The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears

"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. [This book] recounts this moment in American history and considers its impact on the Cherokee, on U.S.-Indian relations, and on contemporary society. [In the book, the authors] 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. -Dust jacket."
"Historians Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green paint a portrait of the infamous Trail of Tears. Despite protests from statesmen like Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, a dubious 1838 treaty drives 17,000 mostly Christian Cherokee from their lush Appalachian homeland to barren plains beyond the Mississippi. For 4,000, this brutal forced march leads only to their death."@en