In 1838, the United States government forcibly removed more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, and sent them to Indian Territory (today known as Oklahoma).

The impact to the Cherokee was devastating. Hundreds of Cherokee died during their trip west, and thousands more perished from the consequences of relocation. This tragic chapter in American and Cherokee history became known as the Trail of Tears, and culminated the implementation of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which mandated the removal of all American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to lands in the West.

The Cherokees interest me because they are native to North Carolina. In fact, those currently living in my state are the descendants of North Carolina’s first illegal residents. I say illegal, because a law so stated! The American Indian Removal Act said it was illegal for a native American to live east of the Mississippi River. However, when a remnant of the NC Cherokees fled to the mountains, they were subject to being hunted down and deported.

After all, had not the U.S. government invested many dollars on the evacuation plan with its many detention centers? Clearly, this was the law, and after all, aren’t we a nation of laws? Ironically, the Cherokees believed they had legal recourse, when Georgia started liquidating their lands.

In 1830-the same year the Indian Removal Act was passed – gold was found on Cherokee lands. Georgia held lotteries to give Cherokee land and gold rights to whites. Cherokees were not allowed to conduct tribal business, contract, testify in courts against whites, or mine for gold.

The Cherokees successfully challenged Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court. President Jackson, when hearing of the Court’s decision, reportedly said, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can.”

Motivated by racism and greed, our “nation of laws” removed the Cherokee chief, who had worked hard to help his people peacefully interact with the descendants of the first European immigrants.

Most Cherokees, including Chief John Ross, did not believe that they would be forced to move. In May 1838, Federal troops and state militias began the roundup of the Cherokees into stockades. In spite of warnings to troops to treat the Cherokees kindly, the roundup proved harrowing.

Families were separated-the elderly and ill forced out at gunpoint – people given only moments to collect cherished possessions. White looters followed, ransacking homesteads as Cherokees were led away.

The Cherokee were not an isolated subgroup of people posing danger to the sons and daughters of colonial settlers.

Historically, Cherokees occupied lands in several southeastern states. As European settlers arrived, Cherokees traded and intermarried with them. They began to adopt European customs and gradually turned to an agricultural economy, while being pressured to give up traditional home-lands. Between 1721 and 1819, over 90 percent of their lands were ceded to others. By the 1820s, Sequoyah’s syllabary brought literacy and a formal governing system with a written constitution.

It is estimated that about one fifth of the Cherokee nation died as a result of the forced march. A survivor described this as follows in his “second language”:

Long time we travel on way to new land. People feel bad when they leave Old Nation. Womens cry and make sad wails. Children cry and many men cry…but they say nothing and just put heads down and keep on go towards West. Many days pass and people die very much.

So how did the North Carolina “illegals”, the holdouts hiding in the mountains, lawfully return to a piece of land now known as the Cherokee Indian Reservation?

About 1,000 Cherokees in Tennessee and North Carolina escaped the roundup. They gained recognition in 1866, establishing their tribal government in 1868 in Cherokee, North Carolina. Today, they are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

In short, there was a change in the law. A little late for the 4,000 who died on the trail. Still, it makes the point. When the enforcement of a law becomes “persecution” instead of “prosecution” it needs to be changed.