The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears

Front Cover
Penguin, 2007 - History - 189 pages
Today, a fraction of the Cherokee people remains in their traditional homeland in the southern Appalachians. Most Cherokees were forcibly relocated to eastern Oklahoma in the early nineteenth century. In 1830 the U.S. government shifted its policy from one of trying to assimilate American Indians to one of relocating them and proceeded to drive seventeen thousand Cherokee people west of the Mississippi.

The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears recounts this moment in American history and considers its impact on the Cherokee, on U.S.-Indian relations, and on contemporary society. Guggenheim Fellowship-winning historian Theda Perdue and coauthor Michael D. Green explain the various and sometimes competing interests that resulted in the Cherokee?s expulsion, follow the exiles along the Trail of Tears, and chronicle their difficult years in the West after removal.

 

Contents

CIVILIZING THE CHEROKEES
20
3
28
INDIAN REMOVAL POLICY
42
5
76
THE TREATY OF NEW ECHOTA
91
6
106
Epilogue
163
Select Bibliography
179
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Theda Perdue, Ph.D.is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and recent winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her previous books include Cherokee Womenand Sifters.
Michael D. Green, Ph.D.is a professor of history and American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of The Politics of Indian Removal.

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