During settlement of the United States, many Americans, especially those on the western frontier resented and feared Native Americans because they were different and unfamiliar to them. They were deemed savages and were referred to as the “Indian Problem” (Trail of Tears). In the beginning, many people, including George Washington thought that the solution to the “Indian Problem” was simply to civilize their culture. This would included converting them to Christianity, teaching them about the American government and laws, social norms, and mainstream theology such as private property and slavery in the south (Trail of Tears).
As the white population grew, the need for land became more and more important. The southern states especially wanted the land that the Cherokee occupied in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina because of the booming cotton business. Several states drafted laws restricting sovereignty for the Cherokee and other Native Americans so that acquiring land from them was easier. Several of these cases went as high as the Supreme Court such as Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1831) and Worcester vs. Georgia (1832). The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee, but under President Andrew Jackson, were not enforced (Trail of Tears).
Despite the fact that the Cherokee were one of the “Five Civilized Tribes” and adopted many of the American ways, President Andrew Jackson believed in “Indian Removal” to solve the "Indian Problem" (Trail of Tears). In 1830 he signed the Indian Removal Act which allowed the Federal Government to take Native American-owned land and “trade” it for land in what is present day Oklahoma (Trail of Tears). In a the Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Volume 24, debates were published about the Indian Removal Act stating “It is therefore, a duty which this Government owes to the new States, to extinguish, as soon as possible, the Indian Title to all lands which Congress themselves have included within their limits are at an end” (A Century).
The Indian Removal Act allowed President Jackson the power to bribe and threaten Native Americans into signing treaties and relocating them further west. He drafted a treaty to relocate the Cherokee Tribe and received a signature of one clan chief. That chief represented a very small number of tribe members and though that faction agreed to leave peacefully, most Cherokee resisted the relocation. In 1838, Jackson sent in federal troops and the Georgia State militia to force the Cherokee into compliance. This was the beginning of the Trail of Tears.
On the journey to Oklahoma, it is estimated that approximately 4,000 Native Americans died out of the total 16,000 that started the journey (Office of the Historian). The march to Oklahoma was 1,000 miles by foot. The Native Americans made the trek with very few supplies and makeshift forts as shelter. Disease killed many, primarily Small Pox that was given to them by the white settlers that corralled and herded them westward. Most of the Native Americans that made it arrived to Oklahoma during a harsh winter where they were inadequately prepared for conditions and lacked staples adding to the death count (Office of the Historian). Thus, a culture that had been peaceful and done no harm to the settlers was extinguished from the southeast and substantially diminished in size under the United States Government.