Transcript Enter Your Name Here

Enter Your Name Here:
Answer the following questions as you watch the videos.
Video 1: Indian Removal
1.
What was Jefferson's vision of America?
2.
How did the Cherokees practice spirituality?
3.
In what ways did the Cherokees take Jefferson's advice?
4.
Why, despite following Jefferson's advice, were the Cherokees removed?
5.
About how many died on the "Trail of Tears?”
6.
While Jackson hoped to be called "Great Father" by the Cherokees, what name did they
actually use?
Video 2: Cherokee Nation Appeals to the Supreme Court
1.
What did the Cherokees do to resist removal?
2.
How did Jackson respond to the Supreme Court's decision?
Primary Source - John Marshall’s Decision on Worcester v. Georgia
When the state of Georgia began forcibly removing Cherokees from their lands, the tribe
appealed to the Supreme Court, asking it to enforce its treaty rights. In the 1832 case of
Worcester v. Georgia the Court ruled in the Cherokees’ favor, deciding that the tribe
constituted a sovereign nation. Unfortunately, this victory was a hollow one, as
President Jackson refused to enforce the verdict, arguing that the Cherokees were not an
ndependent nation but were merely inhabitants of the state of Georgia. The following
excerpt is taken from the Court’s majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John
Marshall.
From the commencement of our government, congress has passed acts to regulate trade and intercourse with the
Indians; which treat them as nations, respect their rights, and manifest a firm purpose to afford that protection
which treaties stipulate. All these acts, and especially that of 1802, which is still in force, manifestly consider the
several Indian nations as distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries, within which their authority is
exclusive, and having a right to all the lands within those boundaries, which is not only acknowledged, but
guarantied by the United States. . . .The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community, occupying its own
territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the
citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with
treaties, and with the acts of congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by
our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.
Source: “Worcester v. The State of Georgia,” Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme
Court of the United States. January Term 1832. Vol. VI. Richard Peters, ed. (Philadelphia: T. Desilver, Jr., 1832), 556-567, 561.
What does the Supreme Court argue on
behalf of the Cherokee?
Enter your answer:
Primary Source - Jackson’s Message to Congress on Indian Removal
Like Thomas Jefferson before him, Andrew Jackson regarded the proliferation of independent, white farmers as the
key to the continued prosperity of the United States. Americans, to be really free and self-reliant, needed to own their
own land. But with population rising, this required each new generation to move farther west, onto lands
that in many cases were already occupied by Native Americans. In Jackson’s eyes, because whites grew crops and
built settlements, while Indians mostly hunted, there was no doubt about who would make better use of the lands.
Indians, Jackson predicted, would inevitably suffer from contact with these land-hungry whites, making it in their
own best interest to move west of the Mississippi River. The following excerpt is taken from Jackson’s second annual
message to Congress, months after the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians
themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations. It
puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on
account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few
savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the
settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong
enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part
of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will
separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States;
enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of
decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government
and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting,
civilized, and Christian community.
Source: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), vol. 2, pp. 519-520.
After reading this document, what would
you say is Jackson’s ideal vision of
America?
Enter your answer:
Primary Source - Letter from Chief John Ross
Despite two favorable Supreme Court decisions, the Cherokee Indians faced forced evictions from their ancestral
homelands. In 1835 two commissioners appointed by President Andrew Jackson convinced a small group of
Cherokees to sign the Treaty of New Echota, which ceded remaining Cherokee lands to the United States. The
Cherokees who signed the treaty clearly did not represent the wishes of the majority of the Cherokee people in
whose interest they claimed to act. Jackson nevertheless submitted the treaty to the Senate, which gave it its
approval in March 1836. Months later, on September 28, 1836, Cherokees meeting at the Red Clay Council
Ground appointed a delegation consisting of Chief John Ross and eight others to journey to
Washington and deliver their complaints to Congress in person. Ross brought with him a memorial signed by more
than two thousand Cherokees. The following excerpt, taken from that memorial, shows the Cherokees’ deep sense
of dismay and frustration at the ratification of the so-called “Treaty” of New Echota.
(continued on next slide…)
To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled .
. . .After the departure of the delegation, a contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn and certain
individual Cherokees, purporting to be “A treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of Georgia, on the 29th day of
December, 1835, by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United
States; and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious delegation, in violation of
a special injunction of the general council of the nation, proceeded to Washington city with this pretended treaty, and,
by false and fraudulent representations, supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited
delegation of the Cherokee people, and obtained for this instrument, after making important alterations in its
provisions, the recognition of the United States Government; and now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the
Senate and approved by the President, and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of
the displeasure of the United States, and the threat of summary compulsion in case of refusal. It comes to us, not
through our legitimate authorities, the known and usual medium of communication between the Government of the
United States and our nation; but through the agency of a complication of powers, civil and military. By the stipulations
of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are
stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our
eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our
complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised; we are deprived of membership in the human family; we
have neither land, nor home, nor resting-place, that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a
compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of “treaty.” We are overwhelmed; our hearts are
sickened; our utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed by the audacious
practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the
Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.
Source: “Memorial of a Delegation of the Cherokee Nation,” House of Representatives Document 99, 25th
Congress, 2d Session (Serial 325), p. 12.
What is Ross saying about the views of
the Cherokee people. and those who
supposedly agreed to a treaty?
Enter your answer: