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![]() Trail of TearsIn the early morning hours of November 14th, 1833, one of the largest meteor showers in history lit up the night sky over North America. On the southern Plains, a large band of Kiowas were camped in the Wichita Mountains, where they had been driven when the Cheyenne and Lakotas took over the Black Hills. Soon, the Kiowa noticed a new people, coming from the east, moving onto the southern Plains. The settlers built towns, churches, schools. Some of them owned slaves. But these newcomers were Indians, too -- Cherokee, one of many peoples from the East forced into the West by the federal government. No eastern tribe had struggled harder or more successfully to make white civilization their own. For generations, the Cherokee had lived side by side with whites in Georgia. They had devised a written language, published their own newspaper, adopted a constitution and the Christian faith. But after gold was discovered on their land, even they were told they would have to start over again in the West. Early in the 1830s, Congress had created a huge new Indian Territory which was to stretch from Texas to the middle Missouri River. It was meant to be a barrier to white expansion, a place the Indians were promised they would have to themselves, forever. One by one, Indian peoples were removed to the West -- the Delaware, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Pottawatomi; the Sac and Fox, Miami and Kickapoo; the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole. In all, some 90,000 Indians were relocated. The Cherokee were among the last to go. Some reluctantly agreed to move. Others were driven from their homes at bayonet point. Almost two thousand of them died along the route they remember as the "Trail of Tears." |
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