Introduction
The Trail of Tears was a 1000-2000 mile journey that five tribes had to walk in order to get to their designated land that Andrew Jackson called “Indian Territory.” The Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, were forced out of their homelands, not given any other option but to leave, or be killed trying to stay in their home where you made memories with families and friends. The trail was where thousands of people died from horrible sicknesses, starvation, and the harsh weather. The Trail of Tears, the migration of the Native Americans, is an important event in history because it created understanding of what the Native Americans had to go through, it commemorated their journey, and helps …show more content…
The landscape had shaped the culture and the history of these people in their original homelands, and now they had to adapt to a new environment west of the Mississippi River. As the tribes entered their new lands, the one thing they wouldn’t do was move beyond the hills, even though it was the southeastern part of Territory that resembled their homelands in the southeast. They had lived further west, which was treeless, had little rain, and was completely foreign to their experience. In addition, it was there where the Kiowas, Comanches, Wichitas, and Apaches, who were buffalo-hunting, highly mobile societies. Who would raid anyone that would settle on the Southeastern tribes. Although the treaties guaranteed their rights to lands all the way to the Arkansas, Red, and Canadian Rivers, the environment in the west made a natural boundary beyond which the southeastern tribes would not move …show more content…
Some would always have images of savage cruelty and a lot of them would live with survivor 's guilt for the rest of their lives. Their lives consisted of mistrust for white authority and the government. They didn’t see their possessions as their own but as the government 's . Life after the trail was filled with mistrust. They were scared of never being allowed to live on their own property, without the government coming in and taking it away, and had a sense of resentment towards all white men (What