Editing Trail of Tears (section)

== Legacy ==

===Terminology===
The events have sometimes been referred to as "[[death march]]es", in particular when referring to the Cherokee march across Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri in 1838.<ref name="Jahoda" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Treuer |first=David |date=July–August 2020 |title=This Land Is Not Your Land |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2020-06-09/land-not-your-land |access-date=November 22, 2021 |journal=[[Foreign Affairs]] |language=en-US |issn=0015-7120 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240519034228/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2020-06-09/land-not-your-land |archive-date=May 19, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carson |first=James |date=Winter 2008 |title=Ethnic Cleansing, Memory, and the Origins of the Old South |url=https://www.southerncultures.org/article/the-obituary-of-nations-ethnic-cleansing-memory-and-the-origins-of-the-old-south/ |journal=Southern Cultures |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=6–31 |doi=10.1353/scu.0.0026 |s2cid=144154298 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230922173150/https://www.southerncultures.org/article/the-obituary-of-nations-ethnic-cleansing-memory-and-the-origins-of-the-old-south/ |archive-date=September 22, 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Indians who had the means initially provided for their own removal. Contingents that were led by conductors from the U.S. Army included those led by Edward Deas, who was claimed to be a sympathizer for the Cherokee plight.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}} The largest death toll from the Cherokee forced relocation comes from the period after the May 23, 1838 deadline. This was at the point when the remaining Cherokee were [[Internment|rounded up into camps]] and placed into large groups, often over 700 in size. Communicable diseases spread quickly through these closely quartered groups, killing many. These groups were among the last to move, but following the same routes the others had taken; the areas they were going through had been depleted of supplies due to the vast numbers that had gone before them. The marchers were subject to extortion and violence along the route. In addition, these final contingents were forced to set out during the hottest and coldest months of the year, killing many. Exposure to the elements, disease, starvation, harassment by local frontiersmen, and insufficient rations similarly killed up to one-third of the Choctaw and other nations on the march.<ref name="david_baird" /> There exists some debate among historians and the affected nations as to whether the term "Trail of Tears" should be used to refer to the entire history of forced relocations from the Eastern United States into [[Indian Territory]], to the relocations of specifically the Five Civilized Tribes, to the route of the march, or to specific marches in which the remaining holdouts from each area were rounded up.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

==== Classification debate ====
There is debate among historians about how the Trail of Tears should be classified. Some historians classify the events as a form of [[ethnic cleansing]];<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Jochum |first=Glenn |date=December 13, 2017 |title=Kelton Lecture Describes Debate Over Genocide of Indigenous Peoples |url=https://news.stonybrook.edu/humanities/kelton-lecture-describes-debate-over-genocide-of-indigenous-peoples/ |access-date=March 13, 2024 |language=en-US |quote=Scholars generally agree that the Trail of Tears was not genocide but instead ethnic cleansing: "rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group." |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240710193612/https://news.stonybrook.edu/humanities/kelton-lecture-describes-debate-over-genocide-of-indigenous-peoples |archive-date=July 10, 2024}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Walker Howe |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Walker Howe |title=[[What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0195392432 |pages=423 |chapter=Jacksonian Democracy and the Rule of Law |quote=Today Americans deplore the expropriation and expulsion of [Indians]... a practice now called "ethnic cleansing"...}}</ref><ref name="Anderson2014" /> others refer to it as genocide.<ref name="Gilio-Whitaker" /><ref name="Ostler2019" /><ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014" />

