Native American Treatys

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The U.S. Government used treaties to remove Native Americans from their tribal lands. If the treaties failed, the government sometimes would violate both treaties and Supreme Court rulings to facilitate the spread of European Americans westward across the continent. When the 19th century began, the citizens of America started to move into the backcountry in the coastal South and began moving toward and into what would later become the states of Alabama and Mississippi. Since Native American tribes living there appeared to be the main obstacle to westward expansion. The President then forced upon the Native Americans treaty whereby they surrendered to the United States over twenty-million acres of their traditional land—about one-half of present day Alabama and one-fifth of Georgia. In 1829 Andrew Jackson said to the people "It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people." (William, Jeanne. Trails of Tears: American Indians Driven from Their Lands. (45)) The quote came from (http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jackson.htm#.U3Vvg3lOXmI)
The Cherokee used legal rights in their attempt to keep their land. They sought protection from land-hungry white settlers, the white settlers kept harassing them by stealing their livestock, burning their towns, and squatting on their land. In 1827, the Cherokee used a written constitution to declare themselves to be a sovereign nation. In former treaties, Native American nations had been declared sovereign so they would be legally capable of ceding their hea...

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...tion of Native American nations from Southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act in 1830. By 1837, 46,000 Native Americans from these Southeastern had been removed from their homelands thereby opening 25 million acres for predominantly white settlement. Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, diseases, and starvation on the route to their destinations. Many died including 2,000-6,000 of 16,542 relocated Cherokee Indians. During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the Cherokee were forcibly moved west by the United States government. For the next 28 years United States government struggles to force relocation of the Southeastern nations. The United States Government succeeded in paving the way for the westward expansion and the incorporation of new territories as part of the United States.(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html)

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