Causes, Course, and Impacts of Trail of Tears in America

Trail of Tears
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Trail of Tears
Introduction
The Trail of Tears, sometimes referred to as the Indian removal, was a historical event in America between 1830 to 1842. This event entailed the forceful eviction of the Indian tribes, who were the natives of America before the current white and black Americans came. The five major native tribes that the Federal government of America forcefully evicted under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, who was the president of the USA when the Trail of Tears began, include the Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, and the Chickasaw. They were forcefully displaced from their ancestral lands on the Southeast side of America to the West, mostly arid and semi-arid. This research paper aims to focus on the impact of the Trail of Tears on the five major tribes, especially the Cherokee, since its occurrence up to date and how the Trail of Tears changed their lives.
Causes of the Trail of Tears
Several factors led to the forceful displacement of the Native Americans from their ancestral lands. The United States of America was a young nation during that time, having had independence for less than half a century. As a new country, the Federal government wanted to establish a firm grip on the lands within its reach and ensure it prevented all European powers from claiming these lands. Most of the lands in the Western part of the country were not dominated. The federal government feared that the European powers would possess them and claim ownership, after which they would establish their colonies in these lands.
Therefore, to prevent European powers from possessing these lands, although they were not productive, the Federal government began to plan how these lands could be settled but not by fellow white men. Additionally, there were a lot of white immigrants who came into America from the Eastern shores. Adequate land for farming was slowly diminishing, and the whites who had already settled in America at the time wanted more productive land for their businesses and farming expeditions. This pressure from the Whites who had already settled and those who came to America to look for better economic opportunities added to the strain that led to the establishment of the Indian Removal Act (Rozema, 2003), which was passed by the government authorities in 1830, although other legislative members disagreed with it.
Course of the Trail of Tears
Once the Indian Removal Act was passed, all title deeds claimed by the Indian tribes in Southeast America were nullified and extinguished. In 1831, the Choctaw were the first group to be evicted. They were closely followed by the Seminoles, who initially tried to resist, but after two wars, they were defeated and began their journey in 1832. The Creek then followed in 1834, and then the Chickasaw in 1837. The Cherokee tribe was the last to be evicted in 1838, and this was the tribe that felt the fullest extent of the hardships that came along with their journey from Southeast America, where modern Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina states are located, to the West (Foreman, 1932). These native tribes were the main participants in the Trail of Tears, and the Federal government and its police, who enforced the act and ensured the natives were evicted from their tribes, were the villain in this event. A few members of these native tribes managed to evade the displacement and some of the Native Americans who reside in the Southeast region of America today descended from them.
Andrew Jackson’s perspective about this movement of the Indian natives was that the journey would be a course to shape the Native Americans into a civilized community, which would come to embrace Christianity. Additionally, since they were to go to the other side of the Mississippi River, they would be happy and free from the white settlers whom they scrambled for land and other social and cultural differences, which both groups could hardly agree upon. On the other hand, most native tribes leaders felt that the Federal government was doing them a great injustice by displacing them from lands where all their whole lives had been all in favor of the whites (Harkins, 1831). Unfortunately, the latter had no power over the Federal government. After having several lawsuits against the government to seek justice from the supreme court by the natives, the court ruled against them. Some of these native leaders signed treaties with government authorities and began their journey out of their lands. The journey was not as easy as most of the Native Americans thought, especially the Cherokee.
The Cherokees were first forced to leave their ancestral lands, North Carolina and Georgia, in May 1938, after General Winfield Scott received an order from President Martin Van Buren stating that the remaining Cherokees should be evicted. These people were subjected to harsh weather conditions, including heavy rains, low freezing temperatures during winter, and snow. If that was not enough, the migrating Cherokee people experienced malnutrition from starvation and lack of adequate food, and many died from diseases (Ehle, 2011).
In the winter of 1838, the Cherokees began the 1,000-mile (1,600 km) march from Red Clay, Tennessee, to Oklahoma, with scarce clothing, and most of them were on foot. As they journeyed, the Indians were not allowed to go into any towns or villages because of the diseases they contracted along the way, which meant they had to travel much farther to go around hostile communities that often attacked them...