Editing Trail of Tears (section)

==Overview==
[[File:Trails of Tears en.png|thumb|upright=1.75|A map of the process of [[Indian Removal]], 1830–1838. Oklahoma is depicted in light yellow-green.]]

In 1830, a group of Indian nations collectively referred to as the "[[Five Civilized Tribes]]" (the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole nations), were living [[Autonomous#Politics|autonomously]] in what would later be termed the American [[Deep South]]. The process of cultural transformation from their traditional way of life towards a [[White Americans|white American]] way of life as proposed by [[George Washington]] and [[Henry Knox]] was gaining momentum, especially among the Cherokee and Choctaw.<ref name="perdue">{{Cite book |last=Perdue |first=Theda |title=Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South |publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]] |year=2003 |isbn=0-8203-2731-X |page=51 |chapter=Chapter 2 'Both White and Red'}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Trail of Tears |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170627170755/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html |archive-date=June 27, 2017 |access-date=October 17, 2017 |publisher=[[PBS]] |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

American settlers had been pressuring the federal government to remove Indians from the Southeast; many settlers were encroaching on Indian lands, while others wanted more land made available to the settlers. Although the effort was vehemently opposed by some, including [[United States Congress|U.S. Congressman]] [[Davy Crockett]] of [[Tennessee]], [[Presidency of Andrew Jackson|President]] [[Andrew Jackson]] was able to gain Congressional passage of the [[Indian Removal Act]] of 1830, which authorized the government to extinguish any Indian title to land claims in the Southeast.

In 1831, the Choctaw became the first Nation to be removed, and their removal served as the model for all future relocations. [[Seminole Wars|After two wars]], many Seminoles were removed in 1832. The Creek removal followed in 1834, the Chickasaw in 1837, and lastly the Cherokee in 1838.<ref name="PBS Indian Removal">{{Cite web |title=Indian removal 1814 - 1858 |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100418182301/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html |archive-date=April 18, 2010 |access-date=October 18, 2017 |publisher=[[PBS]] |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Some managed to evade the removals, however, and remained in their ancestral homelands; some Choctaw still reside in Mississippi, Creek in Alabama and Florida, Cherokee in [[North Carolina]], and Seminole in Florida. A small group of Seminole, fewer than 500, evaded forced removal; the modern [[Seminole Tribe of Florida|Seminole Nation of Florida]] is descended from these individuals.<ref>{{cite book |title=The new history of Florida |date=1996 |publisher=[[University Press of Florida]] |editor-last=Gannon |editor-first=Michael |isbn=0813014158 |location=Gainesville, FL |pages=183–206 |oclc=32469459}}</ref> A number of non-Indians who lived with the nations, including over 4,000 slaves and others of African descent such as spouses or [[Freedmen]],<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Smith |first=Ryan P. |title=How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-native-american-slaveholders-complicate-trail-tears-narrative-180968339/ |access-date=September 9, 2020 |magazine=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240814020344/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-native-american-slaveholders-complicate-trail-tears-narrative-180968339/ |archive-date=August 14, 2024}}</ref> also accompanied the Indians on the trek westward.<ref name="PBS Indian Removal" /> By 1837, 46,000 Indians from the southeastern states had been removed from their homelands, thereby opening {{convert|25|e6acre|km2}} for white settlement.<ref name="PBS Indian Removal" />{{sfn|Carter|1976|p=232}} When the "Five Tribes" arrived in Indian Territory, "they followed their physical appropriation of Plains Indians' land with an erasure of their predecessor's history", and "perpetuated the idea that they had found an undeveloped 'wilderness" when they arrived" in an attempt to appeal to white American values by participating in the settler colonial process themselves. Other Indian nations, such as the Quapaws and Osages had moved to Indian Territory before the "Five Tribes" and saw them as intruders.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Alaina E. |title=I've Been Here All The While: Black Freedom on Native Land |date=2021 |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]] |isbn=9780812253030 |pages=12–15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk4gEAAAQBAJ&q=i%27ve+been+here+all+the+while}}</ref>

