It began with a signature.It wasn't a signature of war, but something far. more insidious: A legal document. The Treaty of New Echota. The Indian Removal Act. In the dead of winter, 1830, the silence of the American wilderness was broken not by gunfire, but by the footsteps of 6o,ooo humanbeings forced to walk into the unknown. They walked through freezing rain. They walked without shoes. They walked until. they dropped.