Historian and biographer [[Robert V. Remini]] wrote that Jackson's policy on Native Americans was based on good intentions. He writes: "Jackson fully expected the Indians to thrive in their new surroundings, educate their children, acquire the skills of white civilization so as to improve their living conditions, and become citizens of the United States. Removal, in his mind, would provide all these blessings....Jackson genuinely believed that what he had accomplished rescued these people from inevitable annihilation."{{sfn|Remini|2001|pp=279–281}} Historian [[Sean Wilentz]] writes that some critics who label Indian removal as genocide view Jacksonian democracy as a "momentous transition from the ethical community upheld by antiremoval men", and says this view is a caricature of US history that "turns tragedy into melodrama, exaggerates parts at the expense of the whole, and sacrifices nuance for sharpness".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilentz |first=Sean |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2laNEAAAQBAJ |title=Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson To Lincoln |date=2006 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |isbn=978-0-393-32921-6 |pages=324 |language=en |quote=[Jacksonian Democracy's] first crusade, aimed, the critics charge, at the "infantilization" and "genocide" of the Indians, removal supposedly signaled a momentous transition from the ethical community upheld by antiremoval men to Jackson's boundless individualism. Jackson's democracy, for these historians - indeed liberal society - was founded on degradation, dishonor, and death. Like all historical caricatures, this one turns tragedy into melodrama, exaggerates parts at the expense of the whole...}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{cite book |last=Cole |first=Donald B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yWR3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA117 |title=The Presidency of Andrew Jackson |date=1993 |publisher=[[University Press of Kansas]] |isbn=978-0-7006-0600-9 |pages=117 |language=en}}</ref> Historian [[Donald B. Cole]], too, argues that it is difficult to find evidence of a conscious desire for genocide in Jackson's policy on Native Americans, but dismisses the idea that Jackson was motivated by the welfare of Native Americans.<ref name=":6" /> Colonial historian Daniel Blake Smith disagrees with the usage of the term genocide, adding that "no one wanted, let alone planned for, Cherokees to die in the forced removal out West".<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Daniel Blake |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nX4aodeyreoC&pg=PA2 |title=An American Betrayal: Cherokee Patriots and the Trail of Tears |date=2011 |publisher=[[Henry Holt and Company]] |isbn=978-1-4299-7396-0 |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref>

Historian Justin D. Murphy argues that:{{Blockquote|text=Although the “Trail of Tears” was tragic, it does not quite meet the standard of genocide, and the extent to which tribes were allowed to retain their identity, albeit by removal, does not quite meet the standard of [[cultural genocide]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Murphy |first=Justin D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DapVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PR23 |title=American Indian Wars: The Essential Reference Guide |date=2022 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]] |isbn=978-1-4408-7510-6 |pages=23 |language=en}}</ref>}}

In contrast, some scholars have debated that the Trail of Tears was a genocidal act.<ref name="Ostler2019" /><ref name="Anderson2014" /><ref name=":4"/> Historian Jeffrey Ostler argues that the threat of genocide was used to ensure Natives' compliance with removal policies,{{r|1=Ostler2019|2=Conrad2019|p2=1|q2=Ostler argues that "genocide was a part of the history under consideration" (7)...and he argues that Indigenous people demonstrated a "consciousness of genocide," even in contexts where genocide did not occur, and acted creatively to survive the perceived threat of destruction (147).}} and concludes that, "In its outcome and in the means used to gain compliance, the policy had genocidal dimensions."<ref name="Conrad2019">{{Cite journal |last=Conrad |first=Paul |date=2019 |title=Review: Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas |journal=Early American Literature |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=286–290 |doi=10.1353/eal.2021.0021 |s2cid=234112850}}</ref> [[Patrick Wolfe]] argues that [[settler colonialism]] and genocide are interrelated but should be distinguished from each other, writing that settler colonialism is "more than the summary liquidation of Indigenous people, though it includes that."<ref name="Wolfe2006">{{Cite journal |last=Wolfe |first=Patrick |date=December 1, 2006 |title=Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native |journal=[[Journal of Genocide Research]] |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=387–409 |doi=10.1080/14623520601056240 |issn=1462-3528 |s2cid=143873621 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Wolfe describes the assimilation of Indigenous people who escaped relocation (and particularly their abandonment of collectivity) as a form of cultural genocide, though he emphasises that cultural genocide is “the real thing” in that it resulted in large numbers of deaths. The Trail of Tears was thus a settler-colonial ''replacement'' of Indigenous people and culture in addition to a genocidal mass-killing according to Wolfe.{{r|1=Wolfe2006|2=Wolfe2006|p1=1|q1=settler colonialism destroys to replace|p2=2|q2=Mass murders are not the same thing as genocide, though the one action can be both. Thus genocide has been achieved by means of summary mass murder (to cite examples already used [including the Trail of Tears]) in the frontier massacring of Indigenous peoples, in the Holocaust, and in Rwanda. But there can be summary mass murder without genocide, as in the case of 9/11, and there can be genocide without summary mass murder, as in the case of the continuing post-frontier destruction, in whole and in part, of Indigenous genoi.}} [[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz]] describes the policy as genocide, saying: "The fledgling United States government's method of dealing with native people—a process which then included systematic genocide, property theft, and total subjugation—reached its nadir in 1830 under the federal policy of President Andrew Jackson."<ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014" /> Mankiller emphasises that Jackson's policies were the natural extension of much earlier genocidal policies toward Native Americans established through territorial expansion during the [[Presidency of Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson administration]].<ref name="Dunbar-Ortiz2014" />

