Causes Of The Trail Of Tears

There were a few events that led to the Trail of Tears. Native Americans fought alongside the British in both the French/ Indian war and the Revolutionary war. When the Americans won the war they confiscated some of the Native American’s land. Before the Indian Removal Act, the Cherokee Tribe was recognized by the Government as their own nation. Gold was another reason that Americans were so eager to get them off their land. Once the white settlers discovered there was gold on Cherokee land, they began to push them out.
At the time, Army general Andrew Jackson was an activist of “Indian removal.” He had spent years leading vicious campaigns against the Native Americans which resulted in hundreds of thousands of acres of land being taken from …show more content…
The Cherokee divided its self under two categories: the treaty party and the Ross party. Those under the treaty party complied with the government to relocate and the Ross party wanted to come to an agreement because they refused to give up their land. The matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Marshall court ruled that the Cherokees were not a sovereign and independent nation, and therefore refused to hear the case. The treaty party secretly signed a treaty to give up their land. The Ross party was irate because the treaty party accounted for only a small party of The Cherokee nation. They were ultimately forced out of their land.

The Trail of Tears was a period where Native Americans were being forced out of their land due to treaties and laws. The name Trail of Tears was given by the Cherokee Indians because of its demoralizing effects. A total of eight thousand Cherokee Indians did not survive the winter of 1837-38, and during the trail of tears. They lost their possessions, land and their