Oakland Unified School District History/Social Studies

Preparing for the Fall, 2009 8th Grade U.S. History Writing Assessment

Indian Removal: The Cherokee and Andrew Jackson

First Encounters: The Cherokee first had contact with the English in 1654

A typical scene at one of the settlements along the lower Little Tennessee River, where Euro-American trade goods are being transported and exchanged.

- Based on archaeological and ethno historical research by University of Tennessee, Knoxville, anthropologists and historians.

A British artist depicts three Cherokee men in London in 1762

After the American Revolution the Cherokee Land was inside the new United States of America

Cherokee land

An effort to protect the Cherokee land from white settlers

The White people who settled on the frontier had openly violated the boundary by intruding on the Indian lands.

…In September 1788, the U.S. Congress issued a proclamation that forbade white settlers from settling on Cherokee hunting grounds and forced them (with their families) to leave or suffer the consequences.

United States, August 11, 1790

Thirty-five years later

“The Cherokees must be told, in plain language, that the lands they occupy belong to Georgia…”

- Georgia Governor Troup, April, 1825

Shrinking Cherokee Land

The boundaries of the Cherokee Country prior to European arrival.

http://www.cherokeehistory.com/map1.htmlFrom the Rare Map Collection at the University of Georgia. This collection includes maps showing the location of the Cherokee Country 1732-1838.

Shrinking Cherokee Land - continued

The boundaries of the Cherokee Country at the end of the Revolutionary War.

http://www.cherokeehistory.com/map1.htmlFrom the Rare Map Collection at the University of Georgia. This collection includes maps showing the location of the Cherokee Country 1732-1838.

Shrinking Cherokee Land - continued

The boundaries of the Cherokee Country in the East prior to the removal demand.

http://www.cherokeehistory.com/map1.htmlFrom the Rare Map Collection at the University of Georgia. This

collection includes maps showing the location of the Cherokee Country 1732-1838.

Shrinking Cherokee Population

European epidemics (especially smallpox) that were introduced in the U.S. in 1540, killed at least 75% of the original native population. 1674 – Estimated Cherokee population = 50,000

1830s – Estimated Cherokee population=25,000http://tolatsga.org/Cherokee1.html

The Cherokees try to adapt by adopting the ways of the white

settlers.

The Cherokee alphabet, introduced in 1821 by Sequoyah, the son of a Cherokee mother and white trader, had a separate character for each of 86 syllables of the tribal language

The “Cherokee Phoenix” – the newspaper of the Cherokee Nation

A Cherokee Farming Village

Western Carolina University - http://www.wcu.edu/6332.asp

The Cherokee’s land is even more desired by whites after the discovery of gold

Gold was discovered in Georgia in 1829 and many miners entered the Cherokee Nation. In the Cherokee Phoenix, one writer said,

"Our neighbors who obey no law and pay no respect to the laws of humanity are now reaping a plentiful harvest. . . . We are an abused people."

But there was little the Cherokee could do; it seemed the louder they protested, the more eagerly the miners came.

- The New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-785

In 1830 the President Jackson pushed through Congress the “Indian Removal Act”

The President was given the power to negotiate removal treaties with Indians living east of the Mississippi River with the following terms:

• Indians must give up their lands in the east for lands west of the Mississippi;

• Those who wished to remain would become citizens of their home state;

• Although “voluntary,” those who resisted would be forced to move.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html

Why Indian Removal? Jackson’s Vision of “Progress

“What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages, to our extensive Republic studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms?”

-- from President Andrew Jackson, State of the Union Address, 1830

The Indian Removal Act is Passed by Congress and then signed by President Jackson on May

26, 1830

• The Senate passed the Indian Removal Act by a 28–19 vote.

• The House of Representatives passed the Indian Removal Act by a 102-97 vote.

Not everyone supported Indian Removal in 1830 – It was part of a national debate

“To you, then, as the constitutional protectors of the Indians within our territory, and as the peculiar guardians of our national character, and our counter's welfare, we solemnly and honestly appeal, to save this remnant of a much injured people from annihilation,…And your petitioners will ever pray.

“

- Petition by Ladies in Steubenville, Ohio, Against Indian Removal,

1830

"The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country. . . . I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing."

-Senator Edward Everett, Massachusetts

The Cherokees argued for their right to remain on the land

"The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from our fathers...Permit us to ask, what better right can the people have to a country than the right of inheritance?...

-The Cherokee, in a letter to the United

The Cherokee argued for their right to remain on the land

"We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect right to remain without interruption...If we are compelled to leave our country, we see nothing but ruin before us.“

-Cherokee leaders, July, 1830

The State of Georgia holds a lottery for pieces of Cherokee land - 1832

The United States Supreme Court Rules on the Cherokee’s Claim of their Land Being Taken Illegally

“The Cherokee Nation is a distinct community. It occupies its own territory…In this territory, the laws of Georgia do not apply. Into the Cherokee territory, the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter except with the consent of the Cherokee themselves.”

- John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Worchester v. Georgia, 1832.

“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”- President Andrew Jackson’s response to the Supreme Court ruling, 1832

President Jackson’s Response

A Group of Cherokee, led by Major Ridge, sign a treaty with the United States Government, 1835

From The Treaty of New Echota

• "The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States all the land claimed by said Nation east of the Mississippi River...[in return] 7,000,000 acres of land [is] guaranteed to the Cherokees west of the Mississippi...

• "The United States agree that the land guaranteed to the Cherokees shall never, without their consent, be included within...any State or Territory [of the United States].

• "The United States agree to remove the Cherokees to their new home and to provide them with one year's subsistence thereafter...“

Treaty concluded Dec. 1835 between [U.S. commissioners] General Carroll and J.F. Schermerhorn, and the Cherokee tribe. (Ratified by the U.S. Senate, May 1836.)

Other Cherokees React to the Treaty of New Echota

“The opposition to the treaty is unanimous…They say it does not bind them because they did not make it; that it was made by a few unauthorized individuals…The influence of the head chief [Major Ross] is unquestioned. The whole nation of 18,000 people is with him. The few, about three hundred, who made the treaty, have left…”

- letter from agent John Mason, sent by War Department to make observations on the Cherokee situation, 1837

Question to Consider:

“By 1838, which would have been better for the Cherokee Indians: to finally accept or to continue to resist the U.S. government’s demand they move to new tribal lands west of the Mississippi River?"