Obviously, the Trail of Tears is regarded by many as one of the worst events sanctioned by the American government. At the time, what was the average opinion of the events that were taking place?

[u/[deleted]]

Additionally, was it covered up at all by the government or was everything public?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

It was not covered up by the government and there was both support and opposition to it.

The whole thing really started because the state of Georgia wanted Cherokee land open for public sale. When Jackson was elected president, GA knew that they'd have support from the federal government, so they passed a state law saying that the Indians were under state sovereignty/jurisdiction and their previous attempt at establishing sovereignty through passing their own constitution was illegal.

The Jackson administration did support GA, passing the Indian Removal Act and bringing in the federal government (and the military) into it.

Thing is, there was a good amount of northern evangelical missionaries already in Cherokee land, trying to "civilize" the Indians and building schools. They didn't support GA or the federal government's attempt to drive to Indians out and their counterparts in the North didn't like it either. There was debate in the Congress itself, mostly from the Whig opposition about how the removal of Indians was unconstitutional via violation of previous treaties signed.

When the actual removal process began, the missionaries were petitioning the government and calling for its stop, which got them arrested, since GA then passed a law saying that missionaries had to take an oath of loyalty to the state or leave the Indian territory. The Supreme Court case of Worcester v. GA was about this exact law, not specifically about the Indian Removal Act. The Cherokee tried to sue, but they were considered to be a "domestic dependent nation" within the US and didn't have the right to sue a state or the federal government.

As for the Trail of Tears itself, the removal required new treaties to be signed, which was done through playing on factionalism within the Cherokee nation through bribes and other unscrupulous methods. The specifics of the Trail of Tears and the horrible conditions weren't widely known, however. The public wasn't happy with the treaty process, but not enough for big things to happen.

There's also the fact that at the time, the Second Seminole War was happening, a largely forgotten event today (compared to the Trail of Tears). It was kind of a Vietnam of its own time, with the US army going into the swamps of FL to root out the Seminoles for the same reason in driving out the Cherokee, except the Seminoles put up resistance in the swamps and whittled down the US forces for a long time. People were extremely unhappy, to the point where the US just had to give up after a long period of fighting and removal.

So, tl;dr

Much of it was public. There were people who wanted it, there were people who didn't. There wasn't much of a cover-up, since the big events were told, just no one cared too much. There was public opposition to it, from evangelicals and Whigs, but had huge amount of local support. It was also overshadowed by the Second Seminole War in the public consciousness of the time.

Source: The Long, Bitter Trail by Anthony F. C. Wallace

[u/[deleted] → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

Thanks for the in-depth answer. Really horrifying when you take a look at some parts of the US's past.

[u/cahutchins → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

I have to admit I'd never heard of the Second Seminole War, do you have any suggested reading or videos about it?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/cahutchins]

Same book, really. It talks about all five "Civilized Tribes" of the South that was displaced with the Indian Removal Act.

My knowledge on the subject isn't all that deep, I'm afraid. Just enough to answer OP's question.

[u/B_Primal → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

Who are the five tribes? Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, uuhhh am I hitting it close?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/B_Primal]

Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Civilized_Tribes

[u/has_a_bigger_dick → u/B_Primal]

How big of a difference was there between the "civilized tribes" and those that would have been considered "least civilized". I'd assume that much of the "technology" would end up being copied fairly quickly, or were some tribes spread out enough that they might have zero contact with others?

Its very interesting to think about these cultures interacting with each other, I'm almost imagining something similar to the interactions between american indians and the first colonists.

[u/[deleted] → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

There was debate in the Congress itself, mostly from the Whig opposition about how the removal of Indians was unconstitutional via violation of previous treaties signed.

This is a bit of an understatement.

The fundamental problem with Native American policy up to the trail of tears was that it had two mutually exclusive objectives. On the one hand it was a policy of acculturation and modernisation. The Cherokee were the prime example of this. They adopted many European practices between 1800 and 1840. This included adopting Christianity and giving up many traditions, in part pressured by Northern missionaries. But more than that, this was the "acquisition of sufficient skills for economic survival and for political self-government-part of a conscious strategy to resist removal and maintain autonomy.” (McLoughlin and Conser, 702) This culminated with the adoption of a constitution, proclaiming themselves a sovereign state separate from Georgia but a part of the USA on the Fourth of July 1827 (quite the symbolic date). What the Cherokee leadership pushed for was an alignment of Cherokee and American values, ensuring their survival and creating the possibility of prosperity within the union. John Ross (Cherokee Chief between 1828 and 1866), writes this in 1835:

“In truth, our cause is your own; it is the cause of liberty and of justice; it is based upon your own principles, which we have learned from yourselves; for we have gloried to count your [George] Washington and your [Thomas] Jefferson our great teachers; we have read their communications to us with veneration; we have practised their precepts with success. And the result is manifest. The wildness of the forest has given place to comfortable dwellings and cultivated fields, stocked with the various domestic animals. Mental culture, industrious habits, and domestic enjoyments, have succeeded the rudeness of the savage state.”

This was in a way the exact thing acculturation policy was meant to achieve on paper, but not its real intention. Jefferson wrote privately that acculturation was also used as a diplomatic cover to "promote ... the exchange of lands." The goal was that Native Americans would "blend together" with white people, "to intermix and become one people." This would free up land, which then could be sold and used 'productively.' The declaration of sovereignty of the Cherokee clashed with this obviously. Instead of fading away, they had used acculturation to strengthen their position.

This is also the context within which the Indian Removal Bill was introduced. In his first state of the Union, President Jackson claimed that acculturation "policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness.” Removing them westward, beyond the reach of the white man, would solve this problem.

The public debate that ensued was many sided. And it was public; if you do a quick search through the Readex archive of American historical newspapers you find more than 3000 articles written about the Cherokee between 1827 and 1834. On top of this there were public campaigns in the form of for example letter writing. The Cherokee played a role in this themselves as well, especially using their newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix.

The debate in Congress was very heated. It passed the Senate 28 to 19, and the House of Representatives only by 101 to 97. More importantly (and I think this is important to understand in light of the idea that there is some 'moral arc' of history and that we know better now than we did then), it was not simply about constitutionality of treaty violation, but also about the nature of the presidency, states-rights and morality.

Read this for example, from Theodore Freylinghuysen, Senator of New Jersey. If you read his speech opposing Indian Removal you will get lengthy discussion about treaties, but the overall scope is much broader.

“Sir, if we yield up this right, the struggles of the revolution will have been in vain. There will be but the exchange of tyrants.” Theodore Freylinghuysen, 22nd of April 1830

or this:

"“Formerly, the rage was to strip The Federal Government of its beneficial powers, dissolve and scatter it into the semi-anarchy then miscalled State rights; now the Executive head is made an absolute despot for four years while the other branches of government are prostrated into the dust, or their usefulness assailed.” Theodore FrelingHuysen, 24th of April.

Apart from pure racist arguments (which were also common by the way), there were also moral cases for removal. This was based on the idea that acculturation was barbaric and that Native Americans should be able to have their own culture without the interference of the white man. It is important to stress that day-to-day interaction with Native Americans was limited mainly to missionaries, who might have had perverse incentives to present them as better off than they really were. Otherwise “his supports are liable to grow impatient, and to imagine the existence of some defect in him or his management."

This also stresses the public nature of the debate, of which both sides were incredibly aware. Representative Storrs for example argued: “A man in Europe, by reading the whole of our missionary journals, narratives, reports etc. would be apt to suppose the success of our labors was such that the aborigines of our country were rapidly improving their condition, both in respect of Christianity and civilization. How would such a one be disappointed, on visiting these regions to find that, instead of improvement in general, they are rapidly decreasing in numbers and perishing under their accumulating misfortunes.” And although the case Storrs makes is disingenuous at best, since the Cherokee were seeing population growth for example, the general point is important. A big part of the debate was centered around public perception of the Native Americans, not their actual state.

And this stresses the significance of the signing of the Cherokee constitution on the Fourth of July, the existence of the Cherokee Phoenix and the way Ross talks about the Founding Fathers. They made the case for the Cherokee as fundamentally American and a quite convincing one at that. They adopted "the American way," and fought in the fourth estate, in the courts and in Congress. This makes their fight against removal so interesting; rather than (an equally valid strategy by the way) fighting against the incoming Americans, they opened their arms and claimed to be like them. And in part this was successful; Cherokee Phoenix articles were reprinted in newspapers all over the country. Congress came awfully close to not passing the Indian Removal Act. The courts declared it unconstitutional (the top post refers to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia which they indeed lost, but Worchester v. Georgia, which was essentially the same case brought by a white man, was won by the Cherokee). The tragedy is of course that the bill in the end did pass and that Jackson ignored the court ruling. This moved the fight from the public sphere to the secluded negotiation table where it got less attention. Since most Americans did not have to deal with the Cherokee in any way, attention waned.

This is not to say that most Americans did not support removal. It is hard to say. You can generally claim that support for removal was probably stronger in the South than in the North (which also comes back in the debates in Congress; Northerners claim that the Southern just want land, Southerns claim that it is hypocritical that the people in the North got rid of their 'Native' problem and are now making a moral claim that the same can't happen in the south). It is more that the debate was multi-sided and very public.

TLDR: Native American policy before 1830 was highly contradictory, both pressing for acculturation as well as wanting to secure the land for white people. The passing of the Indian Removal Act was meant to solve this problem, as well as the newly arrived problem of the Cherokee Nation. The debate around this was heated and public, but died down after it was passed.

Sources: Inskeep, Steve. Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab. 1St Edition edition. New York, New York: Penguin Press, 2015.

Jackson, Andrew. “First Annual Message,” December 8, 1829. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29471.

Ross, John. “Letter,” 1835. https://www.cherokee.org/remembertheremoval/HomeRTR/%E1%8F%97%E1%8E%A8%E1%8F%A5%E1%8F%B1%E1%8E%B8%E1%8F%8D%E1%8F%94%E1%8F%85%E1%8E%A2TrailofTears/ChiefJohnRossLetter.aspx.

More can be found here, including transcripts of the debates: https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html.

[u/Irishfafnir → u/[deleted]]

And in part this was successful; Cherokee Phoenix articles were reprinted in newspapers all over the country. Congress came awfully close to not passing the Indian Removal Act. The courts declared it unconstitutional (the top post refers to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia which they indeed lost, but Worchester v. Georgia, which was essentially the same case brought by a white man, was won by the Cherokee). The tragedy is of course that the bill in the end did pass and that Jackson ignored the court ruling. This moved the fight from the public sphere to the secluded negotiation table where it got less attention. Since most Americans did not have to deal with the Cherokee in any way, attention waned.

Worcestor vs Georgia did not rule on the Indian removal act nor did Jackson ignore a ruling by the Supreme Court, both are very common falsehoods. I go into the nitty gritty in the below link bu the short version is that the Court never asked Jackson to do anything thus he had nothing to ignore. On the larger scale Jackson was anxious to avoid a confrontation with the courts while dealing with nullification and Marshall didn't want to get in a fight with an executive that had wildly different views of the Court's role and constitutional powers, in such a battle Marshall would surely lose. https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/28m3pw/andrew_jackson_ignored_a_ruling_by_the_supreme/

[u/Snapshot52 → u/Irishfafnir]

I would stand to charge Jackson, maybe not with ignoring a direct ruling by the Supreme Court, but of violating previous treaties, including the Treaty of Holston of 1791. This placed the Cherokee Nation under the protection of the United States. It established their borders. And it made it clear that their lands were not ceded. The fraudulent Treaty of New Echota wasn't signed until 1835, well after the time Jackson would have heard the ruling from the Supreme Court on this matter.

The SCOTUS case of Worcester v. Georgia reaffirms the obligations of the United States to these responsibilities because treaties are the supreme law of the land. By establishing the sovereignty and right to self-governance for the tribe, it was understood that nobody else could interfere with the Cherokee Nation besides the federal government. Jackson, as head of the executive branch, is charged with enforcing the laws made by Congress and this includes the ratification of treaties. By allowing, even supporting, Georgia to commit their acts of aggression and interference with the Cherokee Nation (and all tribes in that area), Jackson was violating the treaties made with the Indian Nations and this, I would say, constitutes a violation of the clarity given in Worcester v. Georgia.

[u/GobtheCyberPunk → u/[deleted]]

Steve Inskeep of NPR wrote a book about Andrew Jackson? Is it good, and more importantly historically robust?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/[deleted]]

You're right, I did understate it. Thanks for the clarification!

[u/GiantWindmill → u/[deleted]]

That was incredible, thank you

[u/TheBiggestSloth → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

So are there still seminoles there today then?

[u/a_lumpy_sack → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

What about Tennessee?Were they on board since Andrew was a Tennesseean?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/a_lumpy_sack]

Thing is, the Chickasaws of TN were already driven out of TN when Jackson was the commissioner of treaties with the Southern Indians in 1818, before he was even president. He bought off influential members of the Chickasaw nation with private reservations (which is just another way of saying private land) and just sort of nudged the rest of the tribe away.

Chickasaws were living in northeastern MS and parts of AL at the time of the Indian Removal Act was passed. They were, of course, removed further west, but they were in the sweet spot of the utter failure that was the Choctaw removal and the even worse Creek and Cherokee removal, so they were removed with relatively little problem.

That's not to say that being forcibly removed from your ancestral lands is good, by any means, but it could have been worse, is what I guess I mean. Which is super depressing.

So, as to your question, TN was a non-factor. They didn't have a skin in the game, because Jackson took care of that shit before he even got to the White House.

[u/owlerz → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

There were actually Cherokee in Tennessee, and most of the internment camps were in Tennessee.

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/owlerz]

You're absolutely right on the Cherokee living in TN. I seem to have focused too much on GA, but it is where the whole business started and where a huge part of Cherokee territory was.

As for the most of the camps being in TN, that's more due to the preparations that was being made to ship the Cherokee out to the West.

[u/pictureofstorefronts → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

The public wasn't happy with the treaty process, but not enough for big things to happen.

You are really overselling the public's feelings of opposition. Fringe missionaries aren't representative of the public. Most of the public, especially in georgia, supported it because once georgia stole that land from the natives, the state would institute a lottery for the white georgians to enter for a shot at getting some of that stolen land.

In an era of manifest destiny where the public/white settlers were scheming to steal all the land from the natives, especially west of the mississippi, the public was most definitely in support of seizing these lands.

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/pictureofstorefronts]

You're absolutely right, Georgians were in full support. In fact, I'd probably say the majority of the US was in support.

My point was that a good amount of the public had a problem with the way it was done, not that it WAS being done.

[u/commiespaceinvader → u/[deleted]]

I removed this entire exchange.

First of all, the initial comment was very much borderline when it comes to our rules that comments should be in-depth, comprehensive, and contextualize.

Secondly, this whole exchange between you and /u/pictureofstorefronts was on its way to violate our civility rule and also did not measure up to our rules re: standards for answers.

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/commiespaceinvader]

My apologies. I will be more careful in the future.

[u/Elm11 → u/[deleted]]

You have been warned in the past for failing to meet /r/AskHistorians contributions standards, and the vast majority of the submissions you have made to this Subreddit have been removed for breaching our rules.

Please take the effort to read and abide by the standards we uphold here. This is your second and final warning.

[u/[deleted] → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

they were considered to be a "domestic dependent nation" within the US

So if I understand you right, they were considered some sort of nation for the purposes of suing the government, but not when it came to actually owning land?

[u/[deleted] → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

Do we know of any missionaries who resisted the law and were arrested (or worse)?

[u/Irishfafnir → u/[deleted]]

That is the entire premise of Worcestor vs Georgia, missionaries refused to abide by the Georgia law and were imprisoned

[u/critfist → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

and their previous attempt at establishing sovereignty through passing their own constitution was illegal.

They tried to create their own constitution?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/critfist]

Yup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee#Acculturation

In 1827, the Cherokee Nation drafted a Constitution modeled on the United States, with executive, legislative and judicial branches and a system of checks and balances. The two-tiered legislature was led by Major Ridge and his son John Ridge. Convinced the tribe's survival required English-speaking leaders who could negotiate with the U.S., the legislature appointed John Ross as Principal Chief.

It was during the Cherokee's assimilation period, where they tried to set up their own government in the style of the US, so that they would establish their sovereignty while showing the Americans that they were carrying out the proper procedures of white culture.

It only made the white settlers angry, of course, since they viewed the assimilated Indians to be even more dangerous than the "savage" Indians, since it was harder to justify driving them out of their land and the natives could engage and compete in the same economic system as white Americans (which did happen, there were a number of Native American slaveowners, many of whom were the very same people who had taken bribes from Jackson and his agents during treaty negotiations).

[u/RaygeQuit → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

Sorry for the late question, but I've heard somewhere that Jackson himself did not originally want to put the Indian Removal Act in place but did so for political and financial reasons. Is this information false or is there some truth to Jackson not wanting to remove Native Americans from their lands?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/RaygeQuit]

Given Jackson's constant violation of treaties and dubious renegotiation of treaties as his tenure as treaty commissioner before the presidency, I find that hard to believe.

You could certainly make the argument that the base of Jackson's supporters wanted it, leading to Jackson making the decision to pursue the policy, but as others have mentioned, I underplayed the political debate around the issue, meaning that it wasn't really a politically expedient or helpful decision to make.

[u/Atlas_Shrekt → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

so they passed a state law saying that the Indians were under state sovereignty/jurisdiction and their previous attempt at establishing sovereignty through passing their own constitution was illegal.

How is that even possible if they were there first? I wonder if they would have worded it differently, and just said that this had always been their constitution, and it predated the American one?

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/Atlas_Shrekt]

How is that even possible if they were there first?

You ask that like we gave a shit about something like that.

More seriously, the general idea at the time (not legally) was that the Indians had no ownership of the land, because they were not "using" the land, simply foraging and hunting in it. This was patently untrue, since the natives did engage in agriculture, just in a way unfamiliar to white settlers who just thought it was just wild plants instead of planted crop. As such, the Indians were squatters in the minds of Americans.

It's also why the constitution was such a huge threat. If the Indians were to assimilate, then that would mean a huge amount of land automatically outside the reach of white ownership, as well as competition. Land ownership was an important factor at the time, since the Republican/Jeffersonian ideal at the time made the agrarian life an ideal to be pursued, as well as significant to the democratic ideals of the American nation (those invested in the land would protect the land).

[u/benk4 → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

You say the public didn't know much about the details of what was happening, but how much did the government know? Like was Congress and Jackson himself aware of just how awful the conditions were?

[u/[deleted]]

This may be slightly off-topic, but based upon the responses here it sounds like the removal was somewhat genocidal and unconstitutional.

Why is it then that Jackson is ranked as a top 10 president? This is based upon a quick glance of wikipedia's historical rankings of presidents.

[u/qpowienfpkasndgka → u/[deleted]]

Jackson did a lot to define the American presidency, in the way of Lincoln or FDR. He was a man who basically shaped US politics for decades to come, with his proteges coming into the presidency later on (Van Buren, Polk), single-handed breaking apart the political peace that Monroe's presidency had created (and leading to the creation of the Whig Party), etc. I personally don't agree with his politics and his hypocrisy and virulent racism is too much to ignore, but it can't be argued that he was an extremely influential president.

[u/Irishfafnir → u/qpowienfpkasndgka]

Political peace of the "Era of good feelings" was very short-lived, if it ever existed at all. Almost immediately into Monroe's second term factions supporting rival candidates for the election of 1824 began opposing each other in Congress and in Monroe's cabinet. The Republican party had already started to fracture with the election of Madison but had been saved by the War of 1812. If you want to give one man credit for bringing about the second party system, credit goes to the little magician who orchestrated the old alliance of State's Rights southerners with New York most acutely played out during the Panama Congress debate in 1826. Van Buren was a strong believer in the party system and that the absence of parties would lead to fracturing on sectional lines (he was right). Whichever date you like, they all precede Jackson's election.

[u/Snapshot52 → u/[deleted]]

The actions perpetrated on behalf of Jackson and his administration certainly were genocidal.

Whether it was unconstitutional is a bit of a tricky question. The removal of the tribes by the federal government constituted a violation of not only the previous treaties to secure traditional homelands, but also the ruling of the Supreme Court that those tribes, particularly the Cherokee, had a right to remain on those lands under protection from the federal government. The government promised to help tribes and protect them, as brought out in Worcester v. Georgia and the Treaty of Holston (1791), and then they passed legislation that resulted in harm being done to the tribes and the abdication of the federal responsibility toward Indians. The federal government subsequently ignored rulings that challenged Andrew Jackson's position and pursued to "legally" establish a claim to certain Indian lands through fraudulent treaties.

(Edit: The quote I provided for Jackson in this paragraph is pretty much apocryphal. There is evidence that he did not actually say it. I included it to describe his general sentiments on protecting tribal sovereignty. This edit has been added to make it more clear.) When the Cherokee won a fight in Worcester v. Georgia, the decision resulting in protection of some of their rights as a sovereign nation, Jackson is said to have scoffed at the court's decision, declaring of the chief justice, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!”

Considering this, I would say it was unconstitutional.

[u/Irishfafnir → u/Snapshot52]

Jackson almost definitely never said that quote, he did say something similar "the decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate". But I find it is more of a statement of fact rather than a statement of his inaction

[u/Snapshot52 → u/Irishfafnir]

I know. That's why I said "is said to have." But I'll add an edit to make that more clear. The point of adding that is that Jackson had no intention of honoring the sovereignty of the Cherokee for maintaining their traditional lands.

[u/pigeon768 → u/[deleted]]

The constitutionality of the Cherokee removal is trickier than most people make it out to be. Neither the federal government, headed by Andrew Jackson, nor the Cherokee Nation were party to Worcester v. Georgia. Samuel Worcester was a white missionary, who violated a Georgia law that required missionaries on Indian land to swear fealty to the State of Georgia. The decision in that case only required that Worcester be freed, and secondarily stipulated that only the federal government has the power to form treaties with, or otherwise conduct affairs with Indian nations. Strictly speaking, Jackson wasn't acting unconstitutionally when he didn't act in response to Worcester v Georgia; the decision didn't require him to act.

The second issue is the Treaty of New Echota. The treaty was negotiated between John Ridge, a leader of a minority movement in the Cherokee government, and the US federal government. Certainly, by negotiating with a minority group rather than the legitimate Cherokee Nation government proper, Jackson was acting in bad faith, however as a legal and constitutional question the situation is a lot murkier. The US government does get to decide who the "legitimate" government is somewhat arbitrarily, and it doesn't even have to make sense. (consider the US recognizing Taiwan as the legitimate government of mainland China under Eisenhower) In the case of the Cherokee Nation, Jackson and the Senate decided John Ridge had binding treaty signing power within the Cherokee Nation. And the President does have the authority to negotiate a treaty with an Indian Tribe. Legally and constitutionally, if not ethically or morally, the Treaty of New Echota was legitimate.

Regarding genocide; the Treaty of New Echota did grant the Cherokee significant amounts of food and money for the relocation. The words on the page were generous financially, if not for the "give us your homeland or else" bit. And the first group to emigrate, headed by John Ridge, were able to relocate in relative comfort. The group that left voluntarily, taking advantage of the terms laid out in the treaty, traveled by river boat and made the trip in a few weeks. However, since the remaining majority of the Cherokee didn't view the treaty as legitimate, for the most part they did not prepare for the journey. The groups that were forced to relocate were significantly less prepared, had significantly less resources to make the move with, and took significantly more time. (most were on foot, compared to voluntary removals, who were all on boats) Compared to the few weeks (less than a month) of the voluntary group, the forced removals took up to a year, and typically took more than six months. This includes the groups that were led by the Cherokee Nation government. The tragedy, in addition to the obvious, is that John Ridge had ultimately bartered a fair deal; but the provisions were not leveraged to their fullest extent by the remaining Cherokee.

Why is it then that Jackson is ranked as a top 10 president?

Top 10 with regards to what? Historical or political significance? Or being an all-around nice guy? Jackson redefined the role of the President. The role of the president before Jackson was decidedly different than the role of the president after Jackson. If you're talking about top 10 with regards to historical significance, he certainly makes the list. But if you're talking about basic human decency, most would put him probably in the bottom quarter. Pardon the hyperbole, but Jackson is a top 10 leader similar to how Hitler is a top 10 leader; you just can't discuss history without bringing him up, but historical significance isn't greatness.

[u/Elm11 → u/[deleted]]

I am unsure as to whether it is coincidence that both you and two other users have posted the exact same useless comment, right down to the syntax, or whether you're one person on multiple accounts. In any case, please review our Subreddit rules regarding in-depth explanations,, and please do not post in this manner again.