The Trail of Tears & the American Indian Removal of 1831 to 1838

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
President Andrew Jackson

Between 1831 and 1838, thousands of Native Americans were forcibly removed from their original tribal lands and resettled on new reservations west of the Mississippi. The numbers vary and I think those published might be better-called educated guesses. My “guess” is somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000, based upon my reading. Figures as high as 100,000 can be found. All the numbers found in the following entries are approximates. My wife has close cousins whose ancestors were “removed,” so it’s a topic we find especially interesting.

Bill Dollarhide worked up a brief timeline for me. Then I did a bit more research and fleshed it out a bit. The following might be of interest to my readers. Thanks to Bill for his help on this.

Following is an historical timeline of the rather shameful period in American history:

1803. Soon after the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson urged the resettling of Indian tribes of the eastern United States onto the new lands west of the Mississippi.

1804. Congress passed legislation authorizing the negotiation of removal treaties with the eastern tribes, and over the next twenty years, several tribes or portions of tribes moved west. This first phase of removal was voluntary, and often conflicted with white settlers moving into Missouri Territory at the same time.

1812. Early in the War of 1812, the British offered guns and training to any Indian tribes who would help in their fight against the Americans. The largest group of recruits was the Red Stick band of the Creek Indian tribe, who supplied over 7,000 warriors to the war. This was a serious mistake on their part, but how were they to know that the rebellious patriots would win?

1814-1815. The Creek War of 1814 hardened the American public’s attitude against all of the five tribes. After the War of 1812 ended in 1815, the main political issue in America was the removal of the Indians. For several more years, the Five Tribes all resisted any further voluntary removal plans and refused to negotiate.

1828. Andrew Jackson ran for President on a platform of forced removal of the five tribes to a proposed Indian Reserve west of the Mississippi. He won in a landslide. Within days after Jackson was elected, the western boundary of Arkansas Territory was drawn, and the law described the area west of that line as the exclusive domain of Indian tribes.

1830. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the removal of the Five Tribes to the new Indian Reserve, to be enforced and directed by the U.S. Army.

Removal Routes of the Five Tribes
All of the Indian removal routes of the 1830s are known today as the Trail of Tears because of the hardships experienced by the tribes forced to journey from their original tribal lands to the Indian Reserve. Some of the routes included steamboat travel, when the Indians were herded on board the riverboats like cattle. More of their routes were overland treks, foot marches enforced by US Army cavalry troops.  The dates and routes used by each of the five tribes were as follows:

1831. The Choctaw were the first of the five tribes removed to the new Indian Reserve. The original Choctaw tribal lands were in central Mississippi and eastern Alabama. The removal of some 20,000 Choctaw began on a line west to Jackson, Mississippi; then the Natchez Trace to Natchez, Mississippi; then to Fort Towson on the Red River. The Choctaw reservation was located in the southeast corner of present Oklahoma.

1832. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Worcester v. Georgia. They ruled in favor of the Indians and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations “in which the laws of Georgia [as well as other states] can have no force.” However, President Andrew Jackson told Brigadier General John Coffee, “The decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.” And enforcement of the ruling was never carried out.

1832. A partial group of some 4,500 Seminoles were removed from their original tribal land of Florida via steamboat across the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans; then up the Mississippi River and Arkansas River to Fort Smith, Arkansas and into the Indian Reserve (Seminole County, Oklahoma today). A remaining group of Seminoles resisted and the Seminole Wars led by Osceola ensued. Hostilities ended in 1842 without a treaty. About 800 Seminoles hiding in the Everglades were never found, and today about 4,500 of their descendants make up the recognized Seminole Tribe of Florida, who refer to themselves as “The Undefeated.”

1834. The Creeks / Muscogee were removed from their original tribal lands in present western Georgia and eastern Alabama. The removal of some 15,000 Creeks was generally on a northwestern line to Memphis, Tennessee on the Mississippi River; then via Steamboat up the Arkansas River to Fort Smith and into the Indian Reserve. Another Creek route was south to Mobile, Alabama; then by Steamboat to New Orleans and up the Mississippi River to the Arkansas River;then to Fort Smith and into the Indian Reserve. About 3500 of the Creeks didn’t survive the journey.

1837. The Chickasaw were removed from their original tribal lands in northern Mississippi, west Tennessee, and western Kentucky. The removal of about 6,000 Chickasaw was via the Mississippi River and Arkansas River to Little Rock, Arkansas; then southwest to Fort Towson on the Red River.

1838. The Cherokee of western North Carolina, northern Georgia and Mississippi, and Middle and East Tennessee had challenged the legality of the removals, as noted above (see 1832).  President Martin Van Buren ordered General Winfield Scott, with about 7,000 troops to remove the natives. About 15,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed to the Indian Reserve. The Cherokee suffered the most of all of the tribes on the Trail of Tears. Their routes were all longer overland trails by foot only – about 1200 miles. Of the estimated 6,000 deaths on the Trail of Tears, over 5,000 were Cherokee. About 800 Cherokee of North Carolina escaped the forced removal by agreeing to assimilate into white society. In the 1920s, the group bought back a portion of their original tribal land from the federal government and were recognized as the Eastern Band of Cherokee of North Carolina.

The above map above shows the routes each of the Five Tribes took from their homeland to Indian Territory. These routes are known as the Trail of Tears because of the hardships and high number of deaths on the marches. A couple of labels on the above map need clarification: 1) In 1834, legislation defined “Indian Country” as any portion of the western United States that was not part of a state or territory, thus, Indian Country was the same as Unorganized Territory. The name and area of “Indian Territory” as shown on the above map was not officially defined until 1872. 2) The “Indian Lands before Relocation” shown on the map are for the period 1831-1838 only. Before that, the tribal lands of the five tribes covered most of the area of the Old Southwest. (Map courtesy of National Geographic).

Sources and for further reading:

#RemarkableUSHistory #Genealogy #FamilyHistory #TrailOfTears #AmericanIndian

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.