The Trail of Tears

The bitter tale of the sad events that led inexorably to the final massacre at Wounded Knee began with the Trail of Tears. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed a bill permitting the removal of all Native Americans living east of the Mississippi. Over the next twenty years more than 50 tribes were uprooted from their homelands and marched into the alien hands of the west-the first step in the destruction of an entire people.