Trail of Tears

Cultural  

1. The route along which the United States government forced several tribes of Native Americans, including the Cherokees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, to migrate to reservations west of the Mississippi River in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s. Those on the march suffered greatly from disease and mistreatment.

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Example Sentences

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act that led to the Trail of Tears — a death march that forced around 60,000 Indigenous people to leave their homes and move west, across the Mississippi River, to Oklahoma.

From Salon

Brown calls them "Indian peaches" while other Muscogees call them "Trail of Tears peaches."

From Salon

I can imagine that if you’d never heard of the Trail of Tears, or read Howard Zinn, or questioned the bucolic Johnny Appleseed vision painted by children’s primers, you might have something to learn from its potted horse-opera history.

From New York Times

The good and bad of it for Caleb and Bears fans is there’s been a long trail of tears when it comes to quarterbacks and Chicago, and this is another chance to alter that trajectory.

From Los Angeles Times

Unvarnished published accounts reveal Poinsett as a disruptive advocate for business interests abroad, a slaveholder on a rice plantation in the U.S., and a secretary of war who helped oversee the forced removal of Native Americans, including the westward relocation of Cherokee populations to Oklahoma known as the “Trail of Tears.”

From Seattle Times