Track Tears

The Piste of the Tears is the name given to a tragic episode of the Histoire of the United States in first half of the 19th century. Between 1831 and 1838, the US government decides to move several Amerindian people authoritatively in the west of the Mississippi, to give the grounds to white colonists, pursuant to the Indian Removal Act.

Chronology

December 29th 1835: Treaty of New Echota: 300 to 500 of the 17.000 Cherokees living in the east of the the Mississippi (the delegation Ridge , carried out by Cherokees John Ridge and Elias Boudinot) sign for the whole of the nation a treaty which yields to the United States their grounds for five million dollars, in violation of the Cherokees laws, and without only one elected official among them. The Congress ratifies this treaty the following year of a voice, in spite of the protests of John Ross. The 465 Cherokees signatories leave for the west in 1837.
March 1838: the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson protests by a letter sent to the president Martin Van Buren against this treaty.
May 18th 1838: the expiry of the treaty of New Echota having arrived, the general Winfried Scott starts to make gather Cherokees in 31 forts, with only clothing which they wore.
at the end of July 1838: They are then gathered in eleven camps envisaged for this purpose (ten with the Tennessee, one in Alabama).
Environ 3000 Cherokees travel by inland waterway as from June, and arrive until September in the Indian Territory.
October 16th 1838: Departure of Cherokees remaining by the ways. They traverse 1750 km, reach the Mississippi in November, but the 5000 last remain blocked on bank is all the winter. The first groups arrived in January at Fort Gibson.
March 1839: arrival of the Cherokees last. Approximately 4000 of them at least, 8000 at most, died in way, of cold, of hunger or dépuisement, along the Piste of the Tears.
June 1839: John Ridge and Elias Boudinot are assassinés.

The four others civilized Nations (Séminoles, Creeks, Chotaws and Chickasaws) were off-set same manner, and knew also their Track of the tears. This name comes from the tears of compassion poured by the Americans who saw them passing in front of them. Some Cherokees succeeded in hiding in the mountains, and of Séminoles in the marshes of the Everglades.

History

The State of Georgia sets up repressive laws and on sale puts the Indian grounds in 1834. The natives do not have the right to testify in justice: they cannot be defended against the monopolization of the grounds by the colonists géorgiens. Cherokees are off-set initially in Arkansas then in Oklahoma: this episode is known like that of the Track of the tears in 1838-1839, because the reserved treatment in Cherokees raised a real indignation in part of the American opinion. It is the general Winfield Scott who carries out of force the great disturbance of Cherokees: according to the historian Grant Foreman, on 18.000 Cherokees having taken the way of the exile, 4000 died. Several hundreds hid in the mountains: a White bought grounds for them on which they still live; today Georgia tries to repurchase a control by rehabilitating the high places of the Cherokee memory.

See too

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