What was the Trail of Tears?

The Trail of Tears was the forced removal of approximately 60,000 members of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole nations from their homelands in the southeastern United States to designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, primarily during the 1830s, in which thousands died of disease, exposure, starvation, and exhaustion along the journey. The name Trail of Tears is most often applied specifically to the Cherokee removal of 1838 to 1839, although it has come to encompass the broader pattern of removals. The legal foundation was the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, which authorized the federal government to negotiate removal treaties offering western lands in exchange for ancestral territories.

The Choctaw were the first to be removed, between 1831 and 1833 under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of September 27, 1830. Of about 17,000 Choctaw, perhaps 2,500 died on the journey. The Creek were forcibly removed in 1836 and 1837 after the failed Treaty of Cusseta of 1832, with about 3,500 of roughly 23,000 dying. The Chickasaw moved between 1837 and 1838 under the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek of 1832 and the Treaty of Doaksville of 1837, with a lower proportional death rate because they had more time to organize and bring resources.

The Seminoles resisted in three wars from 1816 to 1858; the Second Seminole War of 1835 to 1842 was the bloodiest Indian war in American history. About 3,000 Seminoles were forcibly removed but several hundred remained in the Florida Everglades.

The Cherokee removal is the most documented because Chief John Ross had taken the Cherokee Nation's case to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in Worcester v. Georgia (1832) that Georgia laws had no authority within Cherokee territory and that the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction. President Jackson reportedly said John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it, although the exact words are disputed.

A small unauthorized faction of Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835 ceding all Cherokee territory in exchange for 5 million dollars and lands in Indian Territory. After the May 1838 deadline, General Winfield Scott rounded up about 16,000 Cherokee into stockades, and they were marched roughly 1,200 miles to present-day Oklahoma during the winter of 1838 to 1839. About 4,000 died, roughly a quarter of the population, with disease, exposure, and starvation the principal causes. Cherokee survivors arrived in Indian Territory by March 1839 and rebuilt their nation.

The Trail of Tears stands as one of the most devastating events in American history.