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Episode: 173.3 - The Trail of Tears: The Tragic Story of Native American Removal

Author: Sonoro | Shana Thompson
Duration: 00:24:51

Episode Shownotes

The Trail of Tears is one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history, and it's a story that can only be understood by evaluating how the relationship between Native Americans and white settlers evolved over time. What happened? What caused so much tension between the groups? What led to the

forced removal of thousands of Native Americans from their homeland? Listen to today's episode and find out. By understanding historical context, you'll better understand modern political discussions between native tribes and the United States. Disclaimer: I'm not Native American, so creating this episode made me anxious. It's very important to me that everything I say is culturally sensitive and accurate. If you are a native, please know that I would love to talk to you! Write to me on Instagram @americanenglishpodcast, and don't hesitate to tell me your thoughts. Learn more about Native American Boarding Schools: PBS Documentary: Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools Support Buy Me a Coffee Season 4 (Episodes 150 - 200) = Each episode includes a quiz, the PDF transcript (the text of the audio) with definitions of challenging words and the mp3 file. All Premium Content for Seasons 1, 2 and 3 (Episodes 001 - 150) - and get Season 4 at a discount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full Transcript

00:00:04 Speaker_00
Hi everybody! My name is Shawna and this is the American English Podcast. My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States.

00:00:13 Speaker_00
Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful, and interesting. Let's do it! Hi everyone, welcome back.

00:00:29 Speaker_00
We are on the third part of this very long episode, and in today's episode, we're going to be talking a lot about the Trail of Tears, which was the forced relocation of Native American tribes in the 1830s.

00:00:48 Speaker_00
If you haven't listened to Part 1 or Part 2 of Episode 173, I recommend doing that first. There's, of course, a progression in understanding. Now, this episode will be fairly short.

00:01:05 Speaker_00
As I mentioned last week, when talking about the Cherokees, which is one of the largest Native American groups in the United States, There's a narrative that is usually broken into a before meeting white settlers and after.

00:01:23 Speaker_00
Because life changed drastically when contact between white settlers was made. The relationship between the two groups, well, it's long, it's complex, and it's tragic.

00:01:38 Speaker_00
In the past 500 years, there were a lot of broken promises, cases of exploitation, and violence. It's not pretty, I won't lie, so brace yourself.

00:01:52 Speaker_00
I learned about a lot of this in 4th grade history class or social studies class, and so it was kind of nice to refresh my memory about what exactly happened.

00:02:05 Speaker_00
So we're going to start at the very beginning, when contact was first made between white settlers and Native Americans, and then we'll discuss how tensions between them escalated over time and eventually led to the Trail of Tears. All right?

00:02:22 Speaker_00
Let's begin. The story starts way back in the late 1400s, when European explorers first arrived in the Americas. Americas refers to South, Central, and North America.

00:02:41 Speaker_00
At first, interactions between Native Americans and Europeans, like the Spanish, French, and English, were often about trade.

00:02:52 Speaker_00
Native tribes had valuable resources, like furs and food, that the Europeans wanted, and the Europeans had goods, like metal tools and weapons, that the tribes found useful. So, it wasn't all bad in the beginning.

00:03:10 Speaker_00
There was some level of cooperation and exchange that benefited both sides. As we say in English, it was mutually beneficial. But as more Europeans began to settle in what they called the New World, things quickly started to change.

00:03:29 Speaker_00
These early settlers brought with them not just their goods, but also diseases like smallpox and measles. Native Americans had no immunity to these new illnesses, which led to devastating epidemics that wiped out entire communities.

00:03:50 Speaker_00
In English, we often use the phrasal verb to wipe out with surfing. If you are on a surfboard and you catch a wave and then fall off your surfboard, we'd say you wiped out.

00:04:03 Speaker_00
But when in the context of disease, to wipe out means to completely destroy, eliminate, or remove something or someone. Smallpox and measles brought by European settlers wiped out entire communities of Native Americans. It eliminated them.

00:04:24 Speaker_00
It was deadly.

