"Trail of Tears" Topic

"At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians' land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated "Indian territory" across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears.

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved). Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this "Indian problem" was simply to "civilize" the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, African slaves). In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs and became known as the "Five Civilized Tribes."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

My great great grandparents were forced on the Trail of Tears. In Middle Tennessee, they managed to slip away, and returned to North Georgia. Their eldest daughter was my great grandmother. She married a white man, my great grandfather, and they settled in Ellijay, Georgia.

Prior to the California gold rush, the largest gold field in the USA were those located in Muskogee Creek, Cherokee lands. This included north Georgia, east central Alabama and speculation about East Tennessee. In our area of Alabama several small towns, many now just bumps in the road we're called Goldville, Gold Hill and Gold mound. Chulafinni has gold but the dirt is not pure enough to start again.
Other areas were fertile land desired by American settlers such as north Florida, nobody wanted the swampy southern area, valleys and passes of East Tennessee, and the wChoctaw controlled west AL and East Miss. motivation was pure land grabs.

Somehow,some of my rels either dodged the forced march or broke away from it and wound up in McMinn Co. TN where my paternal GGM was born in 1877;a full-blood Eastern Blackfoot(as opposed to the Plains).

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand