Answer:
Westward expansion of White settlers caused Native Americans to lose not only land by being confined to reservations but also their traditional resources, including the buffalo, hunting grounds, and sacred landmarks.
Explanation:
Trail of Tears
The Cherokee lived in the Southeast and were largely accepting of the colonial system. They had created a legal system as an independent nation and their government consistent with Cherokee and European traditions. They had their own newspaper and were literate. White settlers in Georgia however were pressing for land in order to grow cotton. In 1830 with the Indian Removal Act the federal government forced the Cherokee to leave and walk thousands of miles to “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This became known as the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee Nation initially sued for the return of their land and The Supreme Court sided with them but President Jackson overturned the Supreme Court ruling. More than 15,000 Cherokees were subsequently rounded up and forced to march.
Indian Campaigns in New Mexico
There was a similar scenario in New Mexico although it was later, during the Civil War. Kit Carson was a famous frontiersman who waged a brutal campaign against the Navajo in 1863. When the Navajo resisted confinement on reservations, Carson terrorized them by destroying villages and killing their livestock. Carson captured approximately 8,000 Navajo and marched them across New Mexico to the Bosque Redondo Reservation, over 300 miles from their former villages, where they remained for the duration of the war. There had been raids and tensions since the 1840s regarding land in this area and treaties were violated.
