Conflicts of ideals in the newly “freed” United States increased during the antebellum era, ultimately because of the long-driven question of freedom and liberty. Many people believed that to be free and have liberty was to be able to own land and property. This brought on the idea of the “freedom” to take the land that the Native Americans had been living on and the spreading of the institution of slavery. These issues both lead to an eventual division of the Union, causing the Civil War.
Native Americans, namely the Cherokees, had been living on the lands of the eventual Americas without European contact for years until the 1700s. After contact was made and America had gained freedom, people like President Andrew Jackson, believed that the Cherokees should be removed from the land that was rightfully the United States’. President Jackson even hired Benjamin F. Curry of Tennessee to help with the removal of the Cherokees from east of the Mississippi River. Curry believed that his job was to try to drive the Cherokees to either want to leave without a second thought or sign a treaty agreeing to America’s terms. Curry’s actions led to the natives of the Cherokee nation’s objections of being removed so miserably. Many complained about how their significant others or children were either forcibly removed or held to get the natives to agree to leave. Some of the natives decided that they would try to fight their way out of being removed, but some, like Rebecca Neugin, a member of the Cherokee nation’s father were persuaded not to resist so that they or their families would not be harmed more than necessary. When some of the Americans, like Evan Jones, saw this, they tried to spread awareness of how the Cherokees were being treated,...
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... Foner, “Chronology of the Cherokee Removal” in Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 1, ed. Eric Foner (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011), 176.
Eric Foner, “The Trail of Tears: Enrollment” in Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 1, ed. Eric Foner (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011), 161.
Rebecca Neugin, “Recollections of Removal (1932)” in Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 1, ed. Eric Foner (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011), 176.
Eric Foner, “The Trail of Tears: Forced Removal” in Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 1, ed. Eric Foner (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011), 163-4.
Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, and Waldo E. Martin Jr. Freedom On My Mind, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013), 163.
Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 1998), 64.
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.
Andrew Jackson believed that the only way to save the Natives from extinction was to remove them from their current homes and push them across the Mississippi River. “And when removal was accomplished he felt he had done the American people a great service. He felt he had followed the ‘dictates of humanity’ and saved the Indi...
Franklin, J., Moss, A. Jr. From Slavery to Freedom. Seventh edition, McGraw Hill, Inc.: 1994.
C., Wallace, Anthony F. Long, bitter trail Andrew Jackson and the Indians. Ed. Eric Foner. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Print.
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Russell B. Nye: Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-1860. East Lansing, Mich., 1949
The United States government's relationship with the Native American population has been a rocky one for over 250 years. One instance of this relationship would be what is infamously known as, the Trail of Tears, a phrase describing a journey in which the Native Americans took after giving up their land from forced removal. As a part of then-President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, this policy has been put into place to control the natives that were attempting to reside peacefully in their stolen homeland. In the viewpoint of the Choctaw and Cherokee natives, removal had almost ultimately altered the culture and the traditional lifestyle of these people.
Perdue, Theda, and Michael D. Green. The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 85-86.
Foner, Eric. "Chapter 9." Give Me Liberty!: An American History. Brief Third ed. Vol. One. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. N. pag. Print.
Weisbrot, Robert. Freedom Bound: A History Of America’s Civil Rights Movement. New York: Plume, 1991
Foner, E. (2008). Give me Liberty: An American History. New York, Ny: WW. Norton &
Byers, Ann. The Trail of Tears: A Primary Source of History of the forced Relocation of the Cherokee Nation. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2003.
4.de Toqueville, Alexis. Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty: An American History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), 358.
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
28.) Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History. 4th ed. (W.W. Norton, 2012), 920.