Trail of Tears: Indian Removal, Racism, and Slavery

President Andrew Jackson built his political and military career on an aggressive approach to Native Americans. His exploits began well before 1838–39, when his Indian Removal Act signaled the deplorable state of affairs in North America. Around 4,000 Cherokee died during the forcible removal program aptly dubbed the "Trail of Tears," as many more Indians were displaced and deprived of rights that had previously been guaranteed by federal law. The Indian Removal Act violated several tacit and explicit agreements between tribal governments and their American counterparts.

By the time the Indian Removal Act was passed, five tribes in the Southeastern United States — the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole (technically and historically a branch of the Creek) — had been assimilating into colonial European society. Yet mastery of the English language and active participation in the colonial economy failed to enable these Southeastern tribes to stave off the sinister deceit that characterized Jackson's policy of Indian removal. The informal and formal agreements between Native Americans and the federal government systematically fell apart due to increasing demand for land within the plantation economy of the American South. Greed and a white supremacist ideology laid the groundwork for the Indian Removal Act of 1830, revealing stark connections between the Trail of Tears and the legacy of slavery in the United States.

Sheer greed prompted nearly all of the Indian removal policies, which followed from broken treaties and ultimately resulted in the forced exile of Indian communities. Burgeoning numbers of settlers into the lands now part of Georgia and Alabama pressured the federal government to support their endeavor to expand cotton plantations. A European colonial mentality undermined any genuine commitment to the rights, freedoms, and liberties outlined in the American Constitution. As military resistance proved futile for the Native Americans, several tribes opted for a policy of appeasement (United States Department of State Office of the Historian). Several tribes tried to negotiate with the settlers, offering large swathes of land in exchange for the right to live harmoniously alongside them. Their efforts proved futile, as white land grabbers viewed Native Americans as obstacles to their business enterprises as well as to their sense of cultural superiority.

The cultural assimilation of the Cherokees in particular proved to be ironically disastrous to the tribe, because "the more literate, prosperous, and politically organized the Cherokees made themselves, the more resolved they became to keep what remained of their land and improve it for their own benefit" (Howe 345).

Moreover, several Native tribes — and particularly the Seminole — advocated on behalf of runaway slaves, actively aided and sheltered them, and traded with free blacks (Howe 342). Their strategic allegiances underscored the value of uniting with other tribes and disenfranchised groups in opposition to slavery, disempowerment, and discrimination. Whereas the Monroe administration acknowledged the legality of treaties and legal claims to Native-held land, the Jackson administration flagrantly ignored the law and the underlying values of the Constitution.

Most notably, in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall ruled, if not strongly then at least tacitly, in favor of Cherokee sovereignty. The case featured an unusual alliance between some missionary Christian groups — including those headed by Samuel Worcester — working on behalf of the so-called "civilized" tribes. When the government of the state of Georgia recognized how politically powerful a Christian-Native alliance might become, the governor ousted the missionaries. Worcester and several others were arrested for remaining on tribal land and eventually brought the matter to the Supreme Court. The case was argued on the grounds that the state of Georgia could not exercise legal jurisdiction over what transpired on Native land, even if those lands fell within the geographic boundaries of the state. Essentially, the case highlighted the tension between states' rights advocates and federalists. Marshall ruled that the Cherokees were legally sovereign and that the state of Georgia had no jurisdiction over them.