[[Dina Gilio-Whitaker]], in ''[[As Long as Grass Grows]]'', describes the Trail of Tears and the [[Long Walk of the Navajo|Diné long walk]] as [[Structural violence|structural]] genocide, because they destroyed Native relations to land, one another, and nonhuman beings which imperiled their culture, life, and history. According to her, these are ongoing actions that constitute both cultural and physical genocide.<ref name="Gilio-Whitaker"/>{{rp|35–51}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jacklet |first=Ben |date=January 4, 2019 |title=Review of Dina Gilio-Whitaker, 2019. As long as grass grows: the Indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock |url=http://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/2115/ |journal=[[Journal of Political Ecology]] |language=en |volume=26 |issue=1 |doi=10.2458/v26i1.23503 |issn=1073-0451 |s2cid=200057371 |quote=The full extent of the State's project to hamstring the rights of Indigenous people in the U.S. becomes clear in Chapter 2, provocatively titled "Genocide by any other name: a history of Indigenous environmental injustice." This unflinching examination of settler colonialism and its wrongdoings exposes familiar tropes such as the "pristine" American West and "vanishing" populations of Native Americans while delivering difficult truths about forced relocation, structural genocide, and slavery. In addition to the well-known tragedies of the Long Walk and the Trail of Tears... |doi-access=free}}</ref>

=== Landmarks and commemorations ===
[[File:Cherokee Removal Map.jpg|thumb|Walkway map at the [[Cherokee Removal Memorial Park]] in Tennessee depicting the routes of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, June 2020]]
[[File:Trail of tears map NPS.jpg|thumb|upright=1.55|Map of National Historic trails]]

In 1987, about {{convert|2200|miles|km}} of trails were authorized by federal law to mark the removal of 17 detachments of the Cherokee people.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Trail of Tears: History & Culture |url=https://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/index.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150227093703/http://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/index.htm |archive-date=February 27, 2015 |access-date=July 8, 2012 |publisher=National Park Service |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Called the '''Trail of Tears [[National Historic Trail]]''', it traverses portions of nine states and includes land and water routes.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Geographic Resources Division |url=http://imgis.nps.gov/#Trails |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018192020/https://imgis.nps.gov/#Trails |archive-date=October 18, 2017 |access-date=October 18, 2017 |publisher=National Park Service |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

==== Trail of Tears outdoor historical drama, ''Unto These Hills'' ====
A historical drama based on the Trail of Tears, ''[[Unto These Hills]]'' written by [[Kermit Hunter]], has sold over five million tickets for its performances since its opening on July 1, 1950, both touring and at the outdoor Mountainside Theater of the Cherokee Historical Association in [[Cherokee, North Carolina]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Unto These Hills Drama - Cherokee Historical Association |url=http://www.cherokeehistorical.org/unto-these-hills/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018071833/http://www.cherokeehistorical.org/unto-these-hills/ |archive-date=October 18, 2017 |access-date=October 18, 2017 |publisher=www.cherokeehistorical.org |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Cherokee Ancestry |url=http://www.aboutcherokee.com/trail-of-tears.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018071659/http://www.aboutcherokee.com/trail-of-tears.html |archive-date=October 18, 2017 |access-date=October 18, 2017 |publisher=www.aboutcherokee.com |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

