The Forced Migration of an Idigenous People

It was well known and widely documented that White, Land-owning Americans exploited African-Americans in slavery; the majority also despised Native Americans and found them to be a nuisance.  President James Madison declared "Next to the case of the black race within our bosom; that of the red on our borders is the problem most baffling to the policy of OUR country."  OUR COUNTRY for which the native Americans settled, planted, hunted first for many years before the Anglo's settled. Though Andrew Jackson's hatred of Native Americans was already concrete, by 1830 when he took the Office of the Presidency he was able to in act policy against them. Jackson's personal view of Natives were that they were barbarians who were better off out of the way.  To which he introduced a policy to move all native Americans west of the Mississippi away from white civilization that he considered "just, humane, liberal policy toward Indians."

 

                Original Map of inclusion in the Indian Removal Act (1830)

In 1830 Congress barely passed the Indian Removal Act authorizing land west of the Mississippi for Indians in exchange for land that they currently resided in the East and South. Between 1830 and 1840 forty-six thousand Native Americans were relocated to the reserved land at the Governments expense including the Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole, Creek and Chickasaw tribes. The Map Below shows the primary routes of the migration of those Southwestern tribes. More than 4,000 Native Americans would lose their lives on this trek gaining the name " The trail of tears."

                                Indian removal 1830-1835

The Trail of Tears was a bleeding sore in our History and historically stands as a major travesty in not only our nation but the world. The persecution of our indigenous teachers showed the greed and unrelenting  ignorance of our exploration ancestors.




  According to legend, a Cherokee rose, the state flower of Georgia, grew in every spot a tear fell on the Trail of Tears. Today the flowers grow along many of the trails that the Native Americans took West