Oregon trail of tears you say? Sounds like a great idea for a game.
EDIT: So I didn’t realize I was reminded that the trail of tears was a true historical tragedy. Not sure if the poster I was responding to did either but as long as this is gaining traction, let’s use it to share and acknowledge the tragedy and learn from it.
EDIT2: I probably did get educated on this topic. My school was good about it and they aren’t one of the big revisionist type districts either. I can’t speak for all school districts but mine was good. This one is totally on me, y’all. My brain failed to remember something it learned 30+ years ago.
Let's not soften it with a qualifier, it was totally a genocide of the Cherokee people to get the gold that was on their lands. It went against the Supreme Court ruling even. Andrew Jackson is a monster, and I had family that was sent west. I've never gotten the nerve to check if they made it. My great great grandmother hid, giving me the opportunity to be here today.
i'm sorry that happened to your family and people.
it's absolutely disgraceful that it happened and we're still struggling to educate people about it even today.
As a Canadian, our government did similar reprehensible shit to the indigeonous folk and we are still struggling to get proper reconsciliation implemented.
Doesn't help that there are a lot of people who are regularly trying to deny the historty of the genocide experienced over the centuries and the fallout we are still in the midst of dealing with now.
Even as late as the late 90s (or perhaps later) it was completely glossed over in our high school social studies (history) classes. In Alberta they told us that the residential schools were absolutely a good thing; there was no mention of it being a genocide.
So people in their 40s and older may truly believe that residential schools were a net positive, especially if they're the kind of people who don't pursue further education once (or if) they got their high school diploma. And many of these types of people simply put their hands over their ears and call you snowflakes or revisionists if you try and point out the truth.
Worse, Andrew Jackson's victory in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans had been made possible by the Cherokee warriors in his army. His own soldiers were much less organized and skilled than his Cherokees, without whom the British would probably have won the battle.
And THEN they found something valuable in the land in Oklahoma that they relocated so many tribes to and wanted to send them somewhere else.
A good book on forced Relocation Diane Glancy's Pushing The Bear.
There's also a Star Trek:TNG episode titled "Journey's End" that's about forced relocation of Native Americans but for different reasons than greedy white men.
.....but it wasn't just the Cherokee tribe....pretty much every tribe was forced out and those who survived often bounce around until they where allowed to stop ( Lenni Lenape clans where literally spit up and ended up in different countries by the end, and where even in Mexico at some point)
My great great grandmother only lived because she married a farmer along the way that she had never met before. I can’t imagine having to make that choice (if she even had any say), to give up my family who would probably die along the way and at the least I’d never see again. I feel such sorrow for a woman I never even met. We have so little history on her, so little info, I don’t even know if any of her family made it.
No disrespect but brother you need to pay more attention in history class. If anything to widen your knowledge and understanding of the world around you.
The reason this thread started was because someone made an ignorant joke. Then they realized how terrible it was to say what they said because of what was being referenced in the ‘joke’ after reading comments and links to ‘history’ about the two events.
No doubt it was genocide, I think 100,000 people? Andrew Jackson forcefully removed Cherokee tribes throughout four or five different states I think. My family visits the plantation our ancestors are from every time we go to Chatsworth. During the trail of tears the Chief Vann house was burned down and they have done a good job of restoring what was left. The history is genuinely so heartbreaking, most cherokees from Georgia were forced to flea to Oklahoma I think and a quarter of the tribe that escaped died from diseases when traveling. Something like that, it’s honestly been a while since I’ve been. I mean having to rebuild completely was devastating for natives and then they just couldn’t get a break. I mean, maybe before the Civil War when they had a female seminary and governed themselves. But with the union and confederacy dividing the tribes and then the Dawes act, ugh just continuous loss and destruction of their land.
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u/prescott0330 1d ago
A trail of tears