President Jackson and the Removal of the Cherokee Indians

President Jackson and the Removal of the Cherokee Indians

"The decision of the Jackson administration to remove the Cherokee

Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830's was more a

reformulation of the national policy that had been in effect since the

1790's than a change in that policy." The dictum above is firm and can be

easily proved by examining the administration of Jackson and comparison to

the traditional course which was carried out for about 40 years. After 1825

the federal government attempted to remove all eastern Indians to the Great

Plains area of the Far West. The Cherokee Indians of northwestern Georgia,

to protect themselves from removal, made up a constitution which said that

the Cherokee Indians were sovereign and not subject to the laws of Georgia.

When the Cherokee sought help from the Congress that body only allotted

lands in the West and urged them to move. The Supreme Court, however, in

Worcester vs. Georgia, ruled that they constituted a "domestic dependent

nation" not subject to the laws of Georgia. Jackson, who sympathized with

the frontiersman, was so outraged that he refused to enforce the decision.

Instead he persuaded the tribe to give up it's Georgia lands for a

reservation west of the Mississippi.

According to Document A, the map shows eloquently, the relationship

between time and policies which effected the Indians. From the Colonial and

Confederation treaties, a significant amount of land had been acquired from

the Cherokee Indians. Successively, during Washington's, Monroe's, and

Jefferson's administration, more and more Indian land was being

commandeered. The administrations during the 1790's to the 1830's had

gradually acquired more and more land from the Cherokee Indians. Jackson

followed that precedent by the acquisition of more Cherokee lands.

According to Document B, "the first of which is by raising an army,

and [destroying the resisting] tribes entirely or 2ndly by forming treaties

of peace with them", "under the existing circumstances of affairs, the

United States have a clear right, consistently with the principles of

justice and the laws of nature, to proceed to the destruction or expulsion

of the savages." The use of the word savages, shows that the American had

irreverence toward other ethnic backgrounds. Henry Knox wanted to destroy

the cherokee tribes inorder to gain land for the United States, although he

questions the morality of whether to acquire the cherokee land, his

conclusion forbode's the appropriation. According to Document C, "That the

Cherokee Nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to