokees would be shattered if he consented to it. He left Washington an angry and bitter man.

Having disposed of Ross, Jackson turned back to Schermerhorn and instructed him to renew the negotiations with the Treaty Party. With little difficulty, the cleric managed to arrange a draft removal treaty signed on March 14, 1835, by Schermerhorn, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and a small delegation of Cherokees. After due notice, the treaty was submitted to the Cherokee National Council at New Echota, Georgia, for approval and sent to the president for submission to the Senate. The draft stipulated that the Cherokees surrender to the United States all its land east of the Mississippi River for a sum of $5 million, an amount that one modern historian has called “unprecedented generosity.” This cession comprised nearly 8 million acres of land in western North Carolina, northern Georgia, northeastern Alabama, and eastern Tennessee. A schedule of removal provided that the Cherokees would be resettled in the west and receive regular payments for subsistence, claims, and spoliations, and would be issued blankets, kettles, and rifles.

At approximately the same time this draft treaty was drawn up and considered at New Echota, a large delegation of Cherokee chiefs—in the desperate hope that their assembled presence would make a difference and prevent the treaty from going forward to the Senate —went to Washington and asked to speak to the Great Father. In contrast to his grudging granting of Ross’s request, Jackson was anxious to meet the delegation and give the chiefs one of his celebrated “talks.”

The Indians arrived at the White House at the designated hour, and Jackson treated them with marked respect, as though they really were dignitaries of a foreign nation. Yet he did not remotely say or do anything that would indicate an acceptance of their independence or sovereignty. Once the Indians had assembled, they faced the president as he began his talk.

“Brothers, I have long viewed your condition with great interest. For many years, I have been acquainted with your people, and under all variety of circumstances, in peace and war. Your fathers are well known to me …. Listen to me, therefore, as your fathers have listened ….”

Jackson paused. He turned from side to side to look at and take in all the Cherokees standing around him. After a few moments, he began again.

“You are now placed in the midst of a white population …. You are now subject to the same laws which govern the citizens of Georgia and Alabama. You are liable to prosecutions for offenses, and to civil actions for a breach of any of your contracts. Most of your people are uneducated, and are liable to be brought into collision at all times with your white neighbors. Your young men are acquiring habits of intoxication. With strong passions . . . they are frequently driven to excesses which must eventually terminate in their ruin. The game has disappeared among you, and you must depend upon agriculture and the mechanic arts for support. And yet, a large portion of your people have acquired little or no property in the soil itself …. How, under these circumstances, can you live in the country you now occupy? Your condition must become worse and worse, and you will ultimately disappear, as so many tribes have done before you.”

These were his usual arguments, but he judged them essential for success.

“You have not listened to me,” he scolded. “You went to the courts for relief. You turned away from your Great Father. And what happened? After years of litigation, you received little satisfaction from the Supreme Court and succeeded in earning the enmity of many whites. “I have no motive, Brothers, to deceive you,” he said. ‘” am sincerely desirous to promote your welfare. Listen to me, therefore, while I tell you that you cannot remain where you are now …. It [is] impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach. And that is to remove to the West and join your countrymen, who are already established there. The choice is yours. May the great spirit teach you how to choose.”

Jackson then concluded by reminding them of the fate of the Creeks, that once great and proud Nation. How broken and reduced in circumstances their lives had now become because they resisted. It was a not-so-subtle threat that also struck home. “Think then of these things,” he concluded. ‘Shut your ears to bad counsels. Look at your condition as it now is, and then consider what it will be if you follow the advice I give you.”

That ended the talk, and the Indians filed from the room more disappointed and depressed than ever. Jackson would not budge, and they knew their kinsmen were dead set against removal. It was a stalemate that could end only in tragedy.

Meanwhile, Schermerhorn called a “council of all the people” to meet him at New Echota in Georgia during the third week of December 1835 to approve the draft treaty, making sure that a large contingent of Treaty Party members attended. Like Jackson, he had the temerity to warn other Cherokees that if they stayed away their absence would be considered a vote of consent for the draft.

Despite the threat and the warning, practically the entire Nation stayed away. As a consequence, the treaty was approved on December 28 by the unbelievably low number of 79 to 7. The numbers represented only the merest fraction of the Nation. A vast majority—perhaps fifteen-sixteenths of the entire population—presumably opposed it and showed their opposition by staying away. The entire process was fraudulent, but that hardly mattered. Jackson had the treaty he wanted, and he did not hesitate to so inform the Senate. The Treaty of New Echota closely, but not completely, resembled the draft treaty in that the Cherokees surrendered all their eastern land and received $4.5 million in return. They would be paid for improvements, removed at government expense, and maintained for two years. Removal was to take place within two years from the date of the treaty’s approval by the Senate and president.

