Cherokee National History Museum

On Wednesday we drove to Tahlequah, the capital city of both the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. Their reservation spans 14 counties in Northeastern Oklahoma.In 1830, gold was discovered on Cherokee lands. The exact same year, not only were Cherokees legally prohibited from mining for gold on their own lands Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In exchange for $5 million the Cherokee people would "exchange" their homelands for lands in Oklahoma. Not only were the people who signed the treaty on behalf of the Cherokee not elected officials of the tribe in any capacity, the US government never paid the money out, nor were the Cherokee given a seated representative in the US House of Representatives per the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. More than 100,000 Native Americans, including the Cherokees were forcibly removed from their homes in the Carolinas, Appalachia and Alabama. The Seminoles of Florida even went to war for 7 years against the US government to try to hold onto their land. People were hunted, killed and those who were captured were forced to march a thousand miles on a journey that became known as "The Trail of Tears" due to 4,000 people dying on the forced relocation march.After the Native Americans were forcibly removed, their land and gold mining rights were then given to wealthy white settlers in lotteries. This land became the massive plantations (corporate farms) of the slave-era. I've been to Tahlequah before but they tore down the original museum that I visited in favor of turning this courthouse into a museum. Personally, the trail of tears exhibit was a better exhibit at the former museum. It always stuck with me how they had eyewitness accounts of US soldiers bayonetting pregnant women on the trail. It's just evil.