The Trail of Tears

MISSISSIPPI BECAME the first state to start removal of the tribes. Although they didn’t speak for the entire Choctaw Nation, some Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, ceding all lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for land in Indian Territory, which would later make up most of the State of Oklahoma. Between 1831 and 1833, large numbers of the Choctaw Nation were forced out of Mississippi by this treaty. Removal was disorganized, and many people died of starvation, exposure, and a cholera epidemic.

Alabama and Georgia soon followed, forcing the Muscogee from their homes. Numerous conflicts with settlers and the government had left many Muscogee impoverished, which made the journey to Indian Territory even more difficult. People often had to leave for Indian Territory with only what they could carry. Those who resisted had to march bound in chains. The journey was over 800 miles by land, and most people were walking with inadequate clothing for winter travel. Most traveled barefoot, and

OSCEOLA

In 1835, President Jackson sent a letter to the Seminole informing them that they must sign a treaty giving up their lands. A Seminole warrior named Osceola reportedly stabbed the treaty with his knife. Afterward, he continued to lead the Seminole in resistance against the United States and the removal policies by orchestrating several successful battles.

Osceola was not a chief but he was a skilled speaker and greatly influenced the Seminole with his words and his bravery. The Seminole built their villages deep in the swamps to avoid capture. In 1836, many people in Florida, Seminole and settlers alike, became ill with malaria. The following year. General Thomas Jessup arrived with 5,000 troops. With a weakened Seminole people and also sick with malaria, Osceola surrendered under a white flag of truce. Jessup's troops threw down the white flag and put Osceola in chains. In anger over this betrayal, the Seminole continued to fight. Meanwhile, Osceola was placed in a prison cell in Charleston, South Carolina, where he died on January 30,1838.

Any shoes were soon falling to pieces. Many couldn’t keep walking on frostbitten feet and were exhausted. They were left by the side of the road. The 400 miles by water wasn’t much better, as officials crowded as many Native Americans as possible onto barges. During one trip up the Mississippi River, a steamboat collided with a boat crowded with Muscogee people. The boat was cut in half, killing 311 Muscogee people.

Approximately 3,500 people died during the forced migration to Indian Territory.

The government also asked Muscogee leaders to help with the capture of Seminoles in northern Florida. In return, the Muscogee would be in charge of the shared land in Indian Territory. Obviously, it was an agreement that left many Seminole angry. Although some had already made the journey to Indian Territory, others refused, which led to the Second Seminole War.

It took seven years to forcibly remove most of the Seminole people to Indian Territory. Some Seminole hid from soldiers, who continued to round up Seminole people for forced migration. General Zachary Taylor and his forces pursued escaped Seminole prisoners into late 1838. In December of that year, hundreds of Seminole warriors waited at Lake Okeechobee in central Florida for General Zachary Taylor and his forces of over a thousand who were pursuing escaped Seminoles. The Seminole defeated the army at the Battle of Okeechobee. When it ended on Christmas Day, the U. S. Army had lost 28 soldiers and had 112 wounded. Only 10 Seminoles died in the battle.

When the Second Seminole War end in 1842, the U. S. Army had lost 1,500 men and over $20 million had been spent. The United States continued to pursue the Seminole in Florida. Those who were caught were rounded up like livestock along with several hundred former African slaves and forced to Indian Territory. Others remained hidden in Florida until the U. S. government ceased to hunt them. The

Cherokee Chief John Ross.

Seminole people can proudly attest to never signing a peace treaty with the United States. Today, the Seminole have significant tribes in both Florida and Oklahoma.

Although the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek ceding Chickasaw land in Mississippi was ratified in early 1833, it would take four more years before the Chickasaw made the trip to Indian Territory. Yet even before that, white squatters began settling on Chickasaw land that bordered upon Mississippi and Alabama, and the government would not stop them. When the Chickasaw people arrived in Indian Territory, they settled on the western parcels of land belonging to the Choctaw. The Cherokee and Choctaw had the largest divisions of Indian Territory bordering Arkansas, with the Cherokee to the north and the Choctaw in the south. The Muscogee and Seminole occupied sections in central Indian Territory.

The Cherokee decided to fight against Indian Removal in court. Specifically, they declared that if they were an independent nation, they shouldn’t be subject to state or federal laws. By 1832, the Supreme Court agreed that the Cherokee were indeed a sovereign nation not subject to the Indian Removal Act. Instead, removal would have to be done by treaty.

U. S. commissioners met with a small group of Cherokee in 1835. This group, which included Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias

Boudinot (editor of the Cherokee newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix), signed the New Echota Treaty, ceding all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi to the government for $5 million. Many Cherokee cried in outrage that a few people were allowed to speak and make decisions for the entire nation.

Cherokee Chief John Ross made many trips to Washington, D. C., to try to convince U. S. officials of the rights of the Cherokee to remain on their lands. When Ross returned home from the capital in 1835, he found white settlers living in his house. While he had been negotiating with the federal government, the Georgia government held a land lottery and gave his home to someone else.

Cherokee removal began in 1838. The first general in charge of Cherokee removal, John Wool, resigned in protest. General Winfield Scott was hired to supervise the removal with the help of 7,000 soldiers. They began by removing Cherokee people from their homes at gunpoint and locking them up in stockades. The people weren’t even allowed to gather their belongings. Many families were separated. Three groups left that summer for the six-month trip. Crowding, disease, and drinking unsanitary water led to many deaths. In one group, three to five people a day died. One quarter of the people—4,000—died because of the unsanitary conditions. The children and

The Trail of Tears exhibit at the Cherokee Heritage Center.

The elderly were the first to die on the thousand-mile walk that provided little in the way of food or resources.

Reverend Daniel Sabine Butrick had been a missionary to the Cherokee for approximately 20 years when Cherokee Removal began. A close friend of Chief John Ross, Butrick traveled with the third group of approximately 1,070 people who left for Indian Territory in the summer of 1838. He kept a journal of the journey.

Monday (June 11 or 18,1838] — The weather being extremely warm and dry, many of the Cherokees are sick especially at Calhoon where, we understand, from four to ten die in a day.

One returning from the camps was overtaken by a gentleman who had been with a boat load of dear Cherokee prisoners. Of the second boat load he says thirty had died when he met them at Waterloo, and great sickness was prevailing.

Chief Ross, who lost his own wife on the Trail of Tears, convinced General Scott to allow the Cherokee to take over the removal from the army soldiers, in July 1838. At a council meeting, Ross and six others were elected as the Emigration Management Committee to oversee the arrangements. Ross negotiated a contract that allowed for $65.88 per person for the trip. This provided $0.16 a day for food and So.40 a day per horse or ox. By November, the remaining Cherokee were divided into smaller groups to take various routes to Indian Territory. They foraged for food to supplement their limited rations. Muddy roads and ice-covered rivers made travel hazardous, but fewer Cherokee died when they took charge of their own move.

Rebecca Neugin was three years old at the time of removal. She recalled her mother being allowed to go back to their home for bedding and grabbing as many cooking utensils as she could, which helped her family survive, Neugin explained to historian Grant Foreman.

The people got so tired of eating salt pork on the journey that my father would walk through the woods as we traveled, hunting for turkeys and deer which he brought into camp to feed us. Camp was usually made at some place where water was to he had and when we stopped and prepared to cook our food other emigrants who had been driven from their homes without opportunity to secure cooking utensils came to our camp to use our pots and kettles. There was much sickness among the emigrants and a great many little children died of whooping cough.

A small group of Cherokee escaped into the North Carolina mountains. Today, they are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokees. With tempers high after the disastrous Trail of Tears, groups within the Ross party planned the execution of the Cherokee men who had signed the Treaty of New Echota. It is not known if Principal Chief John Ross supported this decision or tried to stop it. John Rollin Ridge was 12 years old when he saw his father, John Ridge, and grandfather. Major Ridge, executed. John Rollin Ridge later became the first Native American novelist when his book. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854), was published.

Like the Eastern Band of Cherokee, some Choctaw and Seminole people remained behind and today have bands living in Mississippi and Florida respectively. Yet the majority of each nation made the dangerous trek with a large, unnecessary loss of life. Although the term “Trail of Tears” was first associated with the Cherokee people, it applied to all five of the southeastern U. S. nations forced from their homes only to lose children, spouses, and grandparents.