A short while later, some 12,000 Cherokees signed a resolution denouncing the Treaty of New Echota and forwarded it to the Senate. Even the North Carolina Cherokees, in a separate action, added 3,250 signatures to a petition urging the Senate to reject it. But Jackson was assured by the Treaty Party that “a majority of the people” approved the document “and all are willing peaceable to yield to the treaty and abide by it.” Such information convinced the president that the principal chief and his “half breed” cohorts had coerced the Cherokees into staying away from New Echota under threat of physical violence.

At New Echota the Treaty Party selected a Committee of Thirteen to carry the treaty to Washington and they were empowered to act on any alteration required by the president or the U.S. Senate. This Committee invited Ross to join the group and either support the treaty or insist on such alterations as to make it acceptable. ‘But to their appeal [Ross] returned no answer,’ which further convinced the President that the treaty represented the genuine interests and the will of the majority of Cherokees.

Although Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and other senators spoke fervently against the treaty in the Senate, a two-thirds majority of 31 members voted for it and 15 against. It carried by a single vote on May 18. Jackson added his signature on May 23, 1836, and proclaimed the Treaty of New Echota in force.

And they had two years—that is until May 23, 1838—to cross over the Mississippi and take up their new residence in the Indian Territory. But every day of that two-year period John Ross fought the inevitable. He demanded to see the president and insisted that Jackson recognize the authority of the duly-elected National Council, but Sharp Knife would have none of him and turned him away. Back home the principal chief advised his people to ignore the treaty and stay put. “We will not recognize the forgery palmed off upon the world as a treaty by a knot of unauthorized individuals,’ he cried, ‘nor stir one step with reference to that false paper.”

Not everyone listened to him. They knew Andrew Jackson better. Some 2,000 Cherokees resigned themselves to the inevitable, packed their belongings, and headed west. The rest, the vast majority of the tribe, could not bear to leave their homeland and chose to hope that their principal chief would somehow work the miracle that would preserve their country to them.

But their fate could not have been worse. When the two-year grace period expired and Jackson had left office, his hand-picked successor, President Martin Van Buren, ordered the removal to begin. Militiamen charged into the Cherokee country and drove the Cherokees from their cabins and houses. With rifles and bayonets, they rounded up the Indians and placed them in prison stockades that had been erected “for gathering in and holding the Indians preparatory to removal.” These poor, frightened and benighted innocents, while having supper in their homes, “were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail which led to the stockade. Men were seized in the fields, women were taken from their wheels and children from their play.” As they turned for one last glimpse of their homes, they frequently saw them in flames, set ablaze by the lawless rabble who followed the soldiers, scavenging what they could. These outlaws stole the cattle and other livestock and even desecrated graves in their search for silver pendants and other valuables. They looted and burned. Said one Georgia volunteer who later served in the Confederate army: “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest I ever saw.”

In a single week, some 17,000 Cherokees were rounded up and herded into what was surely a concentration camp. Many sickened and died while they awaited transport to the west. In June, the first contingent of about a thousand Indians boarded a steamboat and sailed down the Tennessee River on the first lap of their westward journey. Then they were boxed like animals into railroad cars drawn by two locomotives. Again there were many deaths on account of the oppressive heat and cramped conditions in the cars. For the last leg of the journey, the Cherokees walked. Small wonder they came to call this 800-mile nightmare “The Trail of Tears.” Of the approximately 18,000 Cherokees who were removed, at least 4,000 died in the stockades along the way, and some say the figure actually reached 8,000. By the middle of June 1838, the general in charge of the Georgia militia proudly reported that not a single Cherokee remained in the state except as prisoners in the stockade.

At every step of their long journey to the Indian Territory, the Cherokees were robbed and cheated by contractors, lawyers, agents, speculators, and anyone wielding local police power. Food supplied by the government disappeared or arrived in short supply. The commanding officer, General Winfield Scott, and a few other generals “were concerned about their reputation for humaneness,” says one modern historian, “and probably even for the Cherokee. There just wasn’t much they could do about it.” As a result many died needlessly. “Oh! The misery and wretchedness that presents itself to our view in going among these people,” wrote one man. “Sir, I have witnessed entire families prostrated with sickness—not one able to give help to the other, and these poor people were made the instruments of enriching a few unprincipled and wicked contractors.”

