In the early 19th century, the United States was
expanding westward, hungry for land. But that land was not empty — it was home
to the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole nations, who had lived
there for centuries.
In 1830, the U.S.
government passed the Indian Removal Act,
giving itself the legal power to seize Indigenous lands and forcibly relocate
their people. They called it “removal.” History calls it ethnic cleansing.
Families were torn
from their homes, their crops left to rot, their sacred places abandoned.
Soldiers marched them hundreds of miles to territories west of the Mississippi.
The journey was brutal: freezing winters, scorching summers, disease, and
starvation claimed thousands of lives.
For the Cherokee
alone, it is estimated that 4,000 out of
16,000 people died during the forced march. Children were buried by
the side of the road. Elders collapsed and were left behind. Survivors carried
not just the grief of those they lost, but the knowledge that the land they
loved had been stolen forever.
The U.S. government
called it progress. For the Native nations, it was a wound that never healed.
Today, the Trail of Tears is remembered not just as a chapter in American
history, but as a reminder of what happens when greed and power crush humanity.
History books often
write about expansion, opportunity, and the “American dream.” But for those who
walked the Trail of Tears, America was not a dream. It was a graveyard.
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