Remembering Those Who Died In The Forgotten Monmouth Disaster

A stain on the bloody Trail of Tears

(By Pavel Svinyin — This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58726259)

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law. The act authorized the federal government to trade lands west of the Mississippi River in exchange for lands inhabited by natives east of the Mississippi River. At first, the act was floated as voluntary, and tribes were given the choice to move on their own. However, most tribes refused the offer and resisted the overtures.

When tribes refused to move, the government began demanding removal against their will. The result was the infamous Trail of Tears, which saw thousands of Indians moved from their homes and pushed westward to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Many died along the way due to exposure and other ailments.

Most people are familiar with the Trail of Tears, but few people are familiar with the Steamboat Monmouth. The Monmouth disaster unfolded in 1837 during a round of Indian removal and resulted in the worst accident on the Mississippi River at the time and the worst until the outbreak of the Civil War decades later.

On October 31, 1837, an overloaded steamboat packed with Muscogee Indians set out on the Mississippi. The Monmouth was part of a trio of ships contracted by the US government to forcibly move…