00:04:26 Speaker_00
If we're focusing on wrongdoings of white settlers, which I guess, just by nature, that's going to be kind of the direction of this episode, well, then introducing diseases was definitely one of the earliest and most tragic events, even if it was somewhat unintentional.

00:04:48 Speaker_00
As more settlers came to the U.S., the demand for land grew. Now, there was a cultural issue in question. For Native Americans, land wasn't something you owned. It was something you shared and lived on. But Europeans had a very different mindset.

00:05:07 Speaker_00
They wanted to own land, farm it, and build permanent settlements. This clash of basic values led to increasing tension among settlers and natives. Limited land, limited resources. Guess what happened? Conflict.

00:05:27 Speaker_00
Native Americans, of course, wanted to stay. It was their ancestral land, their homeland. In their minds, settlers could stay there. It could all be shared. End of story. However, the settlers wanted the Native Americans off.

00:05:46 Speaker_00
In the 1600s and 1700s, as colonial settlements expanded across the U.S. and into Native lands, this issue arose again and again. Who's going to stay? Who's going to go? Can we live together? These sorts of questions.

00:06:05 Speaker_00
Entreaties were often made to resolve conflicts over territory. But they were often misunderstood and manipulated. Sometimes they were just ignored, like boundary lines set in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768.

00:06:25 Speaker_00
In such disputes, settlers pretty much always came out on top. Do you know what to come out on top means? You win. You get the advantage. Settlers pretty much always came out on top. And it's because they had an unfair advantage.

00:06:45 Speaker_00
Most of them, at that time, had firearms. Firearms is another way to say guns. Native Americans didn't have guns, a lot of them. They had to trade to get them, so they were at a disadvantage. You can say to have an advantage in English.

00:07:04 Speaker_00
You can say you can have a disadvantage, but you can also be at a disadvantage. The Native Americans were at a disadvantage. If you examine a map of original Cherokee claims in 1786 and compare it to their boundaries in 1819, it's alarming.

00:07:26 Speaker_00
Their territory over time got significantly smaller. It shrank. The same phenomenon occurred with other tribal territories. Well, what happened exactly?

00:07:42 Speaker_00
The United States before its independence in 1776 was a big old mess, and Native Americans were wrapped up in it. They were forced to choose sides in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Will I fight for the French or the British?

00:08:01 Speaker_00
Will I fight for the U.S. or the British? I mean, Native Americans just wanted to live peacefully on their land, and they ended up having to go to war. Not even for themselves, because at the end, they were left out of peace negotiations.

00:08:19 Speaker_00
This story is pretty heavy, isn't it? They were exposed to disease, pushed off their land, forced to fight wars that weren't theirs, And it gets worse. In episode 11, I talked a lot about the American flag.

00:08:36 Speaker_00
I talked about the symbolism of the stripes and the stars, the colors. I mentioned that each star represents a state. Right now we have 50 states, so there are 50 stars. In the past, of course, there weren't 50 states.

00:08:55 Speaker_00
The United States grew drastically with one specific purchase, the Louisiana Purchase. That was in 1803, and it doubled the size of the U.S.

00:09:09 Speaker_00
The whole central part of the United States was once owned by France, and with the Louisiana Purchase, it became part of the United States. And Native Americans living in that territory faced a new wave of challenges.

00:09:27 Speaker_00
Overnight, their lands, which spanned from the Midwest and beyond, were now claimed by the U.S. The U.S. government started pushing policies to relocate Native tribes, and they involved, number one, unfair treaties, and number two, forced removals.

00:09:49 Speaker_00
Let's start with unfair treaties. A treaty is an agreement between countries, like a promise that they make to each other to do or not do certain things. Like treaties can help countries work together and avoid fighting and overall solve problems.

00:10:08 Speaker_00
Government treaties with the Native Americans were unfair. The government would pressure tribes into signing away their territory in exchange for money, supplies, or new land further west.

