The Trail Of Tears

The Trail of Tears
The final travesty which removed the natives from their homes east of the Mississippi River came nearly 300 years after the discovery of the new world. The Native American population had been decimated by disease, famine, and warfare caused by the new settlers on their land. Approximately ten percent of the Indian population had survived before the government’s selfish land hungry act against an unrecognized nation of natives, which led to the Trail of Tears. In the early 1800’s, there were five major tribes remaining in the Southeast consisting of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee.   The discovery of the new world led to new settlers coming to this land in search of land ownership and wealth. These new settlers did not see the Indians as equals and found the land that they lived on to be available since the Indians were not typically settled as the settlers were accustom to. The settlers found the natives to be uncivilized and barbaric in their ways. The colonies continued to grow and the desire for more land also grew. This forced the Indians to live by the customs brought in by the new settlers and abandon much of their culture if they wished to continue to live on portions of their land.   After the American Revolution the new government began to focus on the craving for more land. By the end of this period “the Cherokees had surrendered more than half of their original territory to state and federal governments.”(Garrison) In the late 1780s, the Indian tribes were urged to take on more of the civilized living practices the settlers lived by. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson saw the purchase of the Louisiana Territory as “an opportunity to implement an idea he had contemplated for many years-the relocation of the eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi River.”(Garrison)   From 1803 until 1830, the state and federal governments tried to convince the tribes to move west of the Mississippi River. “In 1819 the Cherokee...