During the 1830s President George Washington and Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which emigrated Native Americans who were living in Indian territory to present-day Oklahoma. The Trail of Tears was a desolating time for over 100,000 Native Americans. In 1493, Pope Alexander the Sixth created an international law that related indigenous people to a lower status based on their non-Christian beliefs. This law, known as the doctrine of discovery, allowed European colonizers to claim land inhabited by non-Christian peoples under the idea of Christianity saving their souls. This new law sped up the process and assimilated them into towns and schools, losing all of their cultures and families. During 1838 and 1839, the Cherokee tribe
