Trail of Tears was an important experience that forever changed the history of the Cherokee Nation and the United States. Several thousand Cherokee Native Indians lost their lives when forced to leave their homelands through laws put in place by Federal authorities. The beginning of the negotiation of several treaties to establish land boundaries and trade routes started in 1776 between the nation of Native Americans and the United States.

This must have made the sting of their losses in court -- and their losses despite winning in court -- even more bitter. They had learned and played by the new rules even though that system was unfair to begin with (in all fairness, the Americans should have used the Cherokee legal system to try and get what they wanted), but the system refused to give them fair access.

Native Americans Describe what is known of the tribe's pre-Columbian history, including settlement dates and any known cultural details. Before Columbus came to the "New World," the pre-Columbian era, the Cherokee occupied an area that today is western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia (Waddington 2006). The Cherokee traveled even further past these areas, however, to hunt and to trade their wares. The Cherokee had occupied this area for a good

Although they reacted with sorrow, they also attempted to preserve their culture. For example, some even ground the bones of their ancestors and sewed them into their clothing (Watson 1999). A similar story of Native American's peaceful reactions that were exploited by force is the history of Chief Joseph. This early recruit to Christianity was the chief mediator of peace between whites and his tribe, the Nez Perce, but when

The earth,' they say, 'is a great island floating in a sea, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again.' Originally the animals

While this right applied to American settlers, who engaged in a variety of religions, from Puritanism to Deism, and spoke freely about them in publications and public forums. Native Americans, on the other hand, were denied their freedom of religion. American settlers saw Native American religions as uncivilized, so they encouraged missionaries to convert the tribes. Missionaries can be both beneficial and harmful to a culture. Some come excited