In the XIX century the Native Americans went through the removal from their lands and assimilation. Some of the events in their history were very tragic. Especially after the 1830 when the Removal Act was passed by the Congress, the Indians were suppressed by the white settlers in the Southern States and had to leave their lands and move west of the Mississippi river to modern day Oklahoma. Thousands of people from 5 tribes - the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Cherokees – travelled hundreds of miles and some of them suffered from cholera and dysentery not to mention the multiple conflicts with the militiamen responsible for the removal (Davis 50).
The term “the trail of tears” was introduced by the representatives of the Cherokee tribe that had to move to the new lands in 1838-1839. It is estimated that up to 22,000 Cherokee people died as the result of the removal (Sturgis 2). Hundreds of thousands of the Native Americans were moved to their new homeland even though there was a very broad disagreement with the official policies of the Congress and U.S. President Andrew Jackson, one of the most avid supporters of the removal.
One of the key documents that made the removal possible is the Removal Act of 1830, which was a federal level statute that caused very heated debates in the Senate and the House. Eventually when the Removal Act was passed, President Andrew Jackson was authorized to negotiate the removal treaties with the tribes. Jackson had the power to offer the tribal leaders financial inducements for their removal from the Southern States. Moreover, the Removal Act stipulated the lands that would be offered to the tribes, but did not resolve many administrative details of the removal and as the result led to the conflicts between the tribes and the authorities (Davis 50). Basically, the removal occurred “when, where, and how Jackson decreed” and the War Department was in charge of the removal process (Davis 52). President Andrew Jackson thought that the removal was necessary for the further economic success of the new state and the costs and sufferings that the Native Americans had to face were not important to him (Thomason 10).
There were many delays in the removal due to the very weak coordination. Therefore the people would often have to travel to the new homeland in winter. For example, in 1831 the winter was “one of the coldest periods ever known in the country” (Davis 84). Those people who decided to travel on their own died from hunger and cold and the army arrived too late to help them (Davis 85). The most dramatic events occurred when some Indians decided not to leave the lands. For example, in 1838 the militiamen forcefully made the Cherokee people travel to the special camps from which they were transported down the Tennessee River to Arkansas and Oklahoma. As one militiaman stated “Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I [he] ever knew" (Brown 35).
The removal of the Native Americans from their lands shows how dramatic the development of the USA in the XVI century was. Many tragic events were caused by the tension between the different groups of society that strived for dominance. As the result, the racial conflicts were very common in the USA. The Native Americans who had a very different culture and views could not cooperate on equal terms with the white settlers and as the result they were forced to move westward and let the other people live and work in their homelands. Unfortunately, there were many politicians including Andrew Jackson that did not respect the rights of the Native Americans and they were responsible for drafting the Removal Act of 1830 that brought pressure upon the Native Americans. At the same time, there was no unity among and within the tribes. Therefore the politicians could negotiate the favorable treaties concerning the removal. As the result, multiple casualties from hunger and cold and ethnical conflicts were inevitable in the 1830s when the removal took place.
Works Cited
Brown, Dee. “The Trail of Tears”. American History Illustrated, 7, p.30-39. June 1972. Web. 28
Davis, Ethan. “An Administrative Trail of Tears: Indian Removal”. The American Journal of
Legal History, Vol. 50, No. 1, p.49-100. January 2008-2010. Web. 28 March 2016
Sturgis, Amy. The Trail of Tears and Indian Removal. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.
Web. 28 March 2016
Thomason, Philip. “The Trail of Tears. National Historic Trail And The Tennessee, Wheeler and
White River Refuges”. Historical and Interpretation Study. September 2007. Web. 28
March 2016
