Trail of Tears Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Trail of Tears - Essay ExampleIn addition, they were starved, froze to death and were murdered ascribable to the mandatory relocation policies of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This Act sought to create a purity only America therefore many tribes, predominantly the Cherokee Nation, were forced to leave familiar ancestral lands. The one thousand mile journey out of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and Muscogee lands in the eastern U.S. to present day Oklahoma during the 1830s is cognize as the Trail of Tears. This shameful episode in American hi tier is one of the best cognize and worst examples of how the infixeds suffered at the hands of the authorities. It is difficult to visualize the government confiscating a persons kinfolk due their ethnicity alone and forcing them, their family, friends, relatives and neighbors to walk hundreds of miles during a harsh winter but this is what happened 180 years ago to thousands of natives of America. The United States was establ ished by and for the people and built on precept of justice for all. However, barely a half century from its founding, this same government and its supposed democratic values subjugated all persons of color. Blacks were enslaved, interpreted from their lands and Indians subjugated, slaughtered and forced off their lands. The natives who survived the mass exodus found themselves in strange place which is a stimulate prospect for people whose life depended on k without delaying every feature of recognizable territory. Today, the horrific story of the Trail of Tears stirs the emotions of all American citizens but at the time of the removal this crime against bounty of historic proportions symbolized the existing feelings towards the natives, feelings which were represented by laws directed against them. The incident questioned the widely held perception that America was a fair and just country. In April of 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter to President Martin Van Buren regardin g Cherokee removal. The letter said, in part, You, sir, ordain bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this puppet of perfidy and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world. (Logan, 2004) In whitethorn 1938, in opposition to the nations guiding principles precept and a week before the deadline of eviction, government troops began the cruel process of forcibly removing native people from their ancestral homeland. Those still remaining were non given enough time to collect any personal effects such as forage or clothes before being forced to live in make-shift camps. Many Indians, including children, were separated from their tribes and families. Their now empty homes were plundered by soldiers even while they were being taken away at gunpoint. Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway. Men were seized in their fields or going along the road, wome n were taken from their wheels and children from their play. They saw their homes in flames, fired by the lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and pillage. Hunts were made by the same men for Indian graves, to rob them of the silver pendants and other valuables deposited with the dead. (Logan, 2004) Removing the native people from their former lands was inevitable and had been wanted by many long before it occurred. The European descendents had been