In the 1830’s, the American government decided to relocate the Native American peoples to territories west of the Mississippi. The government came up with many reasons that the Native Americans had to move. Those tribes that did not move voluntarily were forcefully relocated from their ancestral lands. This forced move would later be known as The Trail of Tears. The American government came up with many reasons that the Native American peoples needed to move west of the Mississippi. Many Easterners felt that the move would protect Native American culture.1 Many Indians tried to assimilate into the white culture in order to stay on their ancestral lands.2 But the settlers did not like the Indians mixing with white culture because they felt that the Indians were being influenced by alcohol and exploited financially.3 One other reason that Easterners, particularly the Georgian government, wanted the Native Americans to move was because prospectors found gold on land that was controlled by the Cherokee Indians.4 The amount of gold found in Cherokee territory prompted whites to demand that the Cherokee be evicted from their land so mining for gold could be continued without interference from the Cherokee.5 Another reason the Georgia was upset was because the Cherokee established a constitution in 1827. At that point the Georgian government tried to take over and annul all Cherokee laws and extend its territory into Cherokee land.6 The reason that Georgia fought so hard for control of Indian land was because they had given up their claims to land in the West in return for a federal government promise of Indian land in Georgia.7 Because of all of the uproar from the Georgian government, the Congress of the United States Pass... ... middle of paper ... ... 3. Tiya Miles, Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom (electronic resource). (University of California Press, 2005): 149-150. 4. Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, The Cherokee nation and The Trail of Tears. (New York, New York: The Penguin Group): 43-44. 5. Lucy Maddox, Removals: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Politics of Indian Affairs. (Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1991): 27, 37. 6. Richard J. Callahan Jr., New Territories, New Perspectives [electronic resource]: The Religious Impact of the Louisiana Purchase. (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2008): 57. 7. Clara Sue Kidwell, The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes. (University of Oklahoma National Humanities Center). http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/indianremoval.htm
Andrew Jackson signed the indian removal act in 1830. This act allowed him to make treaties with the natives and steal their lands. The Trail of Tears was a forced relocation of more than 15,000 cherokee Indians. The white men/people gave the natives 2 options: 1. Leave or 2. Stay and Assimilate (learn our culture). The natives couldn’t have their own government. There were 5 civilized tribes including the cherokees. They learned english and went to american schools and when the cherokees went to court they won.
Back in 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. This act required the government to negotiate treaties that would require the Native Americans to move to the west from their homelands. Native Americans would be moved to an area called the Indian Territory which is Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Nebraska. Some tribes that were to be moved are Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. All of the other tribes had relocated in the fall of 1831 to the Indian Territory besides the Cherokee who did not relocate until the fall of 1838. They did not move from their homeland without a fight. Their homeland was parts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. They started this march in the fall of 1838 and finished in early
... the unwilling tribes west of the Mississippi. In Jackson’s letter to General John Coffee on April 7, 1832, he explained that the Cherokees were still in Georgia, and that they ought to leave for their own benefit because destruction will come upon them if they stay. By 1835, most eastern tribes had unwillingly complied and moved west. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created in 1836 to help out the resettled tribes. Most Cherokees rejected the settlement of 1835, which provided land in the Indian territory. It was not until 1838, after Jackson had left office, that the U.S. Army forced 15,000 Cherokees to leave Georgia. The hardships on the “trail of tears” were so great that over 4,000 Cherokees died on their heartbreaking westward journey. In conclusion, the above statement is valid and true. The decision the Jackson administration made to remove the Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River was a reformulation of the national policy. Jackson, along with past Presidents George Washington, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson, tried to rid the south of Indians This process of removing the native people was continuous as the years went on.
Unfortunately, this great relationship that was built between the natives and the colonists of mutual respect and gain was coming to a screeching halt. In the start of the 1830s, the United States government began to realize it’s newfound strength and stability. It was decided that the nation had new and growing needs and aspirations, one of these being the idea of “Manifest Destiny”. Its continuous growth in population began to require much more resources and ultimately, land. The government started off as simply bargaining and persuading the Indian tribes to push west from their homeland. The Indians began to disagree and peacefully object and fight back. The United States government then felt they had no other option but to use force. In Indian Removal Act was signed by Andrew Jackson on May 18, 1830. This ultimately resulted in the relocation of the Eastern tribes out west, even as far as to the edge of the Great Plains. A copy of this act is laid out for you in the book, Th...
Print. The. C. Wallace, Anthony F. Long, bitter trail Andrew Jackson and the Indians. Ed. Eric Foner. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
Brill, Marlene Targ. The Trail of Tears: The Cherokee Journey From Home. Brookfield, CN: Millbrook Press, 1995.
Wachal, Barbara Schwarz. "Louisiana Purchase." Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3rd ed. Vol. 5. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2003. 162-163. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 Nov.
There was one obstacle to the settlers to expand into the lower South. The obstacle was the Indian tribes such as the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw, and Seminole nations (Indian Removal 1). According to the white settlers, the nations were in the way of the white’s progress. The whites wanted this land because they needed it to grow cotton, which was making a huge profit (Indian Removal 1). With money on the settler’s minds, the settlers asked the government to gain the Indian Territory. Andrew Jackson agreed with the settlers and pushed for the Indians removal (Indian Removal 1). For instance, in 1814, Andrew Jackson made military forces defeat parts of the Creek nation (Indian Removal 1). The Creek nation lost twenty-two million acres in Georgia and Alabama (Indian Removal 1). When the United States found out that the Seminoles were holding fugitive slaves, the United States decided to take more land as the Seminoles punishment (Indian Removal
Grinde, Donald, and Bruce Johansen. Ecocide of Native America: Environmental Destruction of Indian Lands and Peoples. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers, 1995. Print.
Under President Jackson, who supported the removal of the Indians, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which would transfer Indians to reservations, by agreement or by force they. When the Cherokees were supported when they took the issue to the Supreme Court. However, Jackson insisted removal. After the defeat of the Cherokees, the Seminoles decided to fight for their land, and succeeded in maintaining it. The others tribes, however, were eventually forced to leave their native lands as well. The most renowned of these removals was that of the Cherokees, referred to as the "Trail of Tears." Many Indians died when the United States army took the Cherokees to Oklahoma.
Hurtado, Albert L, ed. Major Problems in American Indian History. Lexington, Massachusetts, D.C. Heath and Company, 1994.
In The Cherokee Removal, Perdue and Green show the trials that the Cherokee faced in the years from 1700 to 1840. This book shows how the Americans tried to remove these Indians from the southeastern part of the United States. The Cherokees tried to overcome the attempts of removal, but finally in 1838, they were removed from the area.
In the essay, “The Trail of Tears” by author Dee Brown explains that the Cherokees isn’t Native Americans that evaporate effectively from their tribal land, but the enormous measure of sympathy supported on their side that was abnormal. The Cherokees process towards culture also the treachery of both states and incorporated governments of the declaration and promises that contrived to the Cherokee nation. Dee Brown wraps up that the Cherokees had lost Kentucky and Tennessee, but a man who once consider their buddy named Andrew Jackson had begged the Cherokees to move to Mississippi but the bad part is the Indians and white settlers never get along together even if the government wanted to take care of them from harassment it shall be incapable to do that. The Cherokee families moved to the West, but the tribes were together and denied to give up more land but Jackson was running for President if the Georgians elects him as President he agreed that he should give his own support to open up the Cherokee lands for establishment.
Natives were forcefully removed from their land in the 1800’s by America. In the 1820’s and 30’s Georgia issued a campaign to remove the Cherokees from their land. The Cherokee Indians were one of the largest tribes in America at the time. Originally the Cherokee’s were settled near the great lakes, but overtime they moved to the eastern portion of North America. After being threatened by American expansion, Cherokee leaders re-organized their government and adopted a constitution written by a convention, led by Chief John Ross (Cherokee Removal). In 1828 gold was discovered in their land. This made the Cherokee’s land even more desirable. During the spring and winter of 1838- 1839, 20,000 Cherokees were removed and began their journey to Oklahoma. Even if natives wished to assimilate into America, by law they were neither citizens nor could they hold property in the state they were in. Principal Chief, John Ross and Major Ridge were leaders of the Cherokee Nation. The Eastern band of Cherokee Indians lost many due to smallpox. It was a year later that a Treaty was signed for cession of Cherokee land in Texas. A small number of Cherokee Indians assimilated into Florida, in o...
Unconcerned about the legitimacy of their actions, European colonisers took lands unjustifiably from indigenous people and put original inhabitants who had lived on the land for centuries in misery. The United States also shared similarities in dealing with native people like its distant friends in Europe. Besides the cession of vast lands, the federal government of the United States showed no pity, nor repentance for the poor Cherokee people. Theda Perdue, the author of “Cherokee Women and Trail of Tears,” unfolds the scroll of history of Cherokee nation’s resistance against the United States by analyzing the character of women in the society, criticizes that American government traumatized Cherokee nation and devastated the social order of