00:10:24 Speaker_00
But often, the government never paid them, gave them poor quality supplies, or promised them land that was already occupied or uninhabitable. Uninhabitable means unable to be lived on. So there were unfair treaties and forced removals.

00:10:45 Speaker_00
The latter is tragic. How can you pick up a whole culture and people and move them? President Thomas Jefferson, who was often celebrated as a founding father of the United States, had an idea.

00:11:03 Speaker_00
He agreed with many other leaders of the time that all eastern Indian nations, including the Cherokee, would have to give up their land and move westward. To do it, he gave Native Americans unlimited credit at federal trading posts.

00:11:21 Speaker_00
When many of them got into debt, he forced them to pay the U.S. government back with land. Through that, the government got thousands of acres of land.

00:11:34 Speaker_00
When Andrew Jackson became president, the seventh president of the U.S., he, alongside the whole state of Georgia, decided that they didn't have enough land yet. They wanted all of the natives out.

00:11:49 Speaker_00
That's when the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed into law. That was by President Andrew Jackson. He's the president you'll see on our $20 bill. In this lesson, you'll want to remember one very important thing.

00:12:08 Speaker_00
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 gave the federal government power to relocate Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the Mississippi River, mainly in what's now Oklahoma.

00:12:25 Speaker_00
Jackson and his supporters argued that this would protect Native American culture by moving them away from white society. In reality, he had his eyes on valuable farmland.

00:12:42 Speaker_00
The Natives off the valuable farmland would mean it would all be in the hands of white settlers. These lands were rich and perfect for farming cotton.

00:12:52 Speaker_00
Not to mention, leading up to this Indian Removal Act of 1830, in 1829, gold was discovered in the southern part of Cherokee land, and Jackson wanted it. The policy of removal wasn't just about moving people.

00:13:11 Speaker_00
It was a process that was both brutal and violent. Many tribes resisted, leading to conflicts like the Black Hawk War in 1832 and the Second Seminole War, which dragged on for years in Florida.

00:13:28 Speaker_00
the removal policy itself sparked deep divisions within the tribes. Some leaders felt they had no choice but to sign removal treaties, while others were determined to resist at all costs. That brings us to the Trail of Tears.

00:13:48 Speaker_00
Leading up to 1830, Cherokees were willing to do anything to protect the land of their ancestors. Once again, they lived in southern Appalachia, which was lush. It was green. It had a lot of trees. It was great for agriculture.

00:14:07 Speaker_00
So they were willing to do anything to protect the land of their ancestors, including appeal to the U.S. government. They started dressing like Europeans. They embraced white practices? They developed a language and wrote their own constitution.

00:14:25 Speaker_00
They even had a newspaper called the Cherokee Phoenix, which was the first ever Native American newspaper. What's more, it was bilingual, so that it was available to anyone interested.

00:14:39 Speaker_00
When Andrew Jackson insisted that they move westward off their land, the Cherokee tried to deal with the matter diplomatically.

00:14:48 Speaker_00
As we learned in the last episode, while the Cherokee had a strong fighting force, they chose peace and negotiation over war. That's what they preferred. So in 1832, they went to the U.S.

00:15:03 Speaker_00
Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in their favor. They said that Georgia, the state of Georgia, could not take their land. But then, President Jackson ignored the U.S.

00:15:19 Speaker_00
Supreme Court ruling, and he decided the Native Americans would be removed from their territory. You might be wondering, well, this Andrew Jackson guy, what's his deal? He seems not very nice. Why in the world would he be on the $20 bill in the US?

00:15:39 Speaker_00
Isn't that controversial? Yeah, actually, it is. There have been ongoing efforts to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman. It hasn't happened yet, but keep looking at your $20 bills. You might see a new face on them in the future.

00:15:59 Speaker_00
We are finally at the infamous Trail of Tears.

00:16:02 Speaker_00
In 1838, the Cherokee, along with other tribes like the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole, were forced from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern United States to designated Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.

00:16:23 Speaker_00
The actual process of removal was inhumane. 7,000 members of the U.S. Army showed up at doorsteps and took tribe members from their homes.

