The Cherokee Removal

Cherokee Removal

The "Trail of Tears": Historical Background

In the spring of 1838, U.S. troops began to round up people of the Cherokee nation and imprison them for eventual removal from their land. With the exception of a few Cherokee Indians who remained in North Carolina, thanks to agreements with that state, most Cherokees were forcibly removed. The poor logistics, hot weather, and the travails of removing people against their will took its toll, causing thousands of deaths and spreading diseases among the Cherokees. The process of removal came to be known as the "Trail of Tears" and has remained as a blot in the consciousness and memory of the United States. As one of the strongest advocates of Indian Removal, President Andrew Jackson is often condemned by historians for carrying out what essentially was a racist act. But the Indian removal was a more complex process because there were defenders of Cherokee Indians among Anglo-Americans and some Cherokees agreed to the withdrawal act. To understand the complexity of the removal, it is important to look at events leading up to the "Trail of Tears."

When the United States won the revolutionary war against Britain, the British claims to lands and territories in North America were handed to the government of George Washington. Although in the wake of the Revolution many Americans believed that they had the right to dispossess Native Americans off their land because they had allied themselves with the British during the war -- and many American Indians indeed were driven off their land forcefully -- with the establishment of the United States Constitution and the increasing awareness of the power and resilience of Native American tribes, the government began to advocate a peaceful negotiation. This led to a serious of agreements which placed the Cherokee Nation under the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution.

More importantly, Washington and his Secretary of War Henry Knox believed that the Cherokee people could be "civilized" through proper education. Knox believed that the Cherokee were only culturally "backward," not racially. To Knox and many Americans "civilization" at the time meant the manner of living, speaking, dressing, and behaving like European-Americans. Knox also believed that Indians needed to be "saved" from the contact with the "civilization." So, government advocated a policy of gradually "civilizing" the Cherokee through education and encouragement of adopting American ways of life. The Treaty of Holston, signed in 1791, said: "That the Cherokee nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to become herdsmen and cultivators, instead of remaining in a state of hunters, the United States will, from time to time, furnish gratuitously the said nation with useful implements of husbandry" (Perdue & Green 11). The Cherokee signed the agreements but agreed to embrace "civilization" partially. For example, they welcomed new schools but rejected Christianity. Nevertheless, many Cherokee Indians began to adopt American form of husbandry, dress code, the language; some of them even began to own African slaves, and many Americans considered the Cherokee the most "civilized" of all Indian nations.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the situation, however, began to change as more and more Americans wanted land, while the attitudes toward Native Americans shifted more towards racism. In particular, many Georgians wanted the Cherokee land and they pressured their government to act on their behalf. In 1829-30, Georgians passed Acts of the Georgia General Assembly, proclaiming that the laws of Georgia shall extend over the territory "now in the occupancy of the Cherokee Indians," and stating that "all laws, ordinances, orders and regulations of any kind whatever, made, passed, or enacted by the Cherokee Indians, either in general council or in any other way whatever, or by any authority whatever of said tribe, be, and the same are hereby declared to be null and void and of no effect, as if the same had never existed" (Perdue & Green 63). The Congress eventually followed suit by enacting the Indian Removal Act which was greeted by the newly elected President Andrew Jackson. Americans should feel no regret for the disappearance of Indians from the face of the earth, Jackson argued. "Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers," he said to Congress in his State of the Union Address. "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic" (Perdue & Green 120).

Many Anglo-Americans opposed the Indian Removal Act. Missionaries especially were appalled at the plan to evict the Cherokee Indians by force. A Baptist Reverend, writing under the pseudonym of "William Penn," argued that the United States had no right to use force and evict the Cherokee of their ancestral lands. He cited Americans laws and provisions of agreements signed by both the U.S. Government and the Cherokee tribal government. He argued that "the removal of any nation of Indians from their country by force would be an instance of gross and cruel oppression . . . And therefore entirely unjustifiable" (Perdue & Green 98). On the contrary, Penn argued, the Unites States was bound to protect the Cherokee nation from any form of eviction.

The rights of the Cherokee to the land were also upheld by the United States Supreme Court. But the government of Jackson ignored the Court's decision, allowing many Georgians to enter the Cherokee territory. In the face of this pressure and a feeling of powerlessness, a minority group among the Cherokee, under the leadership of Elias Boudinot and John Ridge, decided to negotiate with the U.S. government. The group became known as the Treaty Party, reviled by their own people, but eventually welcomed in Washington where they signed the Treaty of New Echota with the government. Article 1 of the treaty stated that "The Cherokee nation hereby cede relinquish and convey to the United States all the lands owned claimed or possessed by them east of the Mississippi river" (Perdue & Green 140). That was a blueprint for physical removal of the Cherokee people.