This episode contains discussions of First Nation forced relocation and ethnic cleansing,

and the murder of both adults and children.

If these aren't topics you want to hear about, this may be a good episode to skip.

Thank you. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so the mysterious and unsolved.

Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages.

I am one of those people.

My name is Halley, and this is the Morbid Curiosity podcast.

Thank you. The early 1800s were a time of both hope and upheaval. The early 1800s were a time of both hope and upheaval in America.

America was changing from a new and struggling nation into an international political power.

The U.S. government and most of its citizens at the time had their hearts set on national expansion.

It was the era of manifest destiny, the belief that it was the god-given right of the American

people to settle North America from coast to coast. More immigrants were arriving from

Ireland, Germany, and England, crowding into the cities of the East Coast.

A terrible epidemic of cholera hit due to a combination of crowding and lack of sanitation.

Because of this, many people wanted to move westward, away from the crowds, into what was known as unorganized territory,

which was occupied by the indigenous peoples of North America.

Indigenous tribes, at the time referred to as Indians, were either ignored completely or thought of as savage, uncivilized people by white Americans.

The majority of people thought that adopting European cultural values and

Christianity would benefit the indigenous peoples. Others just wanted them removed so that they

could settle in those territories. Between the 1830 Indian Removal Act and 1850, the U.S.

government used forced treaties and or U.S. Army actions

to move about 100,000 indigenous people, including members of the Cherokee, Chokta, Chickasaw,

...