=== Historical background ===
Before 1838, the fixed boundaries of these autonomous [[Federally recognized tribe|Indian nations]], comprising large areas of the United States, were subject to continual cession and annexation, in part due to pressure from [[Squatting|squatters]] and the threat of military force in the newly declared [[Territories of the United States|U.S. territories]]—federally administered regions whose boundaries supervened upon the Indian treaty claims. As these territories became [[U.S. state]]s, state governments sought to dissolve the boundaries of the Indian nations within their borders, which were independent of state jurisdiction, and to expropriate the land therein. These pressures were exacerbated by U.S. population growth and the expansion of [[slavery]] in the South, with the rapid development of cotton cultivation in the uplands after the invention of the [[cotton gin]] by [[Eli Whitney]].<ref name="Jahoda">{{Cite book |last=Jahoda |first=Gloria |url=https://archive.org/details/trailoftears00jaho |title=Trail of Tears: The Story of the American Indian Removal 1813-1855 |publisher=Wings Books |year=1975 |isbn=978-0-517-14677-4}}</ref>

Many people of the southeastern Indian nations had become [[Economic integration|economically integrated]] into the economy of the region. This included the plantation economy and the possession of slaves, who were also forcibly relocated during the removal.<ref name="Jahoda" />

Prior to Jackson's presidency, removal policy was already in place and justified by the myth of the "[[Vanishing Indian]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=O'Brien |first=Jean |title=Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-1452915258}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Berkhofer |first=Robert |title=The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian, from Columbus to the Present |year=1979 |isbn=9780394727943 |pages=29 |publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf Doubleday Publishing]]}}</ref> Historian Jeffrey Ostler explains that "Scholars have exposed how the discourse of the vanishing Indian was an ideology that made declining Indigenous American populations seem to be an inevitable consequence of natural processes and so allowed Americans to evade moral responsibility for their destructive choices".<ref name="Ostler2019">{{Cite book |last=Ostler |first=Jeffrey |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvgc629z |title=Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas |date=2019 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-21812-1 |doi=10.2307/j.ctvgc629z |jstor=j.ctvgc629z |s2cid=166826195}}</ref> Despite the common association of Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears, ideas for Removal began prior to Jackson's presidency. Ostler explains,&nbsp;"A singular focus on Jackson obscures the fact that he did not invent the idea of removal…Months after the passage of the Removal Act, Jackson described the legislation as the 'happy consummation' of a policy 'pursued for nearly 30 years{{'"}}.<ref name="Ostler2019" /> [[James Fenimore Cooper]] was also a key component of the maintenance of the "vanishing Indian" myth. This vanishing narrative can be seen as existing prior to the Trail of Tears through Cooper's novel ''[[The Last of the Mohicans]]''. Scholar and author [[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]] shows that:

{{blockquote|Cooper has the last of the 'noble' and 'pure' Natives die off as nature would have it, with the 'last Mohican' handing the continent over to Hawkeye, the nativized settler, his adopted son&nbsp;... Cooper had much to do with creating the US origin myth to which generations of historians have dedicated themselves, fortifying what historian Francis Jennings has described as "exclusion from the process of formation of American society and culture".<ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014" />}}

=== Jackson's role ===
Although Jackson was not the sole, or original, architect of Removal policy, his contributions were influential in its trajectory. Jackson's support for the removal of the Indians began at least a decade before his presidency.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wallace |first=Anthony |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=07xRyJGG4wAC |title=The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians |date=2011 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=9781429934275}}</ref> Indian removal was Jackson's top legislative priority upon taking office.<ref name="Howe 2007">{{Cite book |last=Howe |first=Daniel Walker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0XIvPDF9ijcC |title=What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 |date=2007 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=9780199743797}}</ref> After being elected president, he wrote in his first address to Congress: "The emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry".<ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014">{{Cite book |last=Dunbar-Ortiz |first=Roxanne |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/868199534 |title=An indigenous peoples' history of the United States |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-8070-0040-3 |location=Boston |publisher=[[Beacon Press]] |oclc=868199534}}</ref> The prioritization of American Indian removal and his violent past created a sense of restlessness among U.S. territories. During his presidency, "the United States made eighty-six treaties with twenty-six American Indian nations between New York and the Mississippi, all of them forcing land cessions, including removals".<ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014" />

