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Some whites favored the displacement and dispossession of all Native Americans. Others favored them becoming Christian, farming, adopting white cultures -
Some southeastern tribes the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw had begun to adapt to the European culture of their white neighbors. "Five tribes" as they were called by whites, occupied large areas in Geor -
Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 Under this law, the federal government funded the negotiation of treaties that would force the Native Americans to move west -
Jackson pressured the Choctaw to sign a treaty that required them to move from Mississippi -
He ordered the U.S. troops to forcibly remove the Sauk and Fox from their lands in Illinois and Missouri -
he forced the Chickasaw to leave their lands in Alabama and Mississippi -
Worcester v. Georgia, the Cherokee Nation finally won recognition as a distinct political community. The court ruled that Georgia was not entitled to regulate the Cherokee nor to invade their lands. -
Federal agents declared the minority who favored relocation the true representative of the Cherokee Nation and promptly had them sign the treaty of New Echota -
nearly 20,000 Cherokee still remained in the East, President Martin Van Buren (Jackson's successor) ordered their forced removal. U.S Army troops under the command of General Winfield Scott rounded up the Cherokee and drove them into camps to await the journey -
The Cherokee were sent off in a group of about 1,000 each on the long journey. The 800-mile trip was made partly by steamboat and railroad but mostly on foot. as winter came on, more and more of the Cherokee died en route.