And this, too, is part of Andrew Jackson’s legacy. Although it has been pointed out many times that he was no longer president of the United States when the Trail of Tears occurred and had never intended such a monstrous result of his policy, that hardly excuses him. It was his insistence on the speedy removal of the Cherokees, even after he had left office, that brought about this horror. From his home outside Nashville, he regularly badgered Van Buren about enforcing the treaty. He had become obsessed about removal. He warned that Ross would exert every effort and means available to him to get the treaty rescinded or delayed and that, he said, must be blocked. But the new president assured him that nothing would interfere with the exodus of the Cherokees and that no extension of the two-year grace period would be tolerated under any circumstance.

Principal Chief John Ross also shares a portion of blame for this unspeakable tragedy. He continued his defiance even after the deadline for removal had passed. He encouraged his people to keep up their resistance, despite every sign that no appreciable help would be forthcoming from the American people or anyone else; and he watched as they suffered the awful consequences of his intransigence.

Despite the obscene treatment accorded the Cherokees by the government, the tribe not only survived but endured. As Jackson predicted, they escaped the fate of many extinct eastern tribes. Cherokees today have their tribal identity, a living language, and at least three governmental bodies to provide for their needs. Would that the Yemassee, Mohegans, Pequots, Delawares, Narragansetts, and other such tribes could say the same.

Excerpted from Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars by Robert V. Remini. Copyright Robert V. Remini, 2001. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc. The excerpt was originally published in August 2001 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

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History Resources

Perspectives on the Trail of Tears

By elizabeth berlin taylor, introduction.

In this lesson, student groups will design and create a poster containing facts about the Trail of Tears as well as a collage and concluding statement expressing the group’s feelings about the event.  

The Trail of Tears was the result of Andrew Jackson’s policy of Indian Removal in the Southeastern United States. While Jackson’s designs on Indian territory east of the Mississippi River involved Indian nations such as the Cherokees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, as well as others from approximately 1814 until 1840, "the Trail of Tears" refers to the forced march of Cherokees from Georgia to Oklahoma from 1838 to 1839. This episode, legitimized by the disputed Treaty of New Echota, resulted in thousands of deaths and the removal of the Cherokee Nation from its ancestral homelands.  

• Map of the Cherokee Nation in Georgia, 1827 , David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
• Map of Cherokee Removal Routes , Smithsonian Institution
• Interactive map of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail (Scroll down and click on "The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail")
• The Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux, 1942

Secondary Sources

• Cherokee Nation Timeline
• "What happened on the Trail of Tears?"

Primary Sources

• "General Winfield Scott’s Address to the Cherokee Nation," May 10, 1838
• Letter from Chief John Ross protesting the Treaty of New Echota
• Transcript of President Andrew Jackson’s message to Congress "On Indian Removal" (1830)
• Treaty of New Echota , final paragraph of Article 1

Essential Question

What incidents led to the Trail of Tears and what is your perspective of this event?

• Students will be able to read and understand primary and secondary documents that are germane to the events and points of view of the Trail of Tears.
• Students will be able to communicate data about the Trail of Tears on a poster.
• Students will be able to create a collage and a statement that captures the group’s feelings about the Trail of Tears.

Ask students the question: "Does the United States government have the right to make you move out of your house? Why or why not?" After students spend about two minutes writing responses to these questions, ask them to share their answers and respond to each other. As a follow-up question, ask students what they would do if they were required to move by their government.

• Introduce background information on the Trail of Tears via a very brief lecture or discussion.
• Project the maps of the Cherokee Nation in Georgia, 1830, and the Cherokee Removal Routes. Discuss the distance that the Cherokees walked and conditions they endured. If you have access to computer technology, have students investigate the interactive map of the Trail of Tears to understand how long the march was and would be today.
• Project The Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux. Have students discuss what is happening in the painting and how its subjects are depicted.
• Divide the class into groups of four and distribute an information packet to each group. The packet should contain four copies of the two secondary sources and one copy of each primary source. It would be most effective to keep the materials in a folder.
• Ask students to read the secondary sources individually. Then as a group, have students write one paragraph that responds to the question, "What was the Trail of Tears?"
• Next, ask each student in the group to read one of the primary sources and complete the " Who, What, Where, and When " worksheet. Group members should then share information from their documents with the group.
• Conclude this day’s class by asking for volunteers to explain the events and share their perceptions of the Trail of Tears.