00:16:37 Speaker_00
Thousands of men, women, and children were forced to leave their homes with little more than the clothes they had on their back, and then were forced into makeshift camps where disease and poor conditions killed many.

00:16:53 Speaker_00
The journey itself was a nightmare. Just look at a map. Cherokee people, along with others, had to walk from the southern Appalachians to Oklahoma under military supervision.

00:17:09 Speaker_00
They were to cover around 1,200 miles on foot, and many did that trip during the harsh winter months of 1838 to 1839. These people were given little to no supplies, they were wearing inadequate clothing, and they faced starvation and sickness.

00:17:30 Speaker_00
It's estimated that around 4,000 out of 16,000 Cherokees died on this journey. But remember, it wasn't just the Cherokees. Other tribes were removed, too. And their experiences were also tragic.

00:17:46 Speaker_00
According to NPS, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Native Americans died while trying to make it to Oklahoma. Hence the reason it's called the Trail of Tears.

00:18:01 Speaker_00
The Trail of Tears represents a massive loss of life, land, and culture for Native Americans, and it remains a painful reminder of the country's history of displacement and injustice toward indigenous peoples.

00:18:17 Speaker_00
Unfortunately, it didn't mark the end of Native American struggles with the U.S. government. But it was now clear the government was going to do anything to expand. even at the expense of Native culture and lives.

00:18:34 Speaker_00
Unfortunately, the removal policies continued into the late 1800s, so even after the Trail of Tears,

00:18:42 Speaker_00
And to add to the trauma, there were also attempts across the United States to assimilate Native Americans into white society by sending Native children to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their customs.

00:19:01 Speaker_00
They were forced to cut their long hair off, which for many was a sign of dignity. If you get a chance, there's a fantastic PBS documentary on YouTube about the boarding schools for Native Americans.

00:19:15 Speaker_00
I'll be sure to post that link in the episode notes. If I'm honest, I don't remember learning about this at school, which is actually kind of crazy. So what is Oklahoma like today? Oklahoma in the 19th century was known as Indian Territory.

00:19:36 Speaker_00
But many Natives still live there, including two federally recognized bands of Cherokees. The Cherokee Nation, which has a membership of over 400,000, has around 283,000 living in the state of Oklahoma.

00:19:55 Speaker_00
The second band in Oklahoma, the United Kituwa Band, is a smaller group, with around 14,000 members.

00:20:04 Speaker_00
The third band, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, remains in southern Appalachia, with around 14,000 to 16,000 members residing in the western corner of North Carolina. Many of them are ancestors of the few who were able to stay.

00:20:27 Speaker_00
All the wrongdoings I mentioned today—disease, broken treaties, forced removals, cultural suppression, and outright violence—left a deep scar that Native American communities still deal with today.

00:20:41 Speaker_00
These points often come up in modern debates about reparations for Native American communities and when discussing struggles on reservations.

00:20:51 Speaker_00
It's another topic entirely, but if you are interested in modern politics related to Native Americans, I highly recommend watching interviews that Peter Santanello has on his YouTube channel.

00:21:05 Speaker_00
He talks to Natives about their opinions, which I think is just fantastic. The interviews are very informative, and I think getting that local perspective is incredibly valuable. Thanks for listening to this episode.

00:21:21 Speaker_00
If you are Native American and you took the time to listen to this, I hope I did this topic justice. Be sure to write me at American English Podcast on Instagram and let me know what you think.

00:21:35 Speaker_00
If you think there are stories that I missed or details that I missed, be sure to let me know. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for listening to this episode of the American English Podcast.

00:21:51 Speaker_00
Remember, it's my goal here to not only help you improve your listening comprehension, but to show you how to speak like someone from the States.

00:22:00 Speaker_00
If you want to receive the full transcript for this episode, or you just want to support this podcast, make sure to sign up to premium content on AmericanEnglishPodcast.com. Thanks and hope to see you soon.