THE TRAIL OF TEARS

On this day in 1830, Congress passed “The Indian Removal Act” which permitted the forceful and sometimes violent removal of Native Americans from their homes, towns, villages and farms in the Southeastern United States.

A few years later, thousands of Cherokee landowners and landowners of other nations were removed from their homes and farms by the State of Georgia, held in prison camps and then sent on an 800 mile forced march to Oklahoma which left at least 2,000 dead.

The land was theirs.

A fraudulent treaty had been foisted on them “agreeing” to a one-sided deal in which they “traded” their prime agricultural land – which they were farming expertly – for a reservation in Oklahoma.

The Cherokee people appealed to the Supreme Court which struck down the bogus treaty as fraudulent.

Andrew Jackson’s response: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

15,000 militia descended on the region removing native people from their homes at gunpoint and under threat of violence.

Speculators pounced on the stolen land and turned it into an empire of slavery-fueled plantations.

Andrew Jackson’s doing. The President Donald Trump says he most admires. (Jackson’s portrait hangs in Trump’s office.)