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. The Cherokee Trail of Tears resulted from the execution of the Treaty of New Echota (1835), an “agreement” signed under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (The Cherokee and the Trail of Tears). With the expansion of the American population, the discovery of gold in Georgia, and the need for even more land for American results in the push to move the Natives who were “in the way”. So with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Congress acted to remove Natives on the east coast of the United States to land west of the Mississippi River, something in which was never embraced or approved by them (The Cherokee and the Trail of Tears). Many state governments, such as Georgia, did not want Native-owned land within their boundaries, while the Natives did not want to move. However, under the Removal Act, the United States Congress gave then-President Andrew Jackson the authority to negotiate removal treaties. The Treaty of New Echota, was ratified by the United States Senate, by one vote, without the approval of the Cherokee Nation (The Cherokee and the Trail of Tears). The treaty brought abou... ... middle of paper ... ...hushistory.org/indian-removal/overview>. "Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians." Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. . "Old Settlers and Emigrants." Old Settlers and Emigrants. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. . "The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes, Native Americans and the Land, Nature Transformed, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center." The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes, Native Americans and the Land, Nature Transformed, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. . Wells, Samuel J. After removal the Choctaw in Mississippi. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1986. Print.
It had previously been the policy of the American government to remove and relocate Indians further and further west as the American population grew, but there was only so much...
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
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was an abuse of power exerted on the Indian tribes residing in America by the people of the colonies as well as presidents at the time of their removal. Many Indians affected lost their lives, their loved one’s lives’, and the land they thrived on dating back years to their ancestors. This act would be later named “the trail of tears” because of the monumental loss the Indian tribes had endured during their displacement, and the physical and psychological damages of these people (TOTWSR).
McNamara, Robert. "Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears." About.com. N.p., 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .
During the earlier years of the 1800’s many Native Americans were relocated to the west of the Mississippi. This event was known as The Removal of 1838. In the book, “Voices from The Trail of Tears,” by Vicki Rozema, there are many stories and journals by a range of people that were involved in the removal of the Native Americas. The pictures that emerge about the Trail of Tears vary depending on who the document is written by.
Jackson, Andrew. “Andrew Jackson: On Indian Removal: The Full Text.” Milestone Documents in American History. Ed. Paul Finkelman. 4vols. Schlager Group, 2008. Salem History Web. 28 Oct. 2013.
Perdue, Theda, and Michael D. Green. The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 85-86.
In the early 1830s, “nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida” . These were areas of land that the American Indian people and their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. However, to many White Americ...
December 29, 1835, in New Echota, Georgia, officials of the United States Government along with representatives from a Cherokee Indian minority party, signed a treaty which required the ceding of the Cherokee Indians territory in exchange for a payment of five million dollars. The Treaty had been negotiated by Cherokee leader Major Ridge, who claimed to represent the Cherokee nation, but only spoke for a small fraction of the tribe. The agreement became known as the Treaty of New Echota; although the treaty was not approved by the Cherokee council, it was ratified by the United States senate and became the legal basis for the forced removal of the Cherokee nation from Georgia known as the “Trail of Tears”. On March 22, 1837 a document of address
Prior to the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land throughout Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida. However, territorial expansion of the United States caused by the settlements of both Europeans and Americans began to push the boundaries of Indian territories further inland. By 1838, the Cherokee community was forced to surrender their land to the east of the Mississippi River and migrate to present day Oklahoma. This journey was referred to as the "Trail of Tears" due to the devastating effects it had on the native people. The forced exodus of the Native
The Trail of Tears- During the 1830s the Americana's viewed the Natives as a problem and felt as if they were entitled to the land the natives had inhabited far longer then them. As more settlers began to colonize the Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, gold and other treasures were discovered on Indian territory. The Americans grew determined to gain this land and it riches. They decided that the best way to avoid clashes between the natives and white settlers was to encourage English culture such as Christianity and learning to speak and read English. Officials met to discuss a removal treaty at New Echota, the Cherokee capitol, and later formed the treaty of New Echota (Constitutional Rights Foundation). This
In the 1830s, as many as 125,000 Native Americans lived in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida on millions of acres of land their ancestors cultivated and occupied. However, toward the end of the decade, there were very few Natives that lived in the southeastern part of the United States. The white settlers wanted to grow cotton on the Native’s land. The federal government was working with the white settlers, therefore, the Natives were forced out of their homelands through the Indian Removal Bill. They walked thousands of miles to a designated “Indian territory” that crossed over the Mississippi River. This difficult journey is known as the Trail of Tears.
Imagine abruptly being forced out of your home. Imagine walking barefoot for miles and seeing people close to you collapse left and right. This is how every Native American on the Trail of Tears lived because of the Indian Removal Act. This act, signed by President Andrew Jackson on May 28 of 1830, granted him the right to grant unsettled lands in exchange for Indian lands. These lands were inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes - the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Due to the Indian Removal Act, these five tribes were forced off their land and sent 1500 miles west to present day Oklahoma. Thousands died of countless illnesses, their sufferings earning the migration its name - the Trail of Tears. The Indian Removal Act
Like many Native American Tribes, the Cherokee were systematically suppressed, robbed, dispossessed, and forced out of their ancestral homelands by Americans. This topic has become really difficult and uncomfortable to talk about for no reason other than embarrassment. We, as Americans, are mortified that our own country would partake in the act of forcibly removing a culture from it’s home. We are mortified that we let this become a socially acceptable way to treat Native Americans; but mostly, we are mortified that we conned the Cherokee Natives into signing an unlawful treaty that forced them to leave their Georgia homeland and move west via the Trail of Tears. The novel, The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears, written by Theda Perdue
Because of the unfair treatment by the American government, many of the Native Americans began the long torturous journey known as the Trail of Tears. However, the Cherokee formed a government to compete for their land but was faced with difficulty after gold was found on their land. This only intensified the hunt for the Indian tribe’s land. The Cherokees attempted to outsmart the United States by creating a law that stated if one buys their land, they are susceptible to punishment. This law was later considered null and void in 1828. The Cherokee Tribe would soon go against Georgia in a Supreme Court case in 1831 that, in the end, caused them to give up their land and forced a move to the West. Jackson introduced the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. The chief of the Cherokee Tribe, John Ross, attempted to fight this treaty but failed and was ordered by the United States government to vanish and pursue shelter in the West. This shift in the Cherokees surroundings led to the deaths of thousands of Indians due to starvation and the inability to adapt to the severe dry land of the West. Many others had to face the cruel punishment of imprisonment. Once finally settled in their western territories, the government went on to pass two other treaties against the Indians in the years 1854 and 1866, which further decreased the size of their already scant land. The