“The Trail of Tears” article

INTRODUCTION: This article’s author Dee Brown wrote the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, first published in 1970, which recounted many key events in US Indigenous history.  It was one of the first books to significantly include the perspectives of the Native peoples and became a best seller that raised new awareness of Indigenous history. In the following essay Brown explains the tragedy of the forced journey of the Cherokees from their homelands to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma. The journey became known as the Trail of Tears (or the Trail on which we cried) due to the high number of deaths and the suffering Cherokees endured along the way.

[icon name=”book” prefix=”fas”] “The Trail of Tears” by Dee Brown published in American History Illustrated, June 1972.