Trails of Tears (and Potawatomi Trail of Death)

Trails of Tears and Trail of Death represent episodes in the advance of American colonial settlements across the new eastern states of the US after the War of 1812 through the 1830s. Forced Indian removals coincided with bribes, coercion and promises in exchange for massive native land concessions east of the Mississippi River. Alexis de Tocqueville witnessed a Choctaw passage across the ice-choked river at Memphis Tennessee to a promised paradise in Oklahoma.