The Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears was a path that Indian tribes took when they were forced out of their American land. The Indians were pushed out of their domain by the colonists who had developed a new philosophy called Manifest Destiny. This was the belief that the settlers were destined to conquer and settle this new land and this idea drove them to extreme measures as they displaced the Indians. In addition to this new idea, there were several presidents such as Andrew Jackson, who fought against native rights, however at this time people looked on Indians as uncivilized savages, and viewed them as being less than human. Some people thought there were better ways of dealing with the Indians than thwarting them, President George Washington believed that the issue could be solved by civilizing the Indians. He thought that if the Indians adopted European customs, they could fit in with the rest of the settlers. Some tribes did imitate the settlers and followed that line of thinking, but even with this, there began to be a call for the relocation of the Indians. This situation was not new to the Indians, they had been oppressed ever since the Europeans came to their country and over the years they were becoming fewer and fewer, in fact by the year 1776, there were hardly any Native Americans on the western seaboard. As settlers continued westward, the Indians became even more oppressed because there were more tormentors, even lands that had been given to the Indians, like the states of Ohio and Indiana, were being settled and taken by colonists. Throughout this time the Indians, on top of being pushed out of their homes were being treated terribly, they were lied to and cheated out of property. After the Indian Removal Act, five Native American tribes were forced to travel south. The Removal Act was supposedly optional, but as pressure was mounting for the tribes to relocate, it was exceedingly difficult to fight back. The five tribes were the Chickasaw, Seminal, Muscogee or Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee, they all took different ways to their new land, but no matter which way was selected it was always very dangerous. During their traveling, thousands of Indians died, and therefore the name “The Trail of Tears and Death” was developed, a Cherokee chief was the first to refer to it as that. Most times when the Indians would leave they would trade their land for new land in the south, but the Chickasaw arranged to sell their land for 3 million dollars, in addition to receiving free land in the south. Migrating by water was far easier for tribes, and most of the trails that the Indians took had an alternate water route. Once the Indians arrived on their reservations their numbers were lowered greatly as a result of the difficult Journey. The Trail of Tears and Death was a long and difficult journey and thousands died, in the end the colonists took the land that they felt they deserved and the Native American tribes were forced out of the west onto reservations where many remain today.