Under President Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The Cherokee removal of 1838–39 alone killed an estimated 4,000 of the 16,000 people forced to march. The Supreme Court’s Worcester v. Georgia (1832) ruled in favor of Cherokee sovereignty; Jackson refused to enforce it, reportedly remarking “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

Why it’s been targeted

Oklahoma teachers told StateImpact Oklahoma that HB 1775 (2021) has created uncertainty about teaching the Trail of Tears alongside the Tulsa Race Massacre; the ACLU’s federal lawsuit on behalf of Oklahoma educators cites both. South Dakota’s executive order and Texas’s HB 3979 / SB 3 have produced similar chilling effects. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a top-banned title per PEN America.