On this day, May 28, in 1830,

US President Andrew Jackson signed The Indian Removal Act into law, intending to conquer all the land east of the Mississippi River. The Act provided federal funds to negotiate land exchange treaties with Native Americans, but the American government often used intimidation and physical violence to get their treaties signed. An example of the government’s strategy when a treaty was resisted is the Trail of Tears, in which 15,000 Cherokee people were forced to leave their homeland at gunpoint. Between 4 and 8 thousand Cherokee died during this 1000-mile march to the West. In 2004 the government offered an apology to Native American people for its “ill-conceived policies”.