US History Bell Ringer What was the Trail of Tears? What was the Gold Rush?

In 1838 and 1839, as part of President Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. This picture, The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal. If any depictions of the "Trail of Tears" were created at the time of the march, they have not survived.

On January 24, 1848, when James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget in the American River while constructing a sawmill in California. News of Marshall’s discovery brought thousands of immigrants to California from elsewhere in the United States and from other countries. The large influx of "'49ers," as the gold prospectors were known, caused California's population to increase so dramatically that it was incorporated into the Union as the 31st state in. Most of these people were from the eastern states who hoped to make fortunes in California. In addition, the gold rush triggered a global emigration of ambitious fortune-seekers from China, Germany, Chile, Mexico, Ireland, Turkey, and France. The number of Chinese gold-seekers was particularly large, though many Chinese did not intend to settle in the United States, which they called "the Gold Mountain."