Trail of Tears

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Trail of Tears

• Grade 4
• Social Studies Online

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Blueprint Skill Era 4 - Expansion and Reform
(1801-1861) 

• Read and interpret a passage about the Trail of
  Tears.

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Cherokee culture

• Before contact, Cherokee culture had developed
  and thrived for almost 1,000 years in the
  southeastern United States--the lower Appalachian
  states of Georgia, Tennessee, North and South
  Carolina, and parts of Kentucky and Alabama.

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Background information

• Since first contact with European explorers in
  the 1500s, the Cherokee Nation had been
  recognized as one of the most progressive among
  American Indian tribes.

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Cherokee life until 1710

• Life of the traditional Cherokee remained
  unchanged as late as 1710, which is marked as the
  beginning of Cherokee trade with the whites.

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Frontier contact

• The period of frontier contact from 1540-1786,
  was marked by white expansion and the cession of
  Cherokee lands to the colonies in exchange for
  trade goods

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Cherokee interaction

• After contact, the Cherokees acquired many
  aspects of the white neighbors with whom many had
  intermarried. Soon they had shaped a government
  and a society that matched the most "civilized"
  of the time.

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Sequoyah

• Cherokee culture continued to flourish with the
  invention of the Cherokee alphabet by Sequoyah in
  1821.

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Cherokee migration

• Migration from the original Cherokee Nation began
  in the early 1800s as Cherokees wary of white
  encroachment moved west

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A government decision

• The white communities turned on their Indian
  neighbors and the U.S. Government decided it was
  time for the Cherokees to leave behind their
  farms, their land and their homes

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Indian Removal Act

• In 1830 the Congress of the United States passed
  the "Indian Removal Act." Although many Americans
  were against the act, most notably Tennessee
  Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway.

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The bill became law

• President Jackson quickly signed the bill into
  law. The Cherokees attempted to fight removal
  legally by challenging the removal laws in the
  Supreme Court and by establishing an independent
  Cherokee Nation.

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Court ruling

• In 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of
  the Cherokee on the issue in Worcester v.
  Georgia. In this case Chief Justice John Marshall
  ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign,
  making the removal laws invalid. The Cherokee
  would have to agree to removal in a treaty. The
  treaty then would have to be ratified by the
  Senate.

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A divided nation

• By 1835 the Cherokee were divided and despondent.
  Most supported Principal Chief John Ross, who
  fought the encroachment of whites starting with
  the 1832 land lottery.

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The will of a minority

• However, a minority (less than 500 out of 17,000
  Cherokee in North Georgia) followed Major Ridge,
  his son John, and Elias Boudinot, who advocated
  removal.

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Removing the Cherokees

• The Treaty of New Echota, signed by Ridge and
  members of the Treaty Party in 1835, gave Jackson
  the legal document he needed to remove the First
  Americans.

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Ratification of the treaty

• Ratification of the treaty by the United States
  Senate sealed the fate of the Cherokee. Among the
  few who spoke out against the ratification were
  Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, but it passed by a
  single vote.

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The removal of Indians began

• In 1838 the United States began the removal to
  Oklahoma, fulfilling a promise the government
  made to Georgia in 1802.

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General Wool protested the move.

• Ordered to move on the Cherokee, General John
  Wool resigned his command in protest, delaying
  the action.

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The invasion of the Cherokee nation.

• His replacement, General Winfield Scott, arrived
  at New Echota on May 17, 1838 with 7000 men.
  Early that summer General Scott and the United
  States Army began the invasion of the Cherokee
  Nation.

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Marching to Oklahoma.

• In one of the saddest episodes of our brief
  history, men, women, and children were taken from
  their land, herded into makeshift forts with
  minimal facilities and food, then forced to march
  a thousand miles.

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(No Transcript)
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Loss of life

• Under the generally indifferent army commanders,
  human losses for the first groups of Cherokee
  removed were extremely high.

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Reorganization of Cherokees into smaller groups

• John Ross made an urgent appeal to Scott,
  requesting that the general let his people lead
  the tribe west. General Scott agreed. Ross
  organized the Cherokee into smaller groups and
  let them move separately through the wilderness
  so they could forage for food.

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Arriving in Oklahoma

• Although the parties under Ross left in early
  fall and arrived in Oklahoma during the brutal
  winter of 1838-39, he significantly reduced the
  loss of life among his people. About 4000
  Cherokee died as a result of the removal.

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The Trail Where They Cried

• The route they traversed and the journey itself
  became known as "The Trail of Tears" or, as a
  direct translation from Cherokee, "The Trail
  Where They Cried" ("Nunna daul Tsuny").

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Map of the Trail of Tears
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April 1839

• Cherokees build houses, clear land, plant and
  begin to rebuild their nation.

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Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

• Those who were able to hide in the mountains of
  North Carolina or who had agreed to exchange
  Cherokee citizenship for U.S. citizenship later
  emerged as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
  of Cherokee, N.C. The descendants of the
  survivors of the Trail of Tears comprise today's
  Cherokee Nation with membership of more than
  165,000.

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Resources

• The Trail of Tears
• Cherokee Messenger