The Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears refers to the state-sponsored ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 to 100,000 Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to designated "Indian Territory" (modern-day Oklahoma) between 1830 and 1850. The Term: "Trail of Tears" The name "trail of tears" is not a reference to a specific trail or pathway. Rather it is an expression of compassion for the grief and hardship that accompanied the forced removal of Native American peoples from their homelands. Historical Context and Causes Economic Greed: White settlers and land speculators fiercely desired indigenous territory to expand profitable cotton farming and capitalize on the Georgia Gold Rush. The Indian Removal Act: President Andrew Jackson signed this legislation into law in 1830, legalizing the systematic clearance of Native peoples from eastern states. Legal Defiance: The Cherokee Nation successfully won their case in the U.S. Supreme Court (Worcester v. Georgia), which ruled they had a legal right to their land. President Jackson openly defied the ruling. Fraudulent Treaty: A rogue faction of Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, ceding all tribal lands without the authorization or consent of Principal Chief John Ross or the vast majority of the Cherokee population. Five Civilized Tribes Impacted The policy directly targeted five major, highly integrated Southeastern sovereign nations: Choctaw: The first nation expelled (1831), whose leadership coined the phrase "trail of tears and death". Muscogee (Creek): Forcibly removed in 1836 after resisting white encroachment. Chickasaw: Removed starting in 1837; they negotiated financial compensation but still suffered heavy travel losses. Cherokee: Forcibly rounded up at bayonet point in 1838 by federal troops under President Martin Van Buren. Seminole: Resisted fiercely through decades of costly warfare in Florida before their partial removal. Trail of Tears painting by Robert Lindneux Conditions and Death Toll The Journey: Over 5,000 miles of land and water routes across nine modern-day states. Imprisonment: Indigenous families were brutally stripped of their possessions and packed into squalid, disease-ridden military stockades before marching. Hardships: The vast majority walked the 1,000+ mile distance barefoot through a severe drought, followed by freezing winter blizzards. Casualties: An estimated 15,000 people died en route or shortly after arrival from starvation, exposure, typhus, whooping cough, cholera, and dysentery. Roughly one-quarter of the Cherokee nation died on the trail. The events have sometimes been referred to as "death marches", in particular when referring to the Cherokee march across Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri in 1838. The largest death toll from the Cherokee forced relocation comes from the period after the May 23, 1838 deadline. This was at the point when the remaining Cherokee were rounded up into camps and placed into large groups, often over 700 in size. Communicable diseases spread quickly through these closely quartered groups, killing many. These groups were among the last to move, but following the same routes the others had taken; the areas they were going through had been depleted of supplies due to the vast numbers that had gone before them. The marchers were subject to extortion and violence along the route. In addition, these final contingents were forced to set out during the hottest and coldest months of the year, killing many. Exposure to the elements, disease, starvation, harassment by local frontiersmen, and insufficient rations similarly killed up to one-third of the Choctaw and other nations on the march. “I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning, I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the west… On the morning of November 17, we encountered a terrific sleet and snowstorm with freezing temperatures, and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March 26, 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill-treatment, cold, and exposure…” Private John G. Burnett, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry, Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39 The Indian Removal Act The Indian Removal Act, signed into law by United States president Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, was the United States government's policy of ethnic cleansing through the forced displacement of self-governing tribes of American Indians from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River—specifically, to a designated Indian Territory (roughly, present-day Oklahoma). The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi". During the presidency of Jackson (1829‍–‍1837) and his successor Martin Van Buren (1837‍–‍1841), more than 60,000 American Indians from at least 18 tribes[were forced to move west of the Mississippi River where they were allocated new lands. The southern Indian tribes were resettled mostly into what became the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The northern Indian tribes were resettled initially in Kansas. With a few exceptions, the United States east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes was emptied of its American Indian population. Trail of Tears National Historic Trail In 1987 the U.S. Congress designated the Trail of Tears as a National Historic Trail in memory of those who had suffered and died during removal. The original trail was more than doubled in size in 2009 to reflect the addition of several newly documented routes, as well as roundup and dispersion sites. There exists some debate among historians and the affected nations as to whether the term "Trail of Tears" should be used to refer to the entire history of forced relocations from the Eastern United States into Indian Territory or to Cherokee removal specifically. The official trail covers roughly 5,043 miles and passes through nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Managed in partnership with local and tribal groups, you can plan visits or explore maps through the National Park Service trail portal and the NPS historic trail info page.