You can say that what happened was simply a forced migration undertaken by the Cherokee Indians of the eastern United States from 1838-39.
But it is also not true because it disguises the nature of what actually took place. The more common name given to this forced migration is the Trail of Tears and this more poetic description of it bespeaks the terribleness of this series of historical events that displaced a people from their homeland in an act of murderous greed.
Of course, what happened to the Cherokees was not unique: The history of the settling of the United States by those of European descent is the story of the displacement by these settlers of the people who had first lived on the land. For despite the fact that across the continent Native Americans showed a fundamental willingness to integrate their society with whites, the white settlers continued to view them as an inferior race possessing none of the same legal rights as the Euro-Americans and requiring none of the same moral considerations as other whites. By examining the ways in which the Cherokee were treated we can come to a better understanding of the ways in which all of the native peoples of America were treated by European settlers and their descendants.
Like other native peoples, the Cherokee had been affected by the colonization of America by Europeans from the earliest decades of colonization, but the impact on their civilization was not disastrous until the beginning decades of the 19th century as population pressures (and the politics of slavery) began to push more and more people toward the West and into lands that the Native Americans had until then been able to maintain their claims to.
Different Native American tribes felt the full weight of pressure - often murderous - from the U.S. government at different points in history, depending upon when their land became desirable to white settlers. For the Cherokee, this occurred early in the 19th ...