USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Trail of Tears. In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the “Trail of Tears, ” because of its devastating effects.

Detailed explanation-2: -During the harsh winter of 1838-1839 over 15, 000 Cherokee Indians passed through southern Illinois on their Trail of Tears. Many hundreds perished from cold and hunger on this long and tortuous trek from their homeland near the Smokey Mountains to new government-designated lands in eastern Oklahoma.

Detailed explanation-3: -Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian Territory” across the Mississippi River.

Detailed explanation-4: -The removal of the Cherokee began in 1838 under the leadership of General Winfield Scott who, with 7, 000 soldiers and members of various State militias, escorted the Cherokee and other Indians west.

Detailed explanation-5: -The term “Trail of Tears” refers to the difficult journeys that the Five Tribes took during their forced removal from the southeast during the 1830s and 1840s. The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole were all marched out of their ancestral lands to Indian Territory, or present Oklahoma.