A new nation (ii)

Land was becoming more expensive in the American colonies by the time they quarreled with Britain. Many of the new settlers moved to lands north of the Ohio River. Amerindians who already lived on these lands saw the settlers as thieves who had come to steal their hunting grounds. They made fierce attacks on the newcomers.

The new government of the United States tried at first to keep the peace by making treaties with the Amerindians. It also tried to make sure that settlers treated them fairly. A law of 1787 said that the Amerindians' “lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty they never shall be invaded or disturbed»

But the American government soon changed its ideas about not taking away the Amerindians' “lands and property» President James Monroe believed that there was only one way for the Amerindians to survive. They had to be moved from lands that white settlers wanted to other lands, further west.

In 1830 the United States government passed a law called the Indian Removal Act to put this policy into practice. The law said that all Indians living east of the Mississippi River would be moved west to a place called Indian Territory. This was an area beyond the Mississippi that was thought to be unsuitable for white farmers. Some people claimed that the Indian Removal Act was a way of saving the Amerindians. But most saw it simply as a way to get rid of them and seize their land.

The Cherokees were an Amerindian people who suffered greatly from the Indian Removal policy. The worst year was 1838. In bitterly cold winter weather American soldiers gathered thousands of Cherokee men, women, and children, and drove them west. The nightmare journey lasted almost five months. By the time it was over, 4.000 of the Amerindians - a quarter of the whole Cherokee nation - were dead. This episode is still remembered with shame by modern Americans. It is called «The Trail of Tears».

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