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.”
The Creek Indians, one of the Five Civilized Tribes, “was composed of many tribes, each with a different name.” The Creeks formed a loose confederacy with other tribes before European contact, “but it was strengthened significantly in the 1700s and 1800s.” The confederacy “included the Alabama, Shawnee, Natchez, Tuskegee, as well as many others.” There were two sections of Creeks, the Upper and Lower Creeks. The Lower Creeks occupied land in east Georgia, living near rivers and the coast. “The Upper Creeks lived along rivers in Alabama.” Like many other Native Americans, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ew western home.” More than 13,000 Cherokees were forcefully moved by the American military. They traveled over 800 miles by steamboat, train cars, and mostly by walking. During this trip known as the Trail of Tears, the Cherokees suffered from starvation, exposure, disease, and hardship. “No report was made of the number of Cherokee who died as the result of the removal. It was as if the Government did not wish to preserve any information.” However, it is estimated that at least 4,000 may have died and some believe that as many as 8,000 died.
Works Cited
Pritzker, Barry: “A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Cultures, and Peoples”. Oxford University Press. 1998.
Foreman, Grant: “The Five Civilized Tribes”. The University of Oklahoma Press. 1934.
U.S. Census Bureau. 2010
"Creek." Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia. 2003. eLibrary. Web. 03 Dec. 2011.
John G. Burnett, author of The Cherokee Removal Through the Eyes of a Private Soldier, explains in extreme detail about what he experienced while on duty during the forced removal of Indians from their home territory. He first begins by stating that this event was the “Most brutal order in the history of American warfare” (350). He carries on to say that Cherokees were arrested and forcibly removed from their homes. They were then loaded onto a total of 645 wagons and began the journey west. During this time, the chief of the Cherokee nation was John Ross. On this journey, they began to experience acute weather conditions such as sleet and “blinding” snow storms. At night, they often slept in the wagons or on the ground without viable sources of heat. Due to the extreme conditions, some died from complications of pneumonia, cold, and exposure. A prime example was Ross’ wife, Quatie. Mrs. Ross died while giving her source of warmth to a sickly child in need and going without. Burnett goes on to say that he witness some children suffering from the cold so he had given them his coat to stay warm. The journey to the west ended March 26, 1839 with an
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.
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.
What is a leader? According to the dictionary a leader is a "person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country." (Merriam Webster) Though that may be what the term leader is defined by, one would assume that it takes much more to be considered a "good" one. A leader, is in many cases the voice of the people, he is the one whom everyone looks to in a time of panic, the one whom the people entrust to make the hard decisions and the one whom is supposed to value his constituents wants and need. Unfortunately most leaders fall short of accomplishing the things they set out to do, "as principal chief during the 1830s John Ross faced the most critical period in Cherokee History, and somehow
Thornton, Russell, Matthew C Snipp, and Nancy Breen. The Cherokees: A Population History Indians of the Southeast. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
Along the way 4,000 Indians died because of the harsh terrane and the cruelty of the soldiers and many of them are buried in unmarked graves along the trail of tears. The trail of tears has been Know according to a white Georgian the “Cruelest work I ever knew”(Tindall pg 343).A few Cherokees Indians hide in the mountains and became knew as the Eastern Band of Cherokees. Later the Creeks and the Chickasaws went back to try to take back control of their lands. During the trail of tears nearly 100,000 Indians were forced to relocate to the west. The government during that time sold about 100 million acres of Native American lands, and most of the land was prime cotton growing
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
The majority of the villages were located along the banks of the Coosa, Tallaposa, Flint, Ocmulgee, and Chattachoochee rivers. The native word for the most powerful band of Creeks was the "Muskogees". The Creek native Americans were the most powerful and widespread tribe of the Southeast culture area. It was also thought that the Creeks were long lost ancestors of the Mound Builders.
advantage of the rich black soil for farming. Corn was their main source of food,
Apparently, at each stop, they buried fourteen to fifteen people. With all the death and tears shed it wasn't until March of 1849 that the last of the Indians moved west. That was the majority of the Indians experience of the Trail of Tears. However, a group led by Utsala had a very different experience. They had decided to hide deep in the smokey mountains in order to escape. They developed warning systems to stay safe. It was all because of a brave Indian that they were free during the entire Trail of Tears. It was all because of Tsali, an aged Cherokee Indian, who sacrificed himself and his kids to save the tribe. So, one of the main divisions among Cherokees would be their
The Effects of Colonization on the Native Americans Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worse. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture. Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them.
In 1838, just about 16,000 Native Americans were swept along over 1,200 miles of rough land. During that sweep, over 4,000 of the 16,000 Native Americans had lost their lives, due to disease, famine, and warfare. This Indian tribe was called the Cherokee whom marched the Trail of Tears. With so much destruction, hurt and abandonment Cherokee Indians suffered a long lasting journey till this very day. I would like to focus on first, why were Cherokee Indians removed? Second, the journey of the trail of tears. Lastly, where are Cherokee Indians now in America?
The military only escorted the first four of the seventeen detachments. Since the people would not cooperate with the soldiers, Chief John Ross asked to take charge of the removal. The first three detachments left in June of 1838. The first detachment was lucky because it only took seventeen days and there were no deaths. The next two detachments took much longer, and there were over two hundred deaths. These detachments were stranded at river crossings due to low water, and many died due to weather conditions and illness. The fourth detachment left on October 11, 1838, and arrived after eighty- nine days on January 2, 1839. Of the remaining thirteen detachments, twelve traveled over land, and one went by water (7). The Cherokees were forced to travel over eight hundred miles to Indian Territory. Many suffered from exposure, fever, cholera, and dysentery. Many mothers died giving birth, along with their children. The older members of the Cherokee Nation simply gave up the will to live. By the end of the Trail of Tears, four thousand Cherokees, one fifth of the Nation, had died
...(Perdue 20). It gave them two years to prepare for removal. Many of the Cherokees, led by John Ross, protested this treaty. However, in the winter of 1838-1839, all of the Cherokees headed west toward Oklahoma. This removal of the Cherokees is now known, as the Trail of Tears was a very gruesome event. During the trip from the southern United States to current day Oklahoma, many of the Cherokees died. Shortly after their arrival in Oklahoma, they began to rebuild. They began tilling fields, sending their children to school, and attending Council meetings (Perdue 170).
At the time Andrew Jackson was president, there was a fast growing population and a desire for more land. Because of this, expansion was inevitable. To the west, many native Indian tribes were settled. Andrew Jackson spent a good deal of his presidency dealing with the removal of the Indians in western land. Throughout the 1800’s, westward expansion harmed the natives, was an invasion of their land, which led to war and tension between the natives and America, specifically the Cherokee Nation.