Ask students to return to their groups and review the information they discovered in the previous class period. Hand out the  Perspectives on the Trail of Tears poster template to each group. Ask students to answer the following questions in the corners of the poster:

• What was the Trail of Tears? 
• Who was removed (and from where were they removed)? Where did they resettle? 
• What was John Ross’s opinion of Indian Removal? 
• What was Andrew Jackson’s opinion of Indian Removal? 

In the center of the poster, have students create a collage showing how the group feels about the Trail of Tears. Underneath the collage, the group should write a one-sentence statement explaining their feelings about the Trail of Tears.

After they complete their work, debrief students on the material they have learned. Pose the concluding question: "Could another removal of an ethnic group happen in the present-day United States?"

Students may research the experiences of other Indian nations subjected to removal as a result of Andrew Jackson’s policies and write a short essay explaining their research.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — Trail of Tears — Thesis Statement For Trail Of Tears

Thesis Statement for Trail of Tears

• Categories: Trail of Tears

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Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 680 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

I. introduction, a. the trail of tears, b. thesis statement, ii. historical context, a. the indian removal act of 1830, b. president andrew jackson, c. impact on native american communities, government policy and responsibility, legacy of the trail of tears.

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Trail Of Tears - Essay Examples And Topic Ideas For Free

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Essay about Trail Of Tears History

There has been many black spots throughout American history, one that frequently comes to mind would be the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears refers to the period of time in which the Federal government forcibly removed thousands of Cherokee, along with the members of other Indian tribes. The Cherokee was succumbed to disease, lack of food, foul weather, mistreatment of soldiers, and much more. The removal process and the actual journey cost thousands of lives, extinguishing a large portion of the tribal population.

The term Trail of Tears came from the Cherokee term Nunna dual Tsung, which ranslated meant “Trail where we cried” (Thornton 289). Ever since European colonization, Indian tribes had to accustom to a new way of life. Through wars and treaties throughout the years, the size of the Indian nations such as the Cherokee began to shrink immensely. During this time, the newly established country, the United States, began to encourage these Indians to embrace mainstream White American customs (Hill). These southern tribes followed this “plan for civilization” by accepting customs of farming, English literature, Christianity, Slaveholding, etc.

Although, many still etained aspects of their own culture, customs, and traditions (Hill). Although between the years of 1721 and 1819 over ninety percent of their land was taken away, the Cherokee were able to establish their own constitution, deeming itself as a sovereign nation. They traded and intermarried with other tribes and Europeans, creating economic networks in which they were able to thrive (Stories). This success, however, did not go unnoticed, states in which the Cherokee’s presided, such as Georgia, wanted the Cherokee to be removed from their land.

Georgia warned the federal government that if they did not do anything, he state eventually would. The two events that really put forth the ideas of Indian removal were the inauguration of Andrew Jackson as the president of the United States and the discovery of gold in Georgia, both which occurred in 1828 (Trail of Tears). After this discovery, Georgia, in turn, “passed an act annexing Cherokee country, declaring Cherokee laws null and void, and allowing no Indian as witness or party in anywhere a white man should be defendant” (Thornton 290).

Cherokee customs became criminalized and Whites who worked among the Cherokee had to sign loyalty oaths to the state (Hill). This was all set in place, in effort to convince the Cherokee to relocate. The federal government helped this effort by passing the Indian Removal Act of 1930. Initially the Indian Removal Act of 1930 was supposed to enact the removal, on a voluntary basis, of all eastern tribes to areas set aside for them west of the Mississippi (Trail of Tears). Many believed this was a humane solution since the Cherokee could avoid the ever growing encroachment of white settlers (Magliocca 891).

However, this law was widely debated due to the question of whether states had the constitutional right to xtend their laws over Indians, because it would conflict with treaties that guaranteed Indian sovereignty (Davis 55). Nevertheless, after much debate, Andrew Jackson was able to get congress to pass the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1930. The Cherokee nation tried to fight against this continued attack against them by bringing their case to the supreme court. They did this by having a missionary named Samuel Worcester sue the state of Georgia, due to the actions they set forth against the Cherokee.

Worcester’s attorney argued that Georgia’s actions violated several treaties guaranteeing Indian overeignty, along with infringing on the 1802 Trade Intercourse Act (Davis 61). The decision, stated by Chief Supreme Judge Marshall, of Worcester v. Georgia is as follows: “The Cherokee Nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties and with the acts of Congress.

The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our Constitution and laws, vested in the Government of the United States.. ” (Worcester v. Georgia) The Supreme Court, under the Supreme Chief Justice Marshall ruled with Worcester. Stating that Georgia had no right to interfere with the Cherokee, since they are deemed a territory and a sovereign nation. this decision should of set precedence throughout the rest of the nation, President Andrew Jackson simply ignored it. His actual response to this decision was “John Marshall had made his decision, now let him enforce it” (Thornton 290).

Alt Jackson continued initiating his removal plans with much resistance from the southern tribes. Jackson eventually made treaties with all five major Indian tribes: the Chickasaw, Choctaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees (Stories). These treaties, although, were developed through bribes and coercion. Chickasaws and Choctaws accepted the terms of their treaties while the Creeks, Cherokees, and Seminoles resisted against it. This is especially true when it came the Cherokees. To enact a treaty the federal government sought out their minority, the ones who did not oppose removal.

With only 300 to 500 of these Cherokees present, the Treaty of Echota was signed in December 1835. None of these Cherokees held any position of power and were not an accurate representation of the Cherokee nation. The treaty, in turn, had the Cherokees exchange all their land east of Mississippi for land westward and several millions dollars. This included a two year deadline to vacate this land. Leaders of the Cherokee, such as Chief John Ross, along with the rest of the Cherokee nation were outraged and fought legality of this treaty. Nevertheless, however, the senate passed the Treaty of Echota by one vote (Thornton 290).

Some Cherokee did travel westward voluntarily, however, any did stayed put, believing that the government would not actually remove them. Despite this belief, as the two-year deadline approached, President Martin Van Buren ordered that the Cherokees would be removed from their home by military force and placed in temporary detention camps (Carson). A soldier who participated in this removal, John G. Burnett, recounted an the incidents he witness during the event. “Men working in the fields were arrested and driven to the stockades. Woman were dragged from their homes by soldiers whose language they could not understand.

Children were often eparated from their parents and driven into the stockades with the sky for a blanket and the earth for a pillow” (Thornton 291). Due to the conditions of these camps and the sweltering summer heat, thousands died from diseases such as dysentery, measles, and whooping cough (Carson). In the fall, the Cherokee began to be removed and were ordered to travel west. While some went by water, many had to walk the whole way there, there were regulations that only the very young, sick, and elderly were allowed to ride on wagons and horses. This was due to a attempt for the government to ave money (Davis 89).

The trail consisted of areas across Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Illinois, Missouri, into Indian Territory, modern day Oklahoma (Thornton 291). This journey was full of suffering, hence the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee, along with the other tribes were not prepared for this type of journey. This was true when it came to the United States military also, it simply did not have the resources to remove and migrate this large amount of people, in an organized and human way. Thousands died of disease, weather, starvation, mistreatment from soldiers, and much more.

The dead were left behind and were buried throughout the trail. Once the Cherokee reached their destination, the turmoil did not cease. Many still died while trying to reestablish themselves as a nation in Oklahoma, due to lasting epidemics and other contributing factors. It was believed that over four thousand individuals died due to the actions that led to the trail of tears. However, new research has suspected that there were more than eight thousand deaths, double than the originally estimate (Thornton 289). “Departure of the Cherokee population left only scattered indigenous groups in he Southeast.

By 1842 most of the Five Civilized Tribes- the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole – had been removed from their prosperous farms and plantations and resettled on the southeast to government-assigned lands in Oklahoma. The last of the Seminoles of Florida were removed in 1858” (Carson). The Cherokee eventually reestablished itself in Oklahoma, enacting a new constitution and capital which is still present in Oklahoma today. The Trail of Tears was eventually designated as a National Historic Trail by Congress (Carson).

The Trail of Tears marked a heinous and tragic period of American history. Due to unconstitutional laws and treaties, the United States government forcibly removed thousands of native Indians from their homeland. Due to the conditions that they suffered through before, during, and after their journey through the Trail of Tears, thousands of Indians perished forever. Although, the Trail of Tears is something people do not like to talk much about, its a period of history that need to be understood and examined, so something tragic like this would never happen again.

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