The Trail of Tears

A Crime Against Humanity

The trail of tears was a U.S. Government-Planned death march imposed on 5 civilized Indian tribes: the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Seminioles.

There were about 16,000 Cherokee before their eviction. They put up the biggest fight; enough make them the last tribe to be forced from their homes. They were a stationary tribe, and not nomads like many others. They had their own system of writing based on Greek, Hebrew, and English. They also had their own constitution and a Republican system of government. The Cherokee had formed treaty with the U.S. Government that protected their land in Tennessee and Georgia, but as soon as gold was discovered in Georgia, everything changed. Georgians claimed that all treaties with the Indians were null and void, and tried to take the Cherokee's land. A fierce legal battle ensued, and the Supreme Court sided with the Cherokee in that it was unconstitutional for Georgia to take the land. Andrew Jackson, the president at the time, gave less heed to the Constitution of these peoples than he would an insect landing on his coat. He merely brushed it aside and declared that the Indians would be moved, forcefully if necessary, to the West. Thus began the Trail of Tears, in which the sanctity and sanity, the hopes and dreams of these people were shredded and burned like endless sheets of paper.

The Cherokee began to be moved under federal guard in May of 1838. The term "guard" was actually best described as a forced march at bayonet-point. During the roundups, many Indians were forced to leave their homes with only the clothes they were wearing. Time and time again, Indians watched as soldiers confiscated their belongings and sold them to white men for next to nothing. Coincidentally, also in May the worst drought in the southwest's recorded history began. Over 13,000 Cherokees were imprisoned in July, and around 1,500 died in confinement in the blistering heat with little water. Of 13 separate groups, the Army commanded some, the others were hired out to contractors. Each contractor received $65 from the government per person under his care for food and medical supplies, but often these funds were misused.

Though this atrocity may not be on the scale of Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin, but it is certainly something for our country to be deeply ashamed of.