Editing Trail of Tears (section)

==Choctaw removal==
{{Main|Choctaw Trail of Tears}}

[[File:George-W-Harkins.jpg|upright|left|thumb|[[George W. Harkins]], Choctaw chief]]

The Choctaw nation resided in large portions of what are now the U.S. states of [[Alabama]], [[Mississippi]], and [[Louisiana]]. After a series of treaties starting in 1801, the Choctaw nation was reduced to {{convert|11|e6acre|km2|abbr=unit}}. The [[Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek]] ceded the remaining country to the United States and was ratified in early 1831. The removals were only agreed to after a provision in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek allowed some Choctaw to remain. The Choctaws were the first to sign a removal treaty presented by the federal government. President Jackson wanted strong negotiations with the Choctaws in Mississippi, and the Choctaws seemed much more cooperative than Andrew Jackson had imagined. The treaty provided that the United States would bear the expense of moving their homes and that they had to be removed within two and a half years of the signed treaty.<ref>Davis, Ethan. "An Administrative Trail of Tears: Indian Removal". ''American Journal of Legal History'' 50, no. 1 (2008): 65–68. Accessed December 15, 2014. {{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Ethan |year=2008 |title=An Administrative Trail of Tears: Indian Removal |journal=The American Journal of Legal History |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=49–100 |doi=10.1093/ajlh/50.1.49 |jstor=25664483}}</ref> The chief of the Choctaw nation, [[George W. Harkins]], wrote to the citizens of the United States before the removals were to commence:

{{blockquote|It is with considerable diffidence that I attempt to address the American people, knowing and feeling sensibly my incompetency; and believing that your highly and well-improved minds would not be well entertained by the address of a Choctaw. But having determined to emigrate west of the Mississippi river this fall, I have thought proper in bidding you farewell to make a few remarks expressive of my views, and the feelings that actuate me on the subject of our removal... We as Choctaws rather chose to suffer and be free, than live under the degrading influence of laws, which our voice could not be heard in their formation.|
George W. Harkins|George W. Harkins to the American People<ref name="george_address">{{Cite web |last=Harkins |first=George |author-link=George W. Harkins |year=1831 |title=1831 - December - George W. Harkins to the American People |url=http://anpa.ualr.edu/trailOfTears/letters/1831DecemberGeorgeWHarkinstotheAmericanPeople.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060527025102/http://anpa.ualr.edu/trailOfTears/letters/1831DecemberGeorgeWHarkinstotheAmericanPeople.htm |archive-date=May 27, 2006 |access-date=April 23, 2008}}</ref>}}

United States Secretary of War [[Lewis Cass]] appointed [[George Strother Gaines|George Gaines]] to manage the removals. Gaines decided to remove Choctaws in three phases starting in November 1831 and ending in 1833. The first groups met at Memphis and Vicksburg, where a harsh winter battered the emigrants with flash floods, sleet, and snow. Initially, the Choctaws were to be transported by wagon but floods halted them. With food running out, the residents of Vicksburg and Memphis were concerned. Five steamboats (the ''Walter Scott'', the ''Brandywine'', the ''Reindeer'', the ''Talma'', and the ''Cleopatra'') would ferry Choctaws to their river-based destinations. The Memphis group traveled up the Arkansas for about {{convert|60|mi|km|sigfig=1}} to Arkansas Post. There the temperature stayed below freezing for almost a week with the rivers clogged with ice, so there could be no travel for weeks. Food rationing consisted of a handful of boiled corn, one turnip, and two cups of heated water per day. Forty government wagons were sent to Arkansas Post to transport them to Little Rock. When they reached Little Rock, a Choctaw chief referred to their trek as a "''trail of tears and death''".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Faiman-Silva |first=Sandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DS5LgMyvYNAC&q=%22trail+of+tears+and+death%22+choctaw&pg=PA19 |title=Choctaws at the Crossroads |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0803269026 |page=19}}</ref> The Vicksburg group was led by an incompetent guide and was lost in the [[Lake Providence, Louisiana|Lake Providence]] swamps.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

[[File:Alexis de tocqueville.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Alexis de Tocqueville]], French political thinker and historian]]

[[Alexis de Tocqueville]], the French philosopher, witnessed the Choctaw removals while in [[Memphis, Tennessee]], in 1831:

{{blockquote|In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The Indians were tranquil but somber and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the Chactas were leaving their country. "To be free," he answered, could never get any other reason out of him. We ... watch the expulsion ... of one of the most celebrated and ancient American peoples.|Alexis de Tocqueville|''Democracy in America''<ref name="Tocqueville">{{Cite web |last=de Tocqueville |first=Alexis |author-link=Alexis de Tocqueville |date=1835–1840 |title=Tocqueville and Beaumont on Race |url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/race/indian.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513004221/http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHYPER/DETOC/race/indian.html |archive-date=May 13, 2008 |access-date=April 28, 2008}}</ref>}}

Nearly 17,000 Choctaws made the move to what would be called [[Indian Territory]] and then later [[Oklahoma]].{{sfn|Satz|1986|p=[https://archive.org/details/afterremovalchoc0000unse/page/7 7]}} About 2,500–6,000 died along the trail of tears. Approximately 5,000–6,000 Choctaws remained in Mississippi in 1831 after the initial removal efforts.<ref name="david_baird">{{Cite book |last=Baird |first=David |title=The Choctaw People |publisher=Indian Tribal Series |year=1973 |location=United States |page=36 |chapter=The Choctaws Meet the Americans, 1783 to 1843 |asin=B000CIIGTW}}</ref><ref name="Peterson">{{Cite book |last=Walter |first=Williams |title=Southeastern Indians: Since the Removal Era |publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]] |year=1979 |location=Athens, Georgia |chapter=Three Efforts at Development among the Choctaws of Mississippi}}</ref> The Choctaws who chose to remain in newly formed Mississippi were subject to legal conflict, harassment, and intimidation. The Choctaws "have had our habitations torn down and burned, our fences destroyed, cattle turned into our fields and we ourselves have been scourged, manacled, fettered and otherwise personally abused, until by such treatment some of our best men have died".<ref name="Peterson" /> The Choctaws in Mississippi were later reformed as the [[Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians]] and the removed Choctaws became the [[Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma]].{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}