Transcript Chief William McIntosh

A Bit of Native American
History
Indian Removal…
“New World” Discovery
• Native Americans were here first
• Columbus stepped off his ship in the
Bahamas, beginning of the Columbian
Exchange-the interchange of plants,
animals, and diseases between the Old
World and the Americas following
Columbus's arrival in the Caribbean in 1492.
• Columbus called the people he met “Indos”,
meaning people of India, since that is where
he thought he had landed
After the American Revolution
• 1783, The Treaty of Paris, formally ending the
American Revolution, is signed by representatives of
Great Britain and the United States.
• In the treaty, the British cede (give up) all of their
North American territories south of Canada and east
of the Mississippi River to the United States.
• Former agreements between the British and the
Indian occupants of these territories are implicitly
voided.
• The United States now claimed all Indian lands east
of the Mississippi River by right of conquest.
The U.S. in 1783
• About 3 million people, mostly living
along the Atlantic seaboard
• Native Americans, about 600,000,
controlled most of the land west of
the Appalachian Mountains
Quizlet:
1. What European gave the natives he
met the name “Indians”?
2. What was the “Columbian Exchange”?
3. Who did the Americans gain
independence from?
4. Who controlled most of the land west
of the Appalachian Mountains?
George Washington
• President Washington and his
Secretary of War, Henry Knox,
claimed to respect Indian rights
• They promised to secure Indian
lands through treaty and purchase
Meanwhile, in Georgia…
• Like many Americans after the
Revolutionary War, Georgians
developed a huge appetite for land,
which was addressed through various
means
• Headright System
• Land lotteries
• Yazoo Land Fraud
Creeks and George
• As settlers pushed into Creek lands along
the Oconee River, skirmishes and attacks
occurred between the two groups
• In 1790, President Washington met with
Chief Alexander McGillivray and the
Treaty of New York was signed
• The Creek gave up all of their lands east of
the Oconee River and in return, the US
government promised that no whites would
go into lands west of the boundary
Back in Georgia
• When Georgians heard of the treaty,
they were enraged because it seemed
the federal government had taken the
side of the Indians
• Neither side paid any attention to the
treaty
• Then the Yazoo Land Fraud took
place and the federal government had
to step in and help Georgia with the
scandal
William McIntosh
• As more land was ceded to the
government, the Creek tribes lost
touch with one another and
sometimes signed treaties without
asking the tribes to agree
• In 1825, Creek Chief William
McIntosh and Georgia governor
Troup, signed the Treaty on Indian
Springs, selling Creek land to the
state
McIntosh Murdered!
• Groups of Creeks who disagreed with
the treaty decided that, in accordance
with Creek law, McIntosh had to die
• The Creek set fire to McIntosh’s
home, dragged him from the house,
stabbed him in the chest, and then
scalped him as a warning to others
Quizlet
1. How did George Washington promise
to treat Native Americans?
2. After the Revolutionary War, what did
many Georgians want?
3. What were some of the ways to
acquire this?
4. What did Chief William McIntosh do
that caused him to be killed?
Sequoyah
• Contributing to advancements in the
Cherokee culture was George Gist, son of a
Virginia scout and soldier, and his mother,
who was a Cherokee princess
• Sequoyah means “lonely lame one”- he was
crippled since childhood
• Interested in white man’s “talking leaves”
• In 1809 he began to make a syllabary-a
group of symbols that stood for whole
syllables
Sequoyah
Cherokee Literacy
• Sequoyah spent 12 years on his syllabary
• Some members of his tribe made fun of him
but after he taught his daughter and a few
young chiefs to write and understand the
symbols in a few days, tribe members
changed their minds
• By 1830, over 90% of the Cherokee
could read and write and were the first
to have their own language in written
form
Dahlonega Gold
• After gold was discovered in 1829,
gold fever swept through North
Georgia
• The Georgia legislature passed a law
that placed part of the Cherokee land
under state control
• Later the Cherokee were denied any
right to the land or gold
Quizlet
1.
2.
3.
4.
What was George Gist known as?
What did he create?
How effective was his creation?
What was found in the Cherokee
region of Dahlonega?
Worcester v. Georgia, John Marshall, and
John Ross
• Most Georgians didn’t care what happened to the Cherokee,
but a group of white missionaries did and they were ordered
off the land and told to sign an oath of allegiance to the
governor
• 11 people, including Reverend Samuel Worcester, refused
to sign the oath and were chained and made to walk from the
North Georgia mountains to Lawrenceville, where they were
sentenced to 4 years in a state penitentiary in Milledgeville
• Worcester took his case to the Supreme Court where Chief
Justice John Marshall ruled that the decision could not stand
because Cherokee territory was not subject to state law
• In 1832 the state government had a lottery to give Cherokee
lands to whites
• Chief John Ross made several trips to Washington to ask
Congress for help-he wanted the Cherokee protected and past
treaties honored
Andrew Jackson
• Elected president in 1828 and former friend
to Native Americans, especially Cherokee
• 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal
Act that called for all Native Americans to be
moved to the western territories that had
been acquired with the Louisiana Purchase
• Jackson signed the bill into law but the
Supreme Court issued an order protecting
the rights of the Cherokee
• Jackson refused to honor the Court’s
decision and claimed it was a matter for
states, not the federal government
Removal of Creek and Cherokee
• Many Creek refused to leave their land but
it was forcibly taken from them, while others
went hungry
• When Creeks in Alabama and Georgia
attacked whites, the US Army forced them
to move west
• In the meantime, the US became involved in
an Indian war in Florida and the Creek
helped the US defeat the Seminole
• As the Creek were being removed, Georgia
was moving the Cherokee forcibly off their
land
Trail of Tears
• December 1835 Cherokee told to come to New
Echota and sign a treaty giving up all of their landCherokee trader Major Ridge and his son John and a
few others agreed
• In 1838 General Winfield Scott ordered the
removal of the remaining Cherokee who refused to
leave their land and many were sent to Tennessee,
Mississippi, and Arkansas
• A few Cherokee escaped and hid in the mountains
of North Carolina
• The rest began an 800 mile walk that would leave
thousands dead
• The Cherokee called the move “ANuna-da-ut-sun’y”
or “the trail where they cried”
Quizlet
1. What did Reverend Samuel Worcester
refuse to do?
2. How did the Supreme Court rule in
Worcester v. Georgia?
3. What president signed the Indian Removal
Act? What did he do when the Court ruled
against it?
4. The Creeks fought with the US Army to
defeat what group in Florida?
5. Some Cherokee managed to escape from
north Georgia and hid where?