The Trail of Tears, a U.S. Army-guided forcible removal of the native Americans from the southeast to west of the Mississippi, began in 1838, and thousands of Cherokee were displaced; thousands died along the way.

The realities of these actions was a much different thing than the ideals of the United States. A nation that was built with tolerance and freedom as its precepts was not only forcibly expelling inhabitants from land they had settled, but was attempting to fundamentally change the culture of the Cherokee nation. Instead of protecting a vulnerable minority, as the original settlers of the U.S. had been in England, the government exploited the minority of Cherokee, taking their land, mining its gold, and removing the Cherokee culture from their landscape. This behavior was and is incompatible with the U.S. ideals of morality and justice; the manner in which the Cherokee were treated goes against the...
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