trail of tears

The Trail Where They Cried
nu na hi du na tlo hi lu i
"There were ten million Native Americans on this continent when the first non-Indians arrived. Over the next 300 years, 90% of all Native American original population was either wiped out by disease, famine, or warfare imported by the whites."
By 1840 all the eastern tribes had been subdued, annihilated or forcibly removed to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi.

The discovery of the New World by European explorers caused endless problems for American Indians, whose homelands were gradually taken from them and whose cultures were dramatically altered, and in some cases destroyed, by the invasion.

The first contact between southeastern American Indians and Europeans was the expedition of Hernando de Soto in 1540. De Soto took captives for use as slave labor, while others were abused because the Europeans deemed them savages. Epidemic diseases brought by the Europeans spread through the Indian villages, decimating nati...