Reservation

As European settlement encroached upon the American Indian's land, the Native Americans were generally pushed westward to designated areas. Under President Andrew Jackson's administration, thousands of Indian people who lived east of the Mississippi were forced to the West. The most famous forced migration was that of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" from the Southeast: The Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole People. Their path to the West has been called the "Trail of Tears." Oklahoma was designated as American Indian Territory where many American Indian people were forced to relocate on reservations established in this area. In time, the designated reservations became smaller due to wide Euro-American settlement across the Great Plains. Today, throughout the United States, several American Indian reservations exist where Native American cultures are officially recognized by the U.S. Government.