Trail of Tears

641 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Native americans indigenous religions around the world

Archeologists say that the Cherokee Indians migrated south from the Great Lakes region around the 15th century. The Cherokee tribe was one of the largest Native American tribes eventually settling and occupying the southeast portion of what was to become the United States. The Cherokee tribe was highly religious and spiritual. They considered warfare to be a polluting act and warriors were required to go thru a purification by a priest before reentering the Cherokee village. Yet in 1830, the Cherokee Indians were forcibly removed from their homeland by the very government the Cherokee Indians had supported during the Revolutionary War. This journey was later called the Trail of Tears. For hundreds of years, the native people of the North America lived in peace. It was in around 1540 that the Native Americans came in contact with explorers and settlers from around the world. It was from that time on, the Native Americans would be required to defend their homeland as their own. During the late nineteenth century, there were as many as one hundred thousand Native Americans moved westward. The Native Americans from five different tribes were removed when Andrew Jackson signed into law The Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee tribe was the most devastated by this law. This removal of the Cherokee people is considered one of the most horrific acts in our nation’s history. It was called Nunna daul Tsung (Trail Where They Cried) or Trail of Tears. The Cherokee people were a unique and strong community. They held the belief that they should never bow to any other creature. They held a high respect for one another. When they spoke, they spoke one at a time paying careful attention to listening to one another. The Cheroke... ... middle of paper ... ...hite families. The Americans were warned to stay of the Cherokee land, and the houses belonging to the Americans were burned. This was seen as an act of hostility across the states. Then in 1830 congress passed the Indian Removal Act. In response to this act a Cherokee named Aitooweyah wrote this to John Ross, the principle chief “We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for…we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold on this land go…to let it go it will be like throwing away…[our] mother that gave…[us] birth””. The act led to two Supreme Court cases: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia. The outcome of these cases would not be enforced. When asked about enforcing the courts decision President Andrew Jackson said ““John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can””.

Show More
Related

  • Dbq Indian Removal Act

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    When John Marshall made his decision, President Jackson said, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” He was so pleased with the act and was very dedicated to setting it out that he said, “It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages,” in the Second Annual Message to Congress. Georgia and other southern states passed laws that gave them the right to control the Cherokee lands when gold was discovered, which President Jackson supported.

    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

  • THE TRAIL OF TEARS

    1787 Words  | 4 Pages

    Prior to 1830 the Cherokee people in the Southern states were land and business owners, many owned plantations and kept slaves to work the land, others were hunters and fishermen who ran businesses and blended in well with their white neighbors, but after Andrew Jackson took office as President, the government adopted a strict policy of Indian removal, which Jackson aggressively pursued by eliminating native American land titles and relocating American Indians west of the Mississippi. That same year, Congress passed the Indian R...

    Read More

  • The Cherokee Victory

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Cherokee Indians, the most cooperative and accommodating to the political institutions of the united states, suffered the worst fate of all Native Americans when voluntarily or forcibly moved west. In 1827 the Cherokees attempted to claim themselves as an independent nation within the state of Georgia. When the legislature of the state extended jurisdiction over this ‘nation,’ the Cherokees sought legal actions, not subject to Georgia laws and petitioned the United States Supreme Court. The case became known as Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia in 1831. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall denied their claim as a republic within Georgia, he then deemed the Cherokee as a ‘domestic dependent nation’. One year later through the case of Worcester vs. Georgia, the Cherokee’s were granted federal protection from the molestation by the state of Georgia. Through the Indian Removal act in 1830 President Andrew Jackson appropriated planning and funding for the removal of Native Americans, Marshall’s rulings delayed this for the Cherokee Nation, and infuriated President Jackson. Marshall’s decision had little effect on Jackson and ignoring this action the president was anxious to see him enforce it.

    Read More

  • Displacement and Mistreatment of Native Americans

    2250 Words  | 5 Pages

    The removal of Indian tribes was one of the tragic times in America’s history. Native Americans endured hard times when immigrants came to the New World. Their land was stolen, people were treated poorly, tricked, harassed, bullied, and much more. The mistreatment was caused mostly by the white settlers, who wanted the Indians land. The Indians removal was pushed to benefit the settlers, which in turn, caused the Indians to be treated as less than a person and pushed off of their lands. MOREEE

    Read More

  • Trail Of Tears Essay

    1611 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Trail of Tears was a horrific time in history for the Cherokee Indians. May 18, 1830 was the beginning of a devastating future for the Cherokee Indians. On that day, Congress officially passed Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. This policy granted President Andrew Jackson the right to force the Cherokee tribe consisting of about 13,000 people off of their reservations consisting of about 100 million acres east of the Mississippi River in the Appalachian Mountains and to attend a long and torturous journey consisting of about 1,200 miles within nine months until they reached their new home, a government-mandated area within present-day Oklahoma. They left their land which was home to the “Five Civilized Tribes” which were assimilated tribes including, the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminoles.

    Read More

  • Trail of Tears

    1556 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Removal Act of 1830 paved the way for the hesitant and generally—journey of ten of thousands of Native Americans to move more westward. The very first removal treaty was signed after the Removal Act of 1830. This treaty made Choctaws in Mississippi ceded land east of the river. The U.S. government would give money in exchange for land in the east of the river for land in the west. The Choctaw chief quoted to Arkansas Gazette that in 1831 Choctaw Removal was a Trail of Tears and downfalls. The treaty signed in 1835 was known as the Treaty of Echota, which resulted in the removal of the Cherokees on “The Trail of Tears.” The Seminoles decided not to leave also as the other tribes left peacefully. The Seminoles resisted leaving their homeland. In winter of 1838-39, fourteen thousand were marched one thousand two hundred miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. Roughly estimated four thousand died from lack of food, exposure and disease. The government soldiers would appear without notice at a Cherokee front door and order the people inside the home, men women and children, to immediately evacuate and take only what each could carry. They were forced marched to thoughtlessly assembled barriers like cattle and le...

    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

  • The Cherokee Embracing Civilization

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...Shortly after this, the true intentions of the United States became to show and it became apparent that embracing civilization would only hurt the Cherokee. The state of Georgia began removing the Cherokee, but the United States still kept their word and attempted to help the Cherokee to keep their homes. Andrew Jackson was elected as President and the Cherokee had no hope. President Jackson put forth the Indian Removal Act and by the summer of 1838 the Cherokee were completely moved west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokee leaders only hurt their people by embracing civilization. The Cherokee wanted to keep their land east of the Mississippi River, but because of embracing civilization that would not happen.

    Read More

  • Essay On Chickasaw

    1630 Words  | 4 Pages

    Several Native Americans from the Cherokee tribe had feared that the whites would encroach upon their settlements in the near future so they moved west of the Mississippi many years before the Indian Removal Act was put into place. This good foresight and early movement allowed for them to pick the time that they wanted to leave and they allowed themselves the leisure of moving at their own pace and stopping when they wanted which cut down on casualties extremely and this also allowed them to allocate the appropriate amount of supplies for the trip before attempting to make it prematurely and causing catastrophe to hit. They established a government and worked out a peaceful way of life with the nearby surroundings and allowed themselves to blend into the area that they desired rather than an area that was designated for them. There was always a large tension building between the whites and Cherokee which had reached its climax after the discovery of gold in Georgia. This drove a frenzy that many people wanted in on to make out with a good sum of money as gold was in high demand and worth a lot at the time. When the gold was found it started a miniature gold rush and pulled in whites and

    Read More

  • The Impact of Westward Expansion on The Cherokee Nation

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    Natives were forcefully removed from their land in the 1800’s by America. In the 1820’s and 30’s Georgia issued a campaign to remove the Cherokees from their land. The Cherokee Indians were one of the largest tribes in America at the time. Originally the Cherokee’s were settled near the great lakes, but overtime they moved to the eastern portion of North America. After being threatened by American expansion, Cherokee leaders re-organized their government and adopted a constitution written by a convention, led by Chief John Ross (Cherokee Removal). In 1828 gold was discovered in their land. This made the Cherokee’s land even more desirable. During the spring and winter of 1838- 1839, 20,000 Cherokees were removed and began their journey to Oklahoma. Even if natives wished to assimilate into America, by law they were neither citizens nor could they hold property in the state they were in. Principal Chief, John Ross and Major Ridge were leaders of the Cherokee Nation. The Eastern band of Cherokee Indians lost many due to smallpox. It was a year later that a Treaty was signed for cession of Cherokee land in Texas. A small number of Cherokee Indians assimilated into Florida, in o...

    Read More

  • The Trail of Tears

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    Indians would do everything that was asked of them by the white man instead of standing up for themselves. The Choctaws were granted citizenship in the exception of them not living their everyday life style. Under citizenship, the tribal government of the Choctaws was abolished. Choctaws was given heavy fines and even jail time if the Choctaws dishonored the demands of the white man for their citizenship. Chief Moshulatubbee was shocked so he decided to run for congress. Mississippians took Moshulatubbee wanting to run for congress as a joke. Moshulatubbee lost. The lost started a civil war among the Choctaws. No matter what the Choctaws did they did not get their way. When leaving Mississippi some of the Choctaws died of diseases and of hunger. So the Choctaws gave in and again let the white man take control of them.

    Read More

More about Trail of Tears

Open Document