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Essay Paper on The Trail of Tears

…The Trail of Tears stands for one of the most tragic periods in the history of the US. It was the beginning of extermination of Indian tribe – the Cherokee. The Cherokee lived in what became the United States hundreds of years before the first European set foot in the New World. Related to the Iroquois, they had migrated lo the southern Appalachians from the Great Lakes region. Following t American Revolution and the birth of the United States the Cherokee were considered a separate nation a count within a country. Though living apart, they were committed to peaceful coexistence with their white neighbors.

Their neighbors, were more interested in land than in peace. Pressured by white settlers eager to occupy valuable and productive Cherokee land, the United States govern¬ment began a very long campaign— distinguished by raise promises ,broken treaties, racist attitudes, and threats of military force—to oust the Cherokee off their territory and out of their homes and to resettle them to the “Great American Desert” west of the Mississippi River.

This was not the first time the Cherokee were relocated off their Lands. The white men who came from across the sea pressed further into the Cherokee Nation for many- years, taking over great traces of land as they advanced. Often, the incursion of the white settlers was followed by violence. From time to time settlers assaulted and robbed the Indians and burnt their houses and other buildings. Those were not only settlers who oppressed the Cherokee. The treatment of the United States government, which promised to protect the Indians, was cruel. By 1838 no one even bothered to make empty promises and vows of friendship. Instead, troops were sent to force Cherokee to leave. The expelling of the Cherokee from their native lands was going to start. 4 000 Cherokee were about to suffer from cold, hunger and disease during the forced walk to Oklahoma. The Cherokee were about to embark on the Trail of Tears.

The removals started in 1830 when Andrew Jackson was the president of the United States. Thus Indian removal is an idea associated with his name. The idea actually began with President Jefferson in 1802.

In December 1802 and February 1803, Jefferson stated a secret Indian policy in two letters, one To Henry Dearborn, the U.S. secretary of war and the other to William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory. The ideas stated in those two letters forecast what would happen in thirty years on the southeastern Indians.

Andrew Jackson’s was not the only one who wanted to remove Indians. Many white settlers on the border also called for the Indians to move west of the Mississippi River. Some families who were neighbors of the Cherokee for a long time and had got aid and support from them during hard times departed from Jackson’s plan but they were not many in number. Settlers in Georgia demanded the removal. Later Cherokee were made to give up land in West Virginia, the Carolinas, the Tennessee. A greater part of Cherokee Nation migrated to Georgia and concentrated there. The white settlers of the state prompted the government that the United States had promised to bring to naught Indian claims to all property in Georgia. They wanted the federal government to force ill Indians to leave the state.

The Louisiana Purchase An unexpected event in 1803 made Indian accelerated Indians removal. France offered the United States to sell the Americans a great territory, then known as Louisiana, west of the Mississippi River. President Jefferson readily accepted the offer. Before the end of the year, the Americans possessed an area, stretching to the Rocky Mountains. Now there was enough land to which Native people could be deported…

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