==== Remember the Removal bike ride ====
A regular event, the "Remember the Removal Bike Ride," entails six cyclists from the Cherokee Nation to ride over 950 miles while retracing the same path that their ancestors took. The cyclists, who average about 60 miles a day, start their journey in the former capital of the Cherokee Nation, [[New Echota]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and finish in [[Tahlequah]], [[Oklahoma]].<ref>{{Cite web |author=Staff reports |title=Cherokee Nation announces 2022 'Remember the Removal' bike ride participants |url=https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/education/cherokee-nation-announces-2022-remember-the-removal-bike-ride-participants/article_2172c55a-bb3e-11ec-bcba-5fc8aaed04be.html |access-date=June 10, 2022 |website=cherokeephoenix.org |date=April 13, 2022 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505105524/https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/education/cherokee-nation-announces-2022-remember-the-removal-bike-ride-participants/article_2172c55a-bb3e-11ec-bcba-5fc8aaed04be.html |archive-date=May 5, 2022}}</ref> In June 2024, [[Shawna Baker]], justice of the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court was a mentor cyclist on the 40th commemorative ride.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 9, 2024 |title=Clary, Felix. Cyclists Take on Trail (pt. 1) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-clary-felix-cyclists-take/153899023/ |access-date=August 26, 2024 |work=Tulsa World |pages=A15}}</ref>

==== Commemorative medallion ====
[[Cherokee]] artist Troy Anderson was commissioned to design the ''Cherokee Trail of Tears Sesquicentennial Commemorative Medallion''. The falling-tear medallion shows a seven-pointed star, the symbol of the seven clans of the Cherokees.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cherokees to Mark Anniversary of "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma |url=http://newsok.com/cherokees-to-mark-anniversary-of-trail-of-tears-to-oklahoma/article/2257412 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402091804/http://newsok.com/cherokees-to-mark-anniversary-of-trail-of-tears-to-oklahoma/article/2257412 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |access-date=March 11, 2015 |publisher=News OK |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

==== In literature and oral history ====
* ''Family Stories From the Trail of Tears'' is a collection edited by Lorrie Montiero and transcribed by [[Grant Foreman]], taken from the Indian-Pioneer History Collection<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.ualr.edu/sequoyah/uploads/2011/11/Family%20Stories%20from%20the%20Trail%20of%20Tears.htm |title=Family Stories From the Trail of Tears |publisher=American Native Press Archives and Sequoyah Research Center |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703182314/http://www.ualr.edu/sequoyah/uploads/2011/11/Family%20Stories%20from%20the%20Trail%20of%20Tears.htm |archive-date=July 3, 2015 |last1=Montiero |first1=Lorrie |last2=Foreman |first2=Grant |df=mdy-all}}</ref>
* [[Johnny Cash]] played in the 1970 [[NET Playhouse]] dramatization of ''The Trail of Tears''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_512-ht2g73818t |website=American Archive of Public Broadcasting |title=NET Playhouse; The Trail of Tears: John Ross |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240827190022/https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_512-ht2g73818t |archive-date=August 27, 2024}}</ref> He also recorded the reminiscences of a participant in the removal of the Cherokee.<ref>{{cite web |website=creoliste.fr |title=Birthday Story of Private John G. Burnett, Captain Abraham McClellan's Company, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry, Cherokee Indian Removal, 1838-39. |url=https://www.creoliste.fr/docs/essays/Trail_of_Tears.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220123051046/https://www.creoliste.fr/docs/essays/Trail_of_Tears.html |archive-date=January 23, 2022}}</ref>
* ''[[Walking the Trail]]'' (1991) is a book by [[Jerry Ellis (author)|Jerry Ellis]] describing his 900-mile walk retracing of the Trail of Tears in reverse
* [[Ruth Muskrat Bronson]], a Cherokee scholar and poet, was a more contemporary figure who wrote a poem titled "Trail of Tears" that enshrined the devastation faced by the Cherokee nation that still permeates Indigenous conscience today:
<blockquote>From the homes their fathers made // From the graves the tall trees shade // For the sake of greed and gold, // The Cherokees were forced to go // To a land they did not know; // And Father Time or wisdom old // Cannot erase, through endless years // The memory of the trail of tears.</blockquote>