The Trail of Tears: Author Dee Brown’s Stance on Indian Tribes Forced to Cede Land
1. Two men, Ross and Scott had much to do with the ceding of the Indian lands. Scott wanted all the Cherokee Indians to move to Mississippi and therefore signed a treaty, in which a very small fraction had supported. Ross on the other hand with approximately 15,000 supporters, wanted to nullify this treaty because it was obvious that only a small group were supporters.
2. Many Indians Resisted moving west, but Jackson had sent enforcers to make everybody move. The people that resisted were forced to move and later probably die.
3. In one situation, an Indian kicked out of his own house because two men wanted his log cabin. To decide on who would receive the poor Indains house, the two men had a duel and whoever won would take the house.
4. Andrew Jackson tried to take all of the Indians land because he wanted to win the election. In order to win, he would need to take all of the frontier land, and then he would gain many supporters.
5. It would be very easy for white men to take over and acquire whatever they wanted, because the Indians were such a small minority compared to all of the white men. The Americans were all on the side of taking all the Indians land, and there was really nothing they could do about it except resist and then probably end up dieing.
6. One of every four members of the tribe died because of the very long journey that the Cherokee Indians had to make. The harsh transport that they had to go through on their dieing horse and dieing family members was called “The Trail of Tears”.
7. People had to travel on foot and on horse going from the mouth of the Hiawassee in Tennessee across the Cumberland Plateau to McMinnville and then north to Nashville where they crossed the Cumberland River. Then they followed an old trail to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and continued to the Ohio River, next crossing into southern Illinois near the mouth of the Cumberland. The moved straight westward and passed though Jonesboro and crossed the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau.
8. Since the conditions in the summer, when the Indians were forced to leave were too hot, a small compromise had been issued to start the moving towards the west in or around October. Also the Indians would be able to travel by themselves this time. When they were forced to leave, the people took the Indians on a cramped flat boat and drifted for days, when finally they arrived, almost 5 Indians had died per day.
9. Many of the lands and all other property that was taken from the Indians was later given away to people who won the lottery. Many Indians would just be kicked out of their house and forced to find or build a shelter for themselves in the woods or any other location their were able to find.
10. Tsali, an old Indian Cherokee had built a hideout between Tennessee and North Carolina. Soon Tsali’s hideout had been surrounded and Tsali surrendered. As Tsali and his wife were walking, one of the white men hit his wife with a bayonet and angered Tsali, so he took the bayonet and killed both of the men. Scott send Utsala, Tsali’s brother a message stating that if Tsali would surrender, then Scott would let all the other people go. Not hesitating and knowing he was probably going to be killed, he sacrificed his life to protect the rest of his family and other thousands other families who had been hiding away.
