Stories behind the Trail of Tears for every state it passed through
Written by Nicole Caldwell Ed Lallo // Getty Images Markers and remnants of the Trail of Tears stretch as a series of scars across the American lan...
Written by Nicole Caldwell Ed Lallo // Getty Images Markers and remnants of the Trail of Tears stretch as a series of scars across the American landscape. The trail's facilitators stand as a representation of America at her worst; its captives as a mark of stunning resiliency in the face of indescribable cruelty and terror. Despite massive encroachment by white settlers on North American lands throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the sovereign Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations in the early 1800s accounted for significant swaths of land stretching from northwest Georgia into Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee.