Native Americans In The American History Of The Trail Of Tears

993 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays on the impact of european settlement on native americans

Up until white settlement, Native Americans in the southeastern United States lived an undisturbed and peaceful life. In the early 1830s, their ancestral land was stripped away from them by foreign colonists rushing to claim land and gold, causing a forced migration of the Native Americans away from their homelands (“Trail of Tears”, n.d.). This traumatic historical event is known as the Trail of Tears, and stands as one of the most deadly and inconsolable acts in American history involving Native Americans. Almost 17,000 Cherokee Indians along with multiple other tribes in the southeastern region were forced to move to a specific territory, far away from their own farms, lands, and homes due to the white settlers and their desire to search …show more content…

These tribes consisted of the following: The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw (Alchin, 2018). Their homelands were widespread, residing in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (Alchin, 2018). These five tribes were known as the civilized tribes, meaning that they were all trained to act and live lifestyles similar to the Europeans that were making their way into Native American homelands. The tribes adopted the following European styles: homes, clothing, farming and herding methods, farming tools, cotton production, larger scaled villages, slaves, and Christian religion (Alchin, 2018). These changes affected these Native Americans’ lives drastically, causing some to form resentment and intolerance for the white settlers. Because of this, some decided to migrate west on their own to peaceful new land where European customs wouldn’t be imposed upon them (“A Brief History of the Trail of Tears,” n.d.). Years later, unfortunately, the white settlers’ encroachment made it to these new areas, and the tribes were forced to move to the reserved area in Oklahoma (“A Brief History of the Trail of Tears,” …show more content…

As president, he continued this crusade.
During his presidential term, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act (“Trail of Tears,” n.d.). Under this, the federal government was given the power to move the Native Americans from their ancestral homelands to land western of where they were currently located. While the law at the time stated that this removal should have been done in a peaceful manner, Jackson did not acknowledge this, and with a cold heart ordered the Native Americans to move to the reservation land in Oklahoma (“Trail of Tears,” n.d.). Out of the five civilized tribes, the Choctaw land was the first to be invaded by the U.S. Army, in 1831, forcing the Natives to vacate their homeland (“Trail of Tears,” n.d.). Soon after this followed the Seminole tribe in 1832, the Creek in 1836, The Chickasaw in 1837, and lastly, the Cherokee in 1838 (Alchin, 2018). The Cherokee were the last tribe to migrate on the Trail of Tears, due to the endless efforts given by the passionate tribe leaders in an attempt to keep their ancestral land from being taken by the United

Show More
Related

  • The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians by Anthony F.C. Wallace

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout Jackson's two terms as President, Jackson used his power unjustly. As a man from the Frontier State of Tennessee and a leader in the Indian wars, Jackson loathed the Native Americans. Keeping with consistency, Jackson found a way to use his power incorrectly to eliminate the Native Americans. In May 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act. This act required all tribes east of the Mississippi River to leave their lands and travel to reservations in the Oklahoma Territory on the Great Plains. This was done because of the pressure of white settlers who wanted to take over the lands on which the Indians had lived. The white settlers were already emigrating to the Union, or America. The East Coast was burdened with new settlers and becoming vastly populated. President Andrew Jackson and the government had to find a way to move people to the West to make room. In 1830, a new state law said that the Cherokees would be under the jurisdiction of state rather than federal law. This meant that the Indians now had little, if any, protection against the white settlers that desired their land. However, when the Cherokees brought their case to the Supreme Court, they were told that they could not sue on the basis that they were not a foreign nation. In 1832, though, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokees were a "domestic dependent nation," and therefore, eligible to receive federal protection against the state. However, Jackson essentially overruled the decision. By this, Jackson implied that he had more power than anyone else did and he could enforce the bill himself. This is yet another way in which Jackson abused his presidential power in order to produce a favorable result that complied with his own beliefs. The Indian Removal Act forced all Indians tribes be moved west of the Mississippi River. The Choctaw was the first tribe to leave from the southeast.

    Read More

  • Andrew Jackson Cruel

    341 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Dbq Indian Removal Act

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Removal of the Cherokee

    5744 Words  | 12 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • DBQ on Jackson and the Indian Removal

    1646 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... 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.

    Read More

  • Native American Perspective on Indian Removal Act

    800 Words  | 2 Pages

    In May 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which forced Native American tribes to move west. Some Indians left swiftly, while others were forced to to leave by the United States Army. Some were even taken away in chains. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, strongly reinforced this act. In the Second State of the Union Address, Jackson advocated his Indian Policy. There was controversy as to whether the removal of the Native Americans was justified under the administration of President Andrew Jackson. In my personal opinion, as a Native American, the removal of the tribes was not in any way justified.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Cherokee Nation And The Trail Of Tears

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    Democracy can be traced back before the coming of Christ. Throughout Greece during the sixth century democracy was in its earliest stages and as the millenniums would pass the power of government by the people would show distinct alterations. This is evident when analyzing The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears by Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green. These authors illustrate how the U.S government adjusts policies from that of assimilating the Native American Indians to that of removing them from their homelands and forcibly causing the Cherokee nation to relocate themselves west of the Mississippi. In further depth Perdue and Green portray though vivid description how the government would show disloyalty and how that caused division between the tribal members of the Cherokee people. This endeavor of travel and animosity of the Indians would become known as the Trail of Tears.

    Read More

  • The Argumentative Essay: The Trail Of Tears

    150 Words  | 1 Pages

    The trail of tears was a hideous harsh horrible time that the Native Americans will not forget the 1830s about 100,000 Native Americans peacefully lived on 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of akers. They have been on this land generations before the wight men arrived. There was gold found in Gorga and the land was for ital. They used huge cotton plantations because the people would get rich off of them. In 1830 Andrew Jackson privily sinned the removal act. Te removal act gave the Government the power to trade the land for the land that the Native Americans were on. The Native Americans did not want to move, but the precedent sent troops to force the removal. Solders who looted there homes traveled 15,000 Cherokees, and gunpoint marched over 12,000

    Read More

  • The Effect of Removal Policy on the Native Americans

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Southeast Native Americans: Cherokees and Creeks

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Native Americans of the southeast live in a variety of environments. The environments range from the southern Appalachian Mountains, to the Mississippi River valley, to the Louisiana and Alabama swamps, and the Florida wetlands. These environments were bountiful with various species of plant and animal life, enabling the Native American peoples to flourish. “Most of the Native Americans adopted large-scale agriculture after 900 A.D, and some also developed large towns and highly centralized social and political structures.” In the first half of the 1600s Europeans encountered these native peoples. Both cultures encountered new plants, animals, and diseases. However, the Indians received more diseases compared to the few new diseases to the Europeans. The new diseases resulted in a massive loss of Native Americans, including the Southeast Indians which had never encountered the new diseases. Three of the main tribes in the southeast were the Cherokee and the Creek. They were part of a group of southeast tribes that were removed from their lands. These tribes later became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes because of their progress and achievements.”

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Andrew Jackson

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress in order to allow the growth of the United States to continue without the interference of the Native Americans. Jackson believed that the Native Americans were inferior to white settlers and wanted to force them west of the Mississippi. He believed that the United States would not expand past that boundary, so the Native Americans could govern themselves. Jackson evicted thousands of Native Americans from their homes in Georgia and the Carolinas and even disregarded the Supreme Court’s authority and initiated his plan of forcing the Natives’ on the trail of tears. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Indians, however Jackson ignored the ruling and continued with his plan. The result of the Indian Removal Act was that many tribes were tricked or forced off their lands, if they refused to go willingly, resulting in many deaths from skirmishes with soldiers as well as from starvation and disease. The Cherokee in particular were forced to undergo a forced march that became known as the Trail of

    Read More

  • The Trail of Tears: Indian Genocide

    2311 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.” - Martin Luther King Jr. The Trail of Tears is a historical title given to an event that happened in 1838.In this event, the Cherokee community of Native Americans was forced by the USA government to move from their native home in the Southern part of the contemporary America to what is known as the Indian territories of Oklahoma. While some travelled by water, most of them travelled by land. The Cherokees took 6 months to complete an 800 mile distance to their destination.

    Read More

  • The Trail of Tears

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Treachery for Cherokees in The Trail of Tears” by author Dee Brown

    625 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Cherokee Women And Trail Of Tears

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Native Americans In The American History Of The Trail Of Tears

Open Document