Trail of Tears

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Court ruling… The Cherokee would have to agree to removal in a treaty. The treaty then would have to be ratified by the Senate.

Removing the Cherokees… The Treaty of New Echota in 1835, gave Jackson the legal document he needed to remove the First Americans.

Marching to Oklahoma…. 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.

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

Reorganization of Cherokees into smaller groups Cherokee leaders, requested that the US officers would let their people lead the tribe west. They agreed.

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").

Map of the Trail of Tears

April 1839 Cherokees build houses, clear land, plant and begin to rebuild their nation.

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.