In a speech regarding Indian removal, Jackson said,<ref name="National Archives 2021 y004">{{cite web |title=President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress 'On Indian Removal' (1830) |website=National Archives |date=June 25, 2021 |url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/jacksons-message-to-congress-on-indian-removal |access-date=February 26, 2024}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.}}

The removals, conducted under both Presidents [[Andrew Jackson|Jackson]] and [[Martin Van Buren|Van Buren]], followed the [[Indian Removal Act]] of 1830, which provided the president with powers to exchange land with Indian nations and provide infrastructure improvements on the existing lands. The law also gave the president power to pay for transportation costs to the West, should the nations willingly choose to relocate. The law did not, however, allow the president to force Indian nations to move west without a mutually agreed-upon treaty.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morris |first=Michael |date=2007 |title=Georgia and the Conversation over Indian Removal |url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27955256&site=eds-live&scope=site |url-access=subscription |journal=[[Georgia Historical Quarterly]] |volume=91 |issue=4 |pages=403–423 |access-date=15 February 2018 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Referring to the Indian Removal Act, Martin Van Buren, Jackson's [[Vice President of the United States|vice president]] and successor, is quoted as saying "There was no measure, in the whole course of [Jackson's] administration, of which he was more exclusively the author than this."<ref name="Howe 2007" />

According to historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Jackson's intentions were outwardly violent. Dunbar-Ortiz claims that Jackson believed in "bleeding enemies to give them their senses" on his quest to "serve the goal of U.S. expansion". According to her, American Indians presented an obstacle to the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny, in his mind.<ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014" />{{Page needed|date=June 2022}} Throughout his military career, according to historian [[Amy H. Sturgis]], "Jackson earned and emphasized his reputation as an 'Indian fighter', a man who believed creating fear in the native population was more desirable than cultivating friendship".<ref name="Sturgis 2007" /> In a message to Congress on the eve of Indian Removal, December 6, 1830, Jackson wrote that removal "will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites." In this way, Sturgis has argued that Jackson demarcated the Indian population as an "obstacle" to national success.<ref name="Sturgis 2007">{{Cite book |last=Sturgis |first=Amy H. |title=The Trail of Tears and Indian removal |date=2007 |publisher=[[Greenwood Press]] |isbn=978-0-313-05620-8 |pages=33, 40, 41 |oclc=181203333}}</ref> Sturgis writes that Jackson's removal policies were met with pushback from respectable social figures and that "many leaders of Jacksonian reform movements were particularly disturbed by U.S policy toward American Indians".<ref name="Sturgis 2007" /> Among these opponents were women's advocate and founder of the American Woman's Educational Association [[Catharine Beecher|Catherine Beecher]] and politician [[Davy Crockett]].<ref name="Sturgis 2007" />

Historian [[Francis Paul Prucha]], on the other hand, writes that these assessments were put forward by Jackson's political opponents and that Jackson had benevolent intentions. According to him, Jackson's critics have been too harsh, if not wrong.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Prucha |first=Francis Paul |author-link=Francis Paul Prucha |date=1969 |title=Andrew Jackson's Indian Policy: A Reassessment |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1904204 |journal=[[The Journal of American History]] |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=527–539 |doi=10.2307/1904204 |jstor=1904204 |issn=0021-8723}}</ref> He states that Jackson never developed a doctrinaire anti-Indian attitude and that his dominant goal was to preserve the security and well-being of the United States and its Indian and white inhabitants.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boyd |first=Kelly |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0121vD9STIMC&pg=PA967 |title=Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing |date=1999 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-1-884964-33-6 |pages=967 |language=en}}</ref> Corroborating Prucha's interpretation, historian [[Robert V. Remini]] argues that Jackson never intended the "monstrous result" of his policy.{{sfn|Remini|2001|p=270}} Remini argues further that had Jackson not orchestrated the removal of the "[[Five Civilized Tribes]]" from their ancestral homelands, they would have been totally wiped out.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Remini |first=Robert V. |author-link=Robert V. Remini |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GFYXfKlPhLkC |title=Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845 |date=1998-04-10 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8018-5913-7 |page=574 |language=en |quote=They are gone, wiped out. And there are other such tribes. President Jackson and his Democratic friends warned the Cherokees and the other southern tribes that extinction would be their fate if they refused to remove.}}</ref>

