In the early nineteenth century, the U.S. government shifted its
policy from trying to assimilate American Indians to relocating
them, and proceeded to forcibly drive seventeen thousand Cherokees
from their homelands. This journey of exile became known as the
Trail of Tears.
Historians Perdue and Green reveal the government’s betrayals and
the divisions within the Cherokee Nation, follow the exiles along
the Trail of Tears, and chronicle the hardships found in the West.
In its trauma and tragedy, the Cherokee diaspora has come to
represent the irreparable injustice done to Native Americans in the
name of nation building—and in their determined survival, it
represents the resilience of the Native American spirit.