"On the Trail of a Major Story" - A History of the Trail of Tears by Pam Dewey

Mural (8-by15 foot) by Elizabeth Janes (1938-39) depicting the

arrival of Cherokee Nationin Oklahoma in the 1830s, on

display at the Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City.

The Trail of Tears was part of the Indian removal, a series of forced displacements and ethnic cleansing of approximately 60,000 Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. Tribal members "moved gradually, with complete migration occurring over a period of nearly a decade.”

Members of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes – the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated Indian Territory. The forced relocations were carried out by government authorities after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The Cherokee removal in 1838 (the last forced removal east of the Mississippi) was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush.

The Trail of Tears was part of a larger pattern of behavior, called Indian removal, beginning in 1830 with the Indian Removal Act and continuing all the way through the 20th Century with the American Indian boarding schools program. The pattern was calculated to eradicate the Native culture. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian describes it as a genocide.

The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their newly designated Indian reserve. Thousands died from disease before reaching their destinations or shortly after. – Wikipedia

Pamela Starr Dewey, social historian and author, has put together an eye-opening, heart-rending multi-media documentary, what she calls a “docu-commentary,” on the Trail of Tears in the context of the social history of the US. This is essential viewing for anyone who wants to know the full history of the US. Go to the following YouTube link:

On the Trail of a Major Story

by

Pam Dewey

Go to Pam’s YouTube web site, Meet Myth America, for free access the other forty-two of her docu-commentaries, and other material on US history. }:>&~:)