The Western experience in history and culture

Western Experience: Native American Displaced to Oklahoma

The rumors were true, and I feel like a fool that I had not believed them when I first heard them. They had been talking for years about the possibility that the government would come and take our land, but, like many others, I felt that would not occur if we cultivated the land the same way as the white men. The main objection to our people being in the East had been that were barbaric and uncivilized, so that living like white people would spare us from being treated as subhuman. My family and I settled down to farm our land and we were very successful at it, which made us think that there would be no further efforts to rob us from our land. We had heard so many arguments that the government would want to take land from us because they felt we were using it inefficiently, and, therefore, believed that using it in the same way that the white men use it would keep us from losing our land.

I should have known that it was coming. The history of the white man's involvement in our world has been one of constant strife and barbarity. They have repeatedly taken our land and have not had any problems with killing us to do so. However, this did seem to create a moral issue for many Americans, who wanted to view themselves as good people. "Expansion and Indian removal created some phenomenal problems for the new American nation in terms of its moral character. How can this unique experiment in the new world- this nation that prided itself upon its democratic institutions, force Native American people westward? How do you rationalize the taking of land and the usurpation of property?" (Edmunds, 2006). Despite that, since the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785, one could see how American policy towards the native population was becoming more aggressive and that the legal unagreed-to trade of eastern lands for western lands would result in the eventual relocation of all Native American groups to west of the Mississippi (Sherfy, 2003). The government sought to persuade my tribe and other tribes to move voluntarily to the West, but we resisted those efforts, knowing that life in the west would not compare to the life we left. That was not simply speculation; we had seen how smaller groups of Cherokees had fared after accepting a land exchange and moved West in the last 1700s (Sherfy, 2003).

The worst thing is that they try to rationalize their poor treatment of us by suggesting that we are somehow inferior to them. The say that we do not fit into the life east of the Mississippi, so that, for our benefit, we must be moved west. However, many of us lived successfully in the East. We are described as uncivilized but, as a member of the Cherokee nation, I was more likely to be literate than a white person in the South through the end of the Civil War, yet they considered us uncivilized in comparison to whites (Edmunds, 2006).

Perhaps the most frustrating thing to me is how much governmental support there is for this policy. Very few people consider the negative implications of this movement, implications that go far beyond the impact on people like me who are forced to leave our homes. The chorus of voices of people wanting to strip us of our homes seems overwhelming: land speculators, eastern settlers who fear us, and missionaries who worried that we could corrupt their neighbors (Sherfy, 2003).

Perhaps one of the most aggravating things about being relocated is the dehumanizing manner in which we have been treated. The Removal Act, which was supported by President Andrew Jackson, allowed the president to set up districts within the Indian Territory. However, in order to ease the conscience of the American people, the act was supposed to provide funds to the people who had been removed, including money for resettlement, protection in their new settlements, and care for us (Sherfy, 2003). The reality was much uglier.

Our removal was authorized by the Treaty of New Echota, which was not never accepted by our tribal leaders or by a majority of our people, and, therefore, could hardly be characterized as an actual treaty. However, we had been experiencing escalating conflicts in Georgia. These conflicts became worse with the discovery of gold in Georgia in 1829, which led to the first Gold Rush in American history. This led to speculators encroaching on our land, and a drive to take over our lands. The state of Georgia also extended their law over our lands. While that effort was unsuccessful, it led to Georgia, along with Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama to round up a military force composed of militia, army members, and volunteers and they rounded us up in concentration camps to move us west.