Trail of Tears Experience Essay

An event involving the man whose presidency was known as the “Age of the Common Man” led to the darkest period in American history. Throughout the years of colonizing and claiming new areas, the people who were the initial settlers in what is now known as the United States of America were wrongfully removed. This judgment was not reached instantly; rather, it was achieved through the conquest of more regions, which fueled their insatiable hunger and greed for more. Andrew Jackson, thought to be a humble man, in his own words in a letter to Congress called the Native Americans savages (Jackson, 1830). The signing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 which was proclaimed a joyful accomplishment for the country to remove Native Americans from white settlements. This act was the catalyst for the expulsion series of Native Americans that came to be known as the Trail of Tears, which lasted a decade.

The strategy of forced transfer of self-governing Native American tribes from their historic homelands in the eastern United States to regions west of the Mississippi River — especially, to a designated Indian Territory – was known as Indian removal. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 compelled tens of thousands of Native Americans to migrate. Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Expulsion Act, the fundamental statute that permitted the removal of Native tribes, in 1830. Despite Jackson's tough stance on the Indian removal, the rule was mostly followed under Martin Van Buren's presidency. Approximately 60,000 Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw people were forcefully relocated from their native homelands with the passing of the Indian Removal Act in 1831. Many Native Americans perished as a result of exposure, sickness, and famine while traveling to their destinations; between 2,000 and 6,000 Cherokee died. The hardships, sufferings, and deaths the Native American people endured during their migration to their new land is where the infamous name was created, The Trail of Tears.

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In September 1830, representatives of the Choctaw Nation and the United States signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. It was the first treaty made after the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed, allowing eastern Indians to be relocated to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. The Choctaw gave the US government sovereignty of their communally owned lands in central Mississippi and west-central Alabama, totaling more than 10 million acres. The Choctaws gave up the town of Livingston and the surrounding property west of the Tombigbee River in Alabama. Following the American Revolution, the Choctaws and Creek Indians in the Southeast gave the United States millions of acres, allowing the Mississippi Territory to be established in 1798. The territory was partitioned in two in 1818, resulting in the states of Mississippi and Alabama Territory. Soon after, the United States government initiated treaty discussions with the Choctaws for their transfer west of the Mississippi River, with the cooperation of Mississippi government authorities. That first effort in 1818 failed because the Choctaw people uniformly rejected relocation; however, US delegates, including Andrew Jackson, Mississippi state senator Daniel Burnett, and US Indian agent John McKee, returned in August 1819 to restart discussions with Choctaw leadership.

Pushmataha, a renowned Choctaw chief who led Choctaw military troops in favor of the United States during the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1813-14, eloquently but powerfully refused the United States' offer to transfer Choctaw holdings in Mississippi for new territory west of the Mississippi River. This led to the Mississippi officials being angered and demanded that the national government do something to dissolve the Choctaws' title to lands that the state deemed its own. Andrew Jackson persuaded Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to allow him to initiate another round of political discussion. Jackson, aided by Mississippi officials Christopher Rankin and Gen. Thomas Hinds, coerced and persuaded the Choctaw chiefs into signing the Treaty of Doak's Stand in October 1820 by emphasizing that the United States was looking out for the Choctaws' best interests.

The treaty's flaws were apparent early, particularly because non-Indians had already begun to build homesteads on the new Choctaw territory in Arkansas. A Choctaw delegation came in Washington, D.C., in late 1824 to work out a settlement, but the principal chiefs, Apuckshunubbee and Pushmataha, died during the journey, forcing the surviving delegation to relinquish the eastern section of Arkansas territory back to the United States. During this time, virtually all Choctaws remained on their Mississippi lands, and state officials continued to urge for their departure. Mississippi governor Gerard Brandon called on the state legislature in 1826 to put the full force of the state's efforts behind forcing the Choctaws out; state legislators also called for the expulsion of missionaries living among the Indians because they were perceived as fostering resistance to removal. Because of concerns over state-versus-national constitutional jurisdiction over Indian issues, neither plan was implemented. In response to these ongoing challenges, the Choctaws strengthened their sovereignty claims in 1825 by forming a constitutional government, choosing leaders, and establishing a national police force, private property protections, and a judicial system. After going back and forth between the white settlers and Native Americans it led to the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creeks.

