ABSTRACT
In 1837 roughly 18,000 members of the Cherokee Nation in North Carolina and Georgia traveled to new lands in Oklahoma in what is know as the “trail of tears.” In one week in the spring of 1837, soldiers forcibly rounded up members of the tribe and took them to forts to prepare for the trip west. From these forts the army planned to move the Cherokees to land in Oklahoma granted to the tribe by the Treaty of New Echota, which had been signed by a minority faction in the tribe in 1835. The first wave of emigrants left in the summer of 1837 under armed guard. The heat and hardships faced by that group were so intense that the rest of the tribe agreed to leave without further coercion if they could wait until the cooler fall, which was agreed to. By the time it was done, a large number of people had died (sometimes estimated as 4,000 out of 18,000). Neither Indian nor white leaders expected such a disaster. Historians have assigned the blame to many parties, including Andrew Jackson and the leadership of the Cherokee.