==== Treaty of New Echota ====
Jackson chose to continue with Indian removal, and negotiated the [[Treaty of New Echota]], on December 29, 1835, which granted the Cherokee two years to move to Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). The Chickasaws and Choctaws had readily accepted and signed treaties with the U.S. government, while the Creeks did so under coercion.<ref>{{cite web |last=Feller |first=Daniel |date=October 4, 2016 |title=Andrew Jackson: Domestic Affairs |url=https://millercenter.org/president/jackson/domestic-affairs |access-date=June 11, 2022 |website=[[Miller Center]] |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240701054020/https://millercenter.org/president/jackson/domestic-affairs |archive-date=July 1, 2024}}</ref>

The negotiation of the Treaty of New Echota was largely encouraged by Jackson, and it was signed by a minority Cherokee political faction, the Treaty Party, led by Cherokee leader [[Elias Boudinot (Cherokee)|Elias Boudinot]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Clair |first=Robin Patric |date=September 1997 |title=Organizing silence: Silence as voice and voice as silence in the narrative exploration of the treaty of New Echota |journal=Western Journal of Communication |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=315–337 |doi=10.1080/10570319709374580 |issn=1057-0314}}</ref> However, the treaty was opposed by most of the Cherokee people, as it was not approved by the Cherokee National Council, and it was not signed by Principal Chief [[John Ross (Cherokee chief)|John Ross]]. The Cherokee National Council submitted a petition, signed by thousands of Cherokee citizens, urging Congress to void the agreement in February 1836.<ref>{{cite book |last=Carroll |first=Clint |chapter=Shaping New Homelands: Landscapes of Removal and Renewal |date=May 15, 2015 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816690893.003.0003 |title=Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance |pages=57–82 |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |doi=10.5749/minnesota/9780816690893.003.0003 |isbn=9780816690893 |access-date=June 10, 2022}}</ref> Despite this opposition, the Senate ratified the treaty in March 1836, and the Treaty of New Echota thus became the legal basis for the Trail of Tears. Only a fraction of the Cherokees left voluntarily. The U.S. government, with assistance from state militias, forced most of the remaining Cherokees west in 1838.<ref>{{cite book |last=River |first=Charles |title=The Trail of Tears: Forced Removal of Five Civilized Tribes}}</ref>{{full citation needed|date=November 2022}}

The Cherokees were temporarily remanded in camps in eastern Tennessee. In November, the Cherokee were broken into groups of around 1,000 each and began the journey west. They endured heavy rains, snow, and freezing temperatures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perdue |first1=Theda |title=The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears |last2=Green |first2=Michael D. |publisher=Viking |year=2008 |isbn=9780670031504 |pages=137}}</ref> When the Cherokee negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, they exchanged all their land east of the Mississippi for land in modern Oklahoma and a $5 million payment from the federal government. Many Cherokee felt betrayed that their leadership accepted the deal, and over 16,000 Cherokee signed a petition to prevent the passage of the treaty.

By the end of the decade in 1840, tens of thousands of Cherokee and other Indian nations had been removed from their land east of the Mississippi River. The Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chicksaw were also relocated under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. One Choctaw leader portrayed the removal as "A Trail of Tears and Deaths", a devastating event that removed most of the Indian population of the southeastern United States from their traditional homelands.<ref name="history.com">{{Cite web |title=Trail of Tears |url=http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141214040657/http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears |archive-date=December 14, 2014 |access-date=December 15, 2014 |publisher=[[History Channel]]}}</ref>