How Andrew Jackson turned on his former Cherokee allies

Surely everyone knows, or should know, about the Cherokee Trail of Tears — an ordeal imposed upon thousands of Cherokees who, after fighting and winning a judgment in the Supreme Court against their removal from the Eastern Seaboard, were nonetheless dispossessed of their tribal lands and marched to Indian Territory in the early 1830s. The scale of the removal was staggering. Not only the Cherokee but also the Muskogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and many of their African American slaves were removed in one of the largest and most brutal acts of aggression ever committed by the United States. But not till now, with the coming of NPR journalist Steve Inskeep’s magnificent book, focusing as it does on the two key players — President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross — has this episode in American history been rendered in such personal detail and with such a human touch.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-land-grabber/2015/05/21/4305ae1e-f285-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html