Transcript http://www.cherokeehistory.com/map1.html From the Rare Map

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.html
From 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.html
From 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.html
From 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=25,000
http://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 selfreproach, 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.
President Jackson’s Response
“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
- President Andrew Jackson’s response to the Supreme Court ruling, 1832
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?"