Most Americans are familiar with Trail of tears as one the worst episodes of our history when approximately 16,000 members of peaceful Cherokee nation were forcibly removed from Georgia and relocated to lands west of the Mississippi, but that's not how President Martin Van Buren told the story. The forced removal took place during the second year of Martin Van Buren's presidential term, but the plan was hatched by his predecessor Andrew Jackson who today receives the bulk share of the blame. To be fair, Van Buren's hands were legally tied because the New Echota treaty signed by Jackson and ratified by the Senate, set the deadline for removal in May of 1838. Theoretically, President Van Buren could have found a way to stop the relocation, but it would have been political suicide. Instead, President Van Buren not only followed through with the removal but reported to Congress and the American people that the removal was voluntary and had the "happiest effects". The picture painted by President Van Buren, could not be further from the truth. In his annual address, he wrote "the removal has been principally under the conduct of their own chiefs, and they have emigrated without any apparent reluctance". However, the Cherokee people under Chief John Ross gathered 16,000 signatures, arguing that the treaty was not negotiated by legal representatives of the Cherokee nation and begged the US government not to ratify the treaty. Congress took no action; Van Buren ignored the petition, and the remaining Cherokee were hastily and forcibly removed.
"It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi. The measures authorized by Congress at its last session, with a view to the long-standing controversy with them, have had the happiest effects. By an agreement concluded with them by the commanding general in that country, who has performed the duties assigned to him on the occasion with commendable energy and humanity, their removal has been principally under the conduct of their own chiefs, and they have emigrated without any apparent reluctance."
- Martin Van Buren, State of the Union Address 1838
In a letter to his children, John G. Burnett a soldier in the U.S. Army painted a much different picture of the removal. While not verified, the letter tells of "helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades". Burnett describes the journey beginning on a chilly and wet fall morning. The people were "loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons" and led into sleet and snowstorms without adequate clothing and blankets to keep warm. Burnett did not paint a rosy picture like Van Buren, but rather described it as a "long painful journey to the west ended March 26th, 1839, with four-thousand silent graves reaching from the foothills of the Smoky Mountains to what is known as Indian territory in the West"
References
"Second Annual Message." Second Annual Message | The American Presidency Project, 3 Dec. 1838, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-annual-message-4
https://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2020/12/1835-andrew-jackson-new-echota-treaty.html
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