The Trail of Tears: removal in the south

When the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson proposed that eastern Indian tribes could be moved west to this new expanse of land. Jefferson's recommendation was in direct response to the demand by white settlers for more land, especially in the southeastern portion of the United States. As a result, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which set in motion the relocation of thousands of eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. Among the primary tribes targeted for this large-scale removal was the Cherokee. Despite proving its sovereign status through two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Cherokee Nation could only delay the removal of its people. On December 29, 1835, members of the Cherokee Treaty Party agreed to give up their people's eastern lands in return for land in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), $5 million, and the cost of transporting their people west. Thus, in June 1838, the first of at least 16 Cherokee detachments were forced to march west on what would become known as the Trail of Tears.