In the 1800s, the young United States systematised this land grab by forcibly dispossessing native inhabitants, beginning with the Indian Removal Act of 1830. At the time there were some 120,000 Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River. By 1944, only 30,000 remained; many had been killed, but most had been forced by the US government to move westward. Some 15,000 people perished along the way, on the Trail of Tears.