The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed on September 27, 1830, between the chiefs and US diplomats, and was confirmed by the US Senate on February 25, 1831. Gaines began arranging Choctaw groups for rapid relocation to Indian Territory in the late fall of 1830. Over the following three years, around 13,000 Choctaws traveled by wagon, horseback, boat, and foot, encountering much suffering and death along the road. Choctaws moved from Mississippi to Indian Territory, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

A year after the treaty, the Seminole Resistance went into effect. The Seminole Resistance stated the success of the Seminole Nation was in resisting the efforts from the U.S. in removing them from Florida but only for a short while (Crawford, 1836). The remaining Seminole territories in Florida were relinquished at the Treaty of Payne's Landing, signed on May 9, 1832. The treaty provided for the Seminole leaders to tour Indian Territory in order to approve the planned relocation locations. In the fall of 1832, the exploratory expedition arrived at Fort Gibson. The Seminoles were dismayed to learn that they would be living beside the Creeks. Despite this, Seminole leaders were compelled to sign the Treaty of Fort Gibson, which ordered the Seminoles to dwell in the Creek Nation (Welsh 1976). The Second or Great Seminole War stemmed from the Seminoles' battle to save their land from the United States government. 10,000 American soldiers were despatched to Florida in January 1837. The Seminoles were defeated, and over 250 Seminoles and Black Seminoles, as well as Seminole prisoners imprisoned at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina, were marched to New Orleans and kept at Fort Pike until they could be transported to Indian Territory. In June 1838, the captives were transported into vessels that landed at Fort Gibson (Welsh 1976). The 1832 Treaty of Payne's Landing called for an exploratory mission, which left for Indian Territory late that year. Colonel James Gadsden commanded a group of seven Seminole commanders, including John Blunt, Charley Emathla, Holahte Emathla, Jumper, and the translator Abraham. They signed the Treaty of Fort Gibson while in Indian Territory, which was a further consent to Seminole expulsion. The pact was signed despite the fact that these seven chiefs lacked authorization to act on behalf of the whole Seminole tribe (Foreman 1932; Garbarin 1989).

However, this led to the 1835 Dade Massacre in Florida. Major General Francis L. Dade's column of 110 US men was attacked by a group of Seminole Indian warriors, killing all except a few US soldiers. On a reinforce and resupply expedition, federal forces were traveling from Fort Brooke in present-day Tampa to Fort King near present-day Ocala. For months, tensions between the Seminoles and the federal government had been high as forced Indian removal activities heated up. The forces were entirely caught off guard in the wide grassland, resulting in an overwhelming Seminole victory. The episode drew widespread national attention and acted as the basis for an increase in forced removal activities in Florida. The Second Seminole War would extend until 1842, becoming one of the most expensive and longest Indian wars in US history. The troops were first buried near the battle site, but were later reinterred at the St. Augustine National Cemetery under three coquina pyramids in 1842.

On December 29, 1835, US government officials and roughly 500 Cherokee Indians claiming to represent their 16,000-member tribe signed a compact in New Echota, Georgia. The treaty resulted in the forcible relocation of Cherokees from their southern homelands to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. In exchange for their 7 million acres of ancestral territory, the Cherokees received $5 million plus land in present-day Oklahoma in the Treaty of New Echota. Despite the fact that the majority of Cherokees rejected the pact and that Principal Chief John Ross addressed a letter to Congress condemning it, the treaty was confirmed by the United States Senate in March 1836.

2 years after the Treaty of New Echota, the Chickasaw monetary removal was proposed in 1837. The Chickasaw are forcibly removed from Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee to Indian Territory by the United States Department of War, which is now known as Oklahoma. Unlike others who have been evacuated from the Southeast, the Chickasaw have successfully negotiated compensation from the United States for lost lands, obtaining more than $500,000. They go across the Mississippi River with their possessions, animals, and families, following the same pathways as the Choctaw and Muscogee Creeks. 1838 is when the Cherokees were being forcibly removed. This is significant to the Trail of Tears because it was them who came up with the name of the process when the Native Americans were being forced to walk and travel a distance of 5,403 miles. Over 5,000 Cherokees perished on the route after being forcibly removed from their homeland in the southeastern United States and sent to Oklahoma. The Cherokee named the road 'Nu na da ul tsun yi,' which translates as 'the area where they wailed.' After 13,000 Cherokee were imprisoned in concentration camps and subjected to malnutrition, cold, and sickness, their land was confiscated and they were sent to Indian Territory (Cherokee Nation, 2014).

