After the Revolutionary war, the new United States government adopted a pluralistic approach to Native - Americans societies, seeking to gain more land through treaties. Payment for land was far from fair, however, and when Native Americans resisted demands to surrender their homelands, superior military power was brought in to evict them. Thousands of Cherokees, for example, died on a forced march-the Trail of Tears-from their homes in the southeastern United States to segregated reservations in the Midwest. By the early 1800s, few Native Americans remained east of the Mississippi river.