A Native American Timeline-- Part 5: Indian Removal Act, Cherokees, Reservations, Cochise and the Sand Creek Massacre

**  1836:  The last of the Creek Indians leave their land for Oklahoma as part of the Indian Removal process.  Of the 15,00 who leave for Oklahoma, more than 3,500 don't survive.

**  1838:  With just 2,000 Cherokees having left their land in Georgia to cross the Mississippi River, President Martin Van Buren gets General Winfield Scott and 7,000 troops to speed up the process by holding them at gunpoint and marching them  1,200 miles.

More than 5,000 Cherokees die in this and this became known as the Trail of Tears.

**  1851:  Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act, creating the Indian Reservation System.  Indians can not leave these reservations without permission.

**  OCTOBER 1860:  A group of Apache Indians attack and kidnap a white American, resulting in the U.S. military falsely accusing the leader  of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, Cochise.  Cochise and the Apaches increase raids on white Americans for a decade afterwards.

**  NOVERMBER 29, 1864:  A 650 Colorado volunteer force attacks Cheyenne and Arapaho encampments along Sand Creek in Colorado, killing and mutilating  more than 150 Indians in what has become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

--Cooter

Pandemics in Chicago-- Part 3: Cholera and Fort Dearborn

Continued from April 21, 2020.  Before I got on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Butler County, Pennsylvania.  You can catch up on the first two posts by clicking on the label Chicago below this entry.

Adam Selzer is quite knowledgeable about Chicago's history and its epidemics and pandemics.  He leads guided tours of cemeteries including one of the bigger ones called Graceland.

One of the epidemics that plagues Chicago in the 1800s was that of cholera.  Multiple outbreaks took place in the city in the 19th century.  He says the first major epidemic took place in 1832 (Chicago became a city in 1837).

It was brought in on a ship by Gen. Winfield Scott who arrived in town by ship with soldiers from the Black Hawk War. Dozens died as they occupied the old Fort Dearborn and Scott later said that the disease scared him more than any enemy because there was no way to fight it; he couldn't fortify his walls against it or even offer terms of surrender.

Fort Dearborn was the site of the infamous Fort Dearborn Massacre in the War of 1812.

--Cooter