The Cherokees tried to request an audience with the Congress to protest the Treaty of New Echota but failed and were rounded up for removal. This peaceful petitioning in 1838 is significant because of how unfair they were treated against the Constitution. The treaty was a done deal for the federal government, but many Cherokee felt misled; after all, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anybody else. 'The instrument in dispute is not our nation's act,' stated the nation's head, John Ross, in a letter to the United States Senate denouncing the pact. 'We are not signatories to its agreements; it has not been sanctioned by our people.' Despite the fact that almost 16,000 Cherokees endorsed Ross' petition, Congress authorized the treaty regardless.

3 months after this event, the rounding up of Cherokees began in the month of May in 1838. The majority of Cherokees, including Chief John Ross, simply didn't believe they would be compelled to relocate. Federal troops and state militias began rounding up Cherokees and putting them in stockades. Despite advice to troops to be gentle with the Cherokees, the roundup proved agonizing. Families were split up, the old and sick were pushed out at gunpoint, and many were given only a few seconds to gather their prized items. As Cherokees were carried away, white looters followed, ransacking homesteads. Three parties set out in the summer, journeying from modern-day Chattanooga by train, boat, and wagon, largely via the Water Route. However, river levels were too low for passage; one party trekking overland in Arkansas died three to five times each day owing to disease and drought. There were still 15,000 hostages that needed to be freed. They were unhappy because of overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and drought. Many people were killed. The Cherokees requested that their evacuation be postponed until the fall and that they go peacefully. The postponement was granted on the condition that they remain in detention camps until travel begins. By November, 12 groups of 1,000 people were slogging 800 kilometers west overland. The last party, which included Chief Ross, traveled by boat. Heavy fall rains and hundreds of wagons on the muddy trip rendered roads unusable; there was little pasture and wildlife to augment limited provisions. During January, two-thirds of the ill-equipped Cherokees were stranded between the ice-bound Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Some drank stagnant water and died as a result. One survivor described how his father became ill and died, followed by his mother, and then, one by one, his five siblings and sisters. 'Each day, one. Then everything is gone.' During the winter, the Cherokee began walking the thousand miles with no shoes and with light gear. They began in Red Clay, Tennessee. They were not permitted to halt in any towns owing to the risk of illness transmission. They were given the task of crossing the river using Berry's Ferry. The Cherokee were compelled to pay $1 for the ferry, which was ordinarily twelve cents.

In 1839, the first group of Cherokees arrived in Oklahoma. A riverboat was being used to help injured, and sick people reach the destination along with Chief Ross. The Trail of Tears came to an end in Oklahoma. During the march, about one-fourth of the Cherokee people died. It came to an end in March of 1839. Cotton's administration established a white-only free-population. When they arrived in Oklahoma, the two Cherokee nations, eastern and western, were reconciled. Takattokah hosted a gathering in order to live happily and harmoniously together. Eastern and western leaders gathered in June 1839 to discuss the new nation's governance. The eastern leaders accepted western rule. According to the chiefs' letter to the government of the United States on June 13, 1839, 'we take pleasure to state distinctly that we desire to see the eastern and western Cherokees become reunited, and again live as one people;to the satisfaction and permanent welfare of the whole Cherokee people.' The letter was signed by eastern leaders John Ross and George Lowey, as well as western chiefs John Brown, John Looney, and John Rogers. Mr. Corwin, who published Memorial of the Cherokee Nation in 1840, handed the letter to Congress. (Cherokee Nation, 1840).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the sufferings and hardships the Native Americans had to endure during the removal was insufferable. By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been pushed from their land in the southern states and compelled to relocate to Indian Territory across the Mississippi. The federal government pledged that their new country would be unspoiled forever, but as white settlement expanded westward, 'Indian Country' reduced and diminished. Oklahoma became a state in 1907, and Indian Territory was no more. The sufferings that the Cherokees along with other tribes had to endure was considered to be one of the darkest eras in the history of Americans. President Andrew Jackson fought for the Indian Removal Act of 1830. On May 28, 1830, President Jackson issued an order exchanging territory west of the Mississippi River for land inside the United States' state limits. President Jackson’s determination on gaining these native lands was in the pursuit of cotton and gold. His lead on these events that led to the Trail of Tears is what caused his presidency to be controversial. Some Native American tribes left voluntarily, while many were forced to leave. The tribes that had refused to go were driven off their lands by the United States federal authorities by the fall and winter of 1838. Because of the hardships they endured and the fact that the Cherokee lost 4,000 Tribe members during their forced journey on the Trail of Tears owing to exposure to extreme weather conditions, malnutrition, and illness. The weather consisted of extreme heat waves in the summer and temperatures below freezing in the winter.