Indian Betrayal Looking back at the history of the United States, there are many instances and issues concerning race and ethnicity that shape the social classes that make up the United States today. There are many stories concerning the American Indian that are filled with betrayal, but there is probably none more cruel and shameful as the removal of the Cherokee Indians in 1838. Blood thirsty for money and property, the white settlers would soon use dirty methods to drive the Cherokee out of their home- lands. The United States government played a critical role in the removal of the Cherokee. “Soon the state governments insisted on the removal of the native peoples, who were already out numbered by the white settlers and considered to be uncivilized “heathens,” not worthy of the land they held” (Sherman 126). This was the attitude of the white settlers. Because of the color of their skin, they spoke a different language, and they were not accustomed to the white mans’ way of life, the Cherokee people suffered many great afflictions even unto death. The white settlers coveted the land of the Cherokee Indians for a couple of different reasons. First, the Cherokee Indians occupied the mountains and valleys of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. This land was very fertile and the Cherokee Indians had become proficient farmers. “Cotton quickly was becoming king in the south, and the Indians occupied land suitable for cotton growing” (Perdue 54). The white man discovered that an abundance of gold could be found in Georgia, the heart of the Cherokee territory. With this knowledge they would soon use cruel and brutal tactics in attempt to drive the Cherokee out of their land. Many ... ... middle of paper ... ...inia: Time-Life Books, 1994 Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Anchor Press, 1988. Kelly, Laurence C. Federal Indian Policy. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990. Mancini, Richard E. Indians of the Southeast. New York: Benford Books, 1992. Matthessen, Peter. Indian Country. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. Oswalt, Wendell H. This Land Was Theirs. California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998 Perdue, Theda. The Cherokee. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. Sherman, Josepha. The First Americans: Spirit of the Land and the People. New York: Smithmark, 1996. Steele, Ian K. Warpaths: Invasions of North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Wilkins, Thurman. Cherokee Tragedy. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986.
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.
The American Indians were promised change with the American Indian policy, but as time went on no change was seen. “Indian reform” was easy to promise, but it was not an easy promise to keep as many white people were threatened by Indians being given these rights. The Indian people wanted freedom and it was not being given to them. Arthur C. Parker even went as far as to indict the government for its actions. He brought the charges of: robbing a race of men of their intellectual life, of social organization, of native freedom, of economic independence, of moral standards and racial ideals, of his good name, and of definite civic status (Hoxie 97). These are essentially what the American peoples did to the natives, their whole lives and way of life was taken away,
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
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...
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.
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...
...enefitted them more than if they did stay. The whites wanted the Cherokee land and would take it by force if they had to. On their own, the Cherokee would not have been able to survive with their outdated methods of living which was inefficient. The Cherokee living among the whites would not have turned out well since the whites did not associate and relate themselves to the Cherokee which created conflict and rivalry between both groups. Since the takeover of Cherokee land seemed inevitable, the Cherokee should have accepted relocating and adopted the ways of the white people. The Cherokee should have realized that the whites were a flourishing powerhouse in comparison.
Although the Declaration of Independence represents a milestone in American history, in 1776 this event was only significant for the white men who had taken over the lands of the New World. The reason why it was written that “all men are created equal” was because the founding fathers had a narrow definition of who qualified as a human, considering that Native Americans are addressed in this document as “merciless Indian savages.” This was further proved by Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcefully removed Native tribes from their ancestral homes. Despite the efforts of the Indian tribes to fight Jackson’s removal policy, and even if the government had proposed a less cruel and fairer plan to make use of the Indian lands, the core issue remained on the moral excuse used by Jackson and the government to justify the dehumanization of Indians and the forced appropriation of
The settlers had used their land so much for farming, that it was no longer as good and fertile as new soil. However, being hunters, the Indian tribes had plenty of land suitable for harvest. In 1828, gold was found in the Cherokee lands of Georgia. This, along with the desire for more land, gave settlers incentive to remove the Natives.
In order to understand the real cause of conflict that existed between the State of Georgia and Cherokee Nation, one needs to find the background information into the history of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation was a native of the US covering an approximate of 140,000 square kilometers. It bordered southeastern states like North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee as well as Georgia along its boundaries. They were first discovered by Hernando de Soto in the year 1542, and several years later, the immigrants of the English origin begun trading with the Cherokee Nation with the hope they would find help from them against the Tuscarora in the war that was upcoming against the Tuscarora tribe (Carlson, 2002). After the war, the trade that existed between the Cherokee and the English immigrants who occupied the South Carolina territory begun to grow and this led to the growth of the State of Georgia.
The once great tribes of Native Americans are now all gone from the land in which their forefathers were born in. This act of ethnic-cleansing was called the Indian Removal Act. This law authorized the removal of Native Americans to move to the west of the Mississippi River in exchange for land. Although this act lead to the growth of America, the Native Americans shouldn’t have had to relocate. The Native Americans shouldn’t have relocated because they were becoming more civilized, because they were on the land first, and they were not safely transported as the government promised.
Johansen, Bruce E. (1998). Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy of Freedom. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.
In 1829 a big gold rush had occurred on Cherokee land in Georgia. Huge amounts were found which would cause wealth. Many Georgia mines produced at the most, 300 ounces of gold a day. Congress then soon passed the Indian Removal Act. It removed the eastern nations to tracts of western land of Mississippi and there was an amount of money provided for transportation and to native landowners. The price provided was around 500 dollars.
To start, the Cherokee should leave their Georgia, because Major Ridge tells the Cherokee in 1835, “an unbending, iron necessity tells us we must leave (our territory)... Any forcible effort to keep (our territory) will cost us our lands, our lives and the lives of our children.” Major Ridge is saying that if they resist the government and don’t move, they will die, their children will die, and they would end up losing the land anyways. Also, On March 16th, 1835, Andrew Jackson said in a letter to the Cherokee, “Every year (that you don’t move to the West) will increase your difficulties… Punishment will follow.” This quote proves that the Cherokee should move West, because Andrew Jackson is saying in this quote that if they will punished if they stay, and the longer they stay, the worse the punishment
When European explorers first contacted the Cherokees in the 16th century, they have been consistently identified as one of the most socially and culturally advanced of the Native American tribes. Having thrived for hundreds of years before first European contact in the southeastern area of what is now the United States. Cherokee culture and society continued to develop, progressing and embracing cultural elements from European settlers. The Cherokee shaped a government and a society matching the most civilized cultures of the day.(1) In 1829, things changed when President Andrew Jackson ordered the round up and removal of the tribes for their land that held gold so coveted by the European