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The Trail Of Tears
Gloria Jahoda, the author of The Trail of Tears talks about how Indian populations dropped and how white people are the ones responsible for the drop of their population. The white men are not responsible for the drop of the Indian population. Johoda makes all Indians sound like defenseless children. Johoda is making excuses for Indians because Indians let the white man take over their lives and life style.
Indians would do everything that was asked of them by the white man instead of standing up for themselves. The Choctaws were granted citizenship in the exception of them not living their everyday life style. Under citizenship, the tribal government of the Choctaws was abolished. Choctaws was given heavy fines and even jail time if the Choctaws dishonored the demands of the white man for their citizenship. Chief Moshulatubbee was shocked so he decided to run for congress. Mississippians took Moshulatubbee wanting to run for congress as a joke. Moshulatubbee lost. The lost started a civil war among the Choctaws. No matter what the Choctaws did they did not get their way. When leaving Mississippi some of the Choctaws died of diseases and of hunger. So the Choctaws gave in and again let the white man take control of them.
One of the presidents of the United States, Andrew Jackson went to war with Indians hopping to get rid of the Indians. Black Hawk was a 62-year-old Indian who hated Americans. Black Hawk says that American promises are empty. When ever Americans told Black Hawk that they would do something for the Indians the Americans would never do what they promised. Black Hawk decided to take the side of the British. When ever the British said they would do something for the Indians the British would always do what they promised. Black Hawk always carried a British medal around his neck he respected the British a great deal. Andrew Jackson the president of the United States at the time came face to face with Black Hawk. The president asked Black Hawk, “why did you go to war,” Black Hawk did not answer. It was said that maybe the sac chief did not understand the question, but I say it’s just another excuse for Indians being naïve and letting the Americans do what they would like with the Indians.
This book educates the audience on how there were brave Indians.
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.
Author and Indian Activist, Vine Deloria makes compelling statements in chapters one and five of his Indiana Manifesto, “Custer Died for Your Sins.” Although published in 1969 this work lays important historic ground work for understanding the plight of the Indian in the United States. Written during the turbulent civil rights movement, Deloria makes interesting comparisons to the Black struggle for equal rights in the United States. He condemns the contemporary views toward Indians widely help by Whites and argues that Indians are wrongly seen through the historic lens of a pipe smoking, bow and arrow wielding savage. Deloria forcefully views the oppressors and conquerors of the Indian mainly as the United States federal government and Christian missionaries. The author’s overall thesis is that Whites view Indians the way they want to see them which is not based in reality. The resulting behavior of Whites towards Indians shows its affects in the false perception in law and culture.
Prior to 1830 the Cherokee people in the Southern states were land and business owners, many owned plantations and kept slaves to work the land, others were hunters and fishermen who ran businesses and blended in well with their white neighbors, but after Andrew Jackson took office as President, the government adopted a strict policy of Indian removal, which Jackson aggressively pursued by eliminating native American land titles and relocating American Indians west of the Mississippi. That same year, Congress passed the Indian R...
The Indians were being confined to crowed reservations that were poorly run, had scarce game, alcohol was plentiful, the soil was poor, and the ancient religious practices were prohibited. The Indians were not happy that they had been kicked off there land and were now forced to live on a reservation. The Indians then began to Ghost Dance a form of religion it is said that if the Indians were to do this trance like dance the country would be cleansed of white intruders. Also dead ancestors and slaughtered buffalo would return and the old ways would be reborn in a fruitful land. Once the Bureau of Indian affairs noticed what was going on they began to fear this new religion would lead to warfare. The white peoplewere scared that this new dance was a war dance. They called for army protection. Army was called in to try to curbed this new religion before it could start a war.
De Rosier, Arthur H. Jr. The Removal of the Choctaw Indians. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville; 1970
At the beginning of the 1830s there was nearly 125,000 native Americans that lived on “millions of acres of the land of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida”.(history.com) These lands had been occupied and cultivated by their ancestors for generations before. Then because of The Trail of Tears was an “800-mile forced journey marked by the cruelty of soldiers”. (Tindall P.434) and by the end of the forced relocations very few Native Americans remained anywhere in the southwest. “working on behave of the white settlers federal government forced them to leave their lands and walk miles to an “Indian territory””.(history.com) .This all happened because of the Indian Removal act of 1930, which authorized the relocation of the eastern Indians to the west of the Mississippi river. The Cherokee Indians tried to fight the relocation and even with the Supreme Court’s support Andrew Jackson still forced them to leave their land. By the 1840s there wasn't many Cherokee Indians that still remained in the southwest.
Swygart, Glenn L., “Trail of Tears.” Salem Press Encyclopedia (2013): Research Starters, Web, 5 March 2014
The Trail of Tears was a horrific time in history from the Cherokee Indians. May 18, 1830 was the beginning of a devastating future for the Cherokee Indians. On that day congress officially passed Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal act. This policy granted President Andrew Jackson the right to force the Cherokee tribe consisting of about 13,000 people off of their reservations consisting of about 100 million acres east of the Mississippi River in the Appalachian Mountains and to attend a long and torturous journey consisting of about 1,200 miles within nine months until they reached their new home, a government-mandated area with in present-day Oklahoma. They left their land which was home to the “Five Civilized Tribes” which were assimilated
The tragedy of the Cherokee nation has haunted the legacy of Andrew Jackson"'"s Presidency. The events that transpired after the implementation of his Indian policy are indeed heinous and continually pose questions of morality for all generations. Ancient Native American tribes were forced from their ancestral homes in an effort to increase the aggressive expansion of white settlers during the early years of the United States. The most notable removal came after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee, whose journey was known as the '"'Trail of Tears'"', and the four other civilized tribes, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, were forced to emigrate to lands west of the Mississippi River, to what is now day Oklahoma, against their will. During the journey westward, over 60,000 Indians were forced from their homelands. Approximately 4000 Cherokee Indians perished during the journey due to famine, disease, and negligence. The Cherokees to traveled a vast distance under force during the arduous winter of 1838-1839.# This is one of the saddest events in American history, yet we must not forget this tragedy.
There were many events that lead up to and caused the Trail of Tears. One of the main reasons that the U.S. wanted the Cherokee’s land was to open eastern lands to European American immigrants (Bertolet). During the 1820’s, as the eastern population grew, southern states urged the federal government to remove Indians from their lands. The government tried to appease the southern states by proposing treaties with the tribes. The Indians felt that the land was rightfully theirs, so they did not agree to these treaties. Since the Indians were not agreeing with the government, President Andrew Jackson approved and signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This act allowed the president exchange Indian lands for land west of the Mississippi River. This act was unfair to the Cherokee nation and the Indian people because they had no say in the passing of this act. Supporters of the removal act said that it would allow for Americans and immigrants to...
Perdue, Theda, and Michael Green. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. New York: Penguin Books, 2007. Print.
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.
The Trail of Tears was a hard battled journey for the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee were driven to move west. They had to compromise and sign treaties, which drove them out of their land by the U.S. government. This was unfair to the Cherokees; the white settlers wanted the land for gold. Trail of tears is historically monumental because it shows the U.S. government cruelty to the Native Americans. It was unfair rights because they basically stole Cherokees land to satisfy their hunger for gold.
This first document is written by a white American who sympathizes greatly with the Cherokees. This document is comprised of excerpts from the journal of the Reverend Daniel Sabine Butrick. He is one of many missionaries who support Cherokee rights and feel very sorry for what the Cherokee people have to go through.
For decades, the United States practiced policies of removal to gain valuable land for itself. The policies of removal, assimilation, and concentration caused the deaths of thousands of Natives. The song Indian Reservation by Paul Revere and the Midnight Raiders is a reminder of the Trail of Tears, which killed a ¼ of the Indians that marched. The government removed the Indians from Georgia to benefit the plantation owners in the south, at the expense of the Native people in the area. Even the Supreme Court of the United States agreed that removal of the Indians from that land would be illegal, but President Jackson went ahead and did it anyways. The Indians marched over a thousand miles until they were west of the Mississippi River. It also gives a general overview of how the whites put the Indians on reservations and tried to assimilate them. “The beads we made by hand are nowadays made in Japan,” shows how the whites took over the Indian’s culture and commercialized it. Another situation in which the government practiced assimilation and concentration was with Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. Joseph’s tribes were cooperative and sold their land to the whites as long as they got to live in their valley, but eventually the whites wanted all their land. The Indians fled and tried to make it to Canada, but 30 miles from the border they were caught and rounded up. They were sent to live on reservations, and most died of white diseases or starvation. By the year 1890, all Indians were on reservations. The Blackhawk war, which happened over land disputes in Wisconsin and Illinois, also led to the death and relocation of numerous Indians. This disrespect towards the Indians was typical of the time period.