From “Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice” by L. Daniel Hawk
“Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement.
Andrew Jackson, Message to Congress,
“On Indian Removal,” 1830
On July 12, 1843, the Wyandottes departed from their Grand Reserve in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and began a journey to newly purchased land west of the Mississippi River. The first leg of their journey took them overland to Cincinnati, where they were to board two steamboats bound for the mouth of the Kansas River. During the weeklong journey, crowds of White settlers gathered to ogle the somber procession of 664 individuals, over one hundred wagons, and approximately three hundred horses as they passed by. The Wyandottes were the last of the Indigenous nations that the federal government expelled from their homelands in Ohio. Their departure provided a sense of nostalgia and sympathy in the onlookers. Many believed that the Indians were a dying race and viewed their removal from Ohio as the inevitable consequence of the advance of civilization.