Primary source 1: A letter from President ​Andrew Jackson​.

March 16th, 1835

TO THE ​CHEROKEE ​TRIBE OF INDIANS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

RIVER.

MY FRIENDS:

I have long viewed your condition with great interest. For many years
I have been acquainted (​familiar​) with your people, and under all variety
of circumstances (​events​), in peace and war. Your fathers were well
known to me, and the regard which I cherished (​appreciated​) for them
has caused me to feel great solicitude (​concern​) for your situation. To
these feelings, growing out of former recollections (​memories)​ , have been
added the sanction (​approval​) of official duty, and the relation in which, by
the ​Constitution ​and laws, I am placed towards you. Listen to me,
therefore, as your fathers have listened, while I communicate to you my
sentiments (​feelings​) on the critical (​important)​ state of your affairs.

You are now placed in the midst (​middle​) of a white population. Your
peculiar customs, which regulated your intercourse (​interaction​) with one
another, have been abrogated (​ended​) by the great political community
among which you live; and you are now subject to the same laws which
govern the other citizens of Georgia and Alabama. You are liable
(​responsible​) to prosecutions for offences, and to civil actions for a

breach (​break)​ of any of your contracts. Most of your people are

uneducated, and are liable to be brought into collusion at all times with
their white neighbors. Your young men are acquiring habits of intoxication
(​drunkenness​). With strong passions, and without those habits of restraint
which our laws inculcate (​promote​) and render necessary, they are
frequently driven to excesses which must eventually terminate (​end​) in
their ruin (​destruction)​ . The game has disappeared among you, and you
must depend upon agriculture (​farming​) and the mechanic arts for
support. And, yet, a large portion of your people have acquired little or no
property in the soil itself, or in any article of personal property which can
be useful to them. How, under these circumstances, can you live in the
country you now occupy? Your condition must become worse and worse,
and you will ultimately disappear, as so many tribes have done before
you.

I have no motive, my friends, to deceive you. I am sincerely desirous to

promote your welfare. Listen to me, therefore, while I tell you that you
cannot remain where you now are. Circumstances (​events​) that cannot
be controlled, and which are beyond the reach of human laws, render it
impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You
have but one remedy within your reach. And that is, to remove to the
West and join your countrymen, who are already established there. And
the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of
improvement and prosperity.
Primary Source # 2:

This is the address to congress by Andrew Jackson on the progress of the

"​Indian Removal Act".​ Here he seems happy to announce that the Native
Americans are out of sight and soon will be out of mind. He refers to them
as savages and states that when they are "out of the way" they won't keep
the U.S. from expanding. :

“It gives me pleasure to announce to ​Congress ​that the benevolent policy

of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the
removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching a
happy consummation (​completion)​ . Two important tribes have accepted the
provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is
believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the
same obvious advantages.

It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of
Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly
in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from
immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of
the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under
their own rude institutions (​customs)​ ; will retard (​slow​) the progress of
decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them
gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the
influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an
interesting, civilized, and Christian community.

What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by
a few thousand savages to our extensive (​complex)​ Republic, studded with
cities, towns, and prosperous (​successful​) farms embellished with all the
improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more
than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty,
civilization and religion?

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to

his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to
leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children?
Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red
man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws
of the States and mingle (​live​) with their population. To save him from this
alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation (​destruction​), the General
Government kindly offers him a new home.
Primary Source # 3:

Here a soldier recalls what it was like working on the Trail of Tears. It is
strange to hear the perspective of someone who is not a Cherokee and
have the same horrors described. This man was sent as an interpreter to
the Smoky Mountain Country, and there he saw things that he describes as
"...the most brutal order in the History of American Warfare." He saw Native
Americans being stripped of their dignity, loved ones, and in some cases
their lives. :

"The removal of Cherokee Indians from their lifelong homes in the year of
1838 found me a young man in the prime of life and a Private soldier in the
American Army. Being acquainted with many of the Indians and able to
fluently speak their language, I was sent as interpreter into the Smoky
Mountain Country in May, 1838, and witnessed the execution of the most
brutal order in the History of American Warfare. I saw the helpless
Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the
bayonet point into the ​stockades​. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an
October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred
and forty-five wagons and started toward the west... On the morning of
November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm with
freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the
fateful journey on March the 26th, 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees
were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in
the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as
twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment,
cold, and exposure. Among this number was the beautiful Christian wife of
Chief John Ross​. This noble hearted woman died a martyr to childhood,
giving her only blanket for the protection of a sick child. She rode thinly clad
(​clothed or covered)​ through a blinding sleet and snow storm, developed
pneumonia and died in the still hours of a bleak winter night, with her head
resting on Lieutenant Greggs saddle blanket."
Primary Source # 4:

Here a man traveling describes one of the days traveling. Almost everyday
of this diary a man or woman or child dies. On this day, a 10 year old child.
The man states that in the beginning his weapon was to be prayer on this
journey, but he has been neglecting it. This might come from seeing many
horrors, or doubting that there was a God in the horrible world he
experienced. :

"...several waggons and some sick persons are still behind, we wait today
for them. This morning a little child about 10 years old died. Previous to
starting on this journey, I determined to let it be a journey of prayer, and to
devote much time every day to that sacred duty, but instead of this. I have
very strangely neglected prayer. In the morning our time is employed in
taking our bed &tc, from the little waggon in which we sleep to the large
waggon which carried its — replacing the seat. — getting water, — cooking
breakfast, putting up things, harnessing &tc., soon we are hurried on by the
waggons we accompany to the next encampment. Here we have to render
what we did in the morning — put up our tent, get wood and water, prepare
supper, fix our bed &ct. We often become much fatigued by the time we get
our fire prepared. I know that all this cannot justify a neglect of prayer..."