Cherokee Removal

The Cherokee spate were labored out of their kill because of the settlers greed for e precisething and anything the priming coat had to shooter. umpteen Cherokee even embraced the refining program, abandoning their own beliefs so that they may be accepted by ovalbumin settlers. Unfortunately for the Cherokee though, the settlers would neer accept them as an exist citizen. A quote from historian Richard White says it very well up, The Cherokee are credibly the to the highest degree tragic instance of what could fork out succeeded in American Indian policy and didnt.All these things that Americans would proudly see as the h totallymarks of civilization are loss to the West by Indian heap. They do everything they were asked except star thing. What the Cherokees last are, they may be Christian, they may be literate, they may have a g overnment like ours, but ultimately they are Indian. And in the end, organismness Indian is what killed them. The accordance of Hopew ell was set up in 1785 and was made with all the good intentions, but nobody to enforce the rules. It was set up to pop off setting up friendly relations with the Cherokee, but to a fault to ascertain the Cherokee b separates.It gave the Cherokees the right to expel of any un lossed person that was on their land. sluice with this agreement though stack of both tabun and North Carolina actuate onto the Cherokees land, taking as they pleased. This caused thither to be battles between settlers and Cherokee. There was a big racial issue when it came to battles though. Whenever the settlers would win a battle it was called an Indian war, but when the Indians would win, it was called a massacre. Henry Knox soon dance stepped into the picture and he came accept that it was inevitable that both civilized and barbaric peoples should adjure so much.In order to ratify this he implemented a civilization program. As a part of this program, in order to be considered civilized iodine had to dress, think, act, speak, work, and idolise the same counseling. Knox felt the Cherokee just essential more or less sequence to limit these ship modality. Knox set up the Treat of Holston in 1791 where it stated, That the Cherokee nation may be let to a greater degree of civilization, and to kick the bucket herdsmen and cultivators, instead of rest in a state of hunters, the coupled States will, from time to time, furnish a gratuitously the said nation with useful implements of husbandry. For the Cherokee this meant leaving umteen of their traditions throne and embracing the American way of life-time in order to commemorate their land. In order to be civilized Cherokee men had to cease track down and attend to either the fields of herd livestock. This was due to the find out by the settlers that the Cherokee men were lazy because the settlers viewed hunting as fun and a sport. Because some felt that working in the fields was something that is a womans job ma ny turned to herding livestock as an alternative. Cherokee women were told that they could no time-consuming work in the fields but should work in the theater as a subservient.Many of the Cherokee had a hard time with this as well because they felt that the women settlers were lazy and they did non want their women to be the same way. in brief though many Cherokee women began working in the household, cooking, cleaning, or sewing. The main way Cherokees could be considered civilized was to accept Christianity. The U. S. government sent missionaries into Indian dirt to build schools. At these schools though they not exactly taught literature, math, and English, but they similarly taught youth Cherokees how to read using the Bible and also taught them how to pray.Many Cherokees ended up accepting Christianity with a select few not willing, but that was no different than how many white settlers were. Due to the civilization program many Cherokees became exceedingly wealthy and even ended up purchasing slaves to do field work. These Cherokee men became key political leaders for the Cherokee nation. They would end up writing and applying their very own organization of the Cherokee Nation which was made very similar to out very own constitution. The main concern for roughly of the Cherokee was land and due to that it was the first thing to be outlined in the Cherokee Constitution.In Article 1-Section 1 it states the boundaries they instanter posses because of the treaties made with the U. S. and also states that those boundaries shall forever be their land. Cherokees made another important fair play active the selling of land as well in order to go for their borders, The Cherokee Nation Council discuss the linked States that it would refuse future cession requests and enacted a faithfulness prohi silicon chiping the barter of depicted object land upon penalty of death. Even with these laws in place a small group of Cherokee set out against the r est of the Nation.Major Ridge, hind end Ridge, and Elias Boudinot, sign(a) a remotion treat at the Cherokee capital of New Echota without the part of Principal Chief ass Ross or the Cherokee government. The accordance of New Echota postulate the Cherokee Nation to exchange its national lands for a parcel in the Indian Territory set aside by relative, in what is now Oklahoma, in 1834 and to relocate there within two years. The federal government promised to hold over $5 million to the Cherokee Nation, compensate individuals for their mental synthesiss and fixtures, and pay for the costs of relocation and acclimation.The linked States also promised to honor the title of the Cherokee Nations new land, respect its political autonomy, and protect its tribe from future trespasses. Even though it was completed without the sanction of the Cherokee national government, the U. S. Senate ratified the treaty by a margin of one vote. presidential Chief thaumaturgy Ross tried to prov e that it was done without majority live with by getting 16,000 Cherokees to sign a document against the treaty. Ross tried to fight against the treaty till 1838, when the U. S. army was sent into the Cherokee Nation.In October, the Cherokees were herded into wooden stockades with no food, water, blankets, or sanitation. Most of them were barefoot and had no coats or blankets, yet they were forced to cross-rivers in sub-zero weather. There was about 22,000 Cherokees that were forced out of their homes on the track of rupture and a total of about 5,500 died along the way of exposure, starvation, and disease. A bulwark wrote, I fought with the War (Civil War), and I saw men snap fastener to pieces and slaughtered by the thousands, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew. condescension everything the Cherokees didchanging all of their traditions, trying to negotiate, and finally trying to protect themselves with lawsit did not subject. All the settlers wanted from the receivening was to manipulate and overhear every bit of land they could from the Cherokee. The Cherokee followed the civilization program and settlers only thought that, no matter what an Indian could never be civilized. As the historian Richard White throw at the beginning, And in the end, organism Indian is what killed them. Cherokee Removal hot seat chapiter and Mr.. Knox did not call in into consideration owe the United States people would tactile sensation about the Cherokee they felt that no matter what the Cherokee were taught that they would never lavishy be equal because of race. The Cherokee accepted some of the changes and resisted others, eventually this led to the forced removal of the Cherokee. After several failed treaty attempts, the Cherokee finally accepted that they would have to throw when soldiers arrived.The final negotiation was for the Cherokee to be able to do alone in the winter or 1838-39 and this would be source effn as the Trail of weeping because so many Cherokee died along the way. Becoming Civilized meant changing the ways that the Cherokee were accustomed to. Cherokee women would be more home developrs and the farming that they had done in the ult would now fall to the men who had once been the hunters of wild game. The experiment would have the Cherokee taking on more cattle, hogs and they would also begin to raise sheep.In add-on to planting corn they would also plant, cotton, wheat and flax. This also changed how some Cherokee viewed themselves and the way they looked at family. One example of that change would be Young Wolf, whom by and by he died and his Last Will and Testament dead showed how the views of the Cherokee had started shifting. Before Cherokee traced themselves through their mothers this meant that when Young Wolf died his land and other possessions should have gone to his sisters children.This nonetheless did not happen he left his estate to his son. A Cherokee view of civilization h ad begun early with Cherokee chiefs sons moving about the white community easily. They had been educated, were now living in regular housing, had started ontogenesis crops such as cotton, and were decent complicated with politics. One such son was named can Ridge, he became complex in national politics as a impresario of civilization and as a patriot who helped to execute the unscrupulous chief double feature for an illegal land sale (Purdue and Green, 32).John Ridge was a big promoter in the civilization process, he was also particularly interested in charting culture change among the Cherokees (Purdue and Green, 34). In order to reach the Cherokee people the United States government had Christian missions become involved, as the agent that the government had located among the Cherokee had not fulfilled the Job. Missionaries took on the role of civilizing the Cherokee, they set up schools, cast farms and served as the United States postmasters.This peaceful partnership of missionaries and government agents had a comparatively brief tenure (Purdue and Green, 45). With the missionaries immersed with the Cherokees they would prove to not only be tuition teachers but also teachers of manners and dress and some would also begin to side with the Cherokee people. The United States government wanted a way to keep track of the Cherokee so in 1835 they would begin quantifying Cherokee civilization. They wanted to bop as much as they could about where and what the Cherokee were doing.The government looked at the makeup of the Cherokee family within each home this included whether or not the family had full blooded, squadrons, half-breeds or whites that were related by marriage. This was not all that the government have-to doe with themselves with, they also took note of the style of homes, crops raised, acres farmed, closeness of mills and ferries. The Cherokee were growing tired of how the governments, both federal and state, were treating them so they ado pted the Cherokee Constitution of 1827 which s similar to that of the United States constitution but it also had some differences as well. The men who convened at New Echoed, the Cherokee capital in the summer of 1827, were no more representative of the Cherokees than the United States founding fathers were of the Americans. They were more likely to be wealthy, literate, and Christian than the average Cherokee (Purdue and Green, 58). The Georgia governor did not like the position that the Cherokee were trying to put together their own constitution and asked hot seat John Quince Adams to step in notwithstanding, prexy Adams would not.Since the President would not step in the Georgia Laws were created to try and force the hands of both President capital of disseminated sclerosis and the Cherokee Nation. These laws were designed to let both the United States and Cherokee Nation know that Georgia meant business and if need be they would take the land that the Cherokee people occupi ed by force because that land belonged to her. The testing of both the Cherokee Constitution and the Georgia laws would come when Georgia and the Supreme Court went to battle over the Georgia Guard arresting George Tassel a Cherokee citizen.Mr.. Tassel was arrested and convicted under Georgia law for murdering another Cherokee within the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Council went to the Supreme Court and challenged this ruling because they stated that Georgia law had no meaning in the Cherokee Nation. This however did not hold Georgia from executing Mr.. Tassel and it also didnt prevent them from creating more laws to make life even harder for the Cherokee Nation. The goal of Georgia from the very beginning had always been dispossessing the Cherokees so they could have Cherokee land.Georgia wanted the Cherokee gone and they thought they had found way when a federal agent realized that many of the wealthiest, including Principal Chief John Ross, had accepted reserves (individual or personal reservations) under the terms of the treaties of 1817 and 1819 (Purdue and Green, 84). To politicians within Georgia this meant that the Cherokee had no right to the land that they had acquired within the Nation in Georgia. Soon people who had start coming into Georgia and the Cherokee Nation and were considered the white intruders because they would push the Cherokee people out of their homes and off of their land.This was because Georgia had passed more laws were do it okay for people to Just come in and push the Cherokees off of their land. The Cherokee Nation was surveyed and plotted into lots lotteries were held for males, widows, orphans all of whom could obtain one ticket, however a veteran could obtain two tickets. Once the lotteries were held, names cadaverous and small fees paid those that won that piece of land could so go in and take it from the rightful Cherokee owners. In Defense of the Cherokees the William Penn Essays were actually industrial plant of Je remiah Averts, hive administrative officer of the large interdenominational missionary mob the American Board of Commissionaires for Foreign Missions (Purdue and Green, 103). These essays were in defense of the Cherokee and what Georgians people were doing to them it was also a way for other people to let the President and coition know how they felt about the treatment of the Cherokee people and the forceful removal that the Cherokee faced.These essays led to American women organize against removal with the lead role being taken by Catherine Beechen, who was not only an educator but a writer as well, she wrote anonymously on behalf of the Cherokee people. With her Journal articles she called for women to petition Congress to defeat the impending Indian Removal Act (Purdue and Green, 110-11). Opposition to Indian removal, therefore, politically em military forceed women in the United States and provided them with a public enunciate despite their disfranchisement (Purdue and Green , 111).However, Lewis Sacs Justifies removal because he was presumed to be the leading figure for United States Indian Policy this is because of his experience with the Great Lake Indians. Mr.. Sacs believes that if the Indians do not become civilized and remain uncivilized that they will perish. This led to Mr.. Sacs writing his tactile sensation of why he thought it necessary to remove the Cherokee from Georgia the Cherokee would not honor Georgia law. The Cherokee felt that they need only to obey Cherokee law Mr..Sacs disagreed with that thought and let it be known that the Cherokee would need to be removed if they could not follow state law. Congress Acts like a cluster of overbearing bullies Georgia finally gets what it wants and the Indian Removal Act is passed on May 28, 1830. The Indian Removal Act was not pretty in the fact that there was a bunch of bitter, emotional and exhausting lay out going on in both the House and the Senate. However, evil won out over good in the fact that the Bill passed and the President still refused to stand up for the Cherokee against Georgia.This is when Andrew Jackson applauds the Removal Act in his State of the Union address, December 8, 1829. Andrew Jacksons address publicly clarified his quotation of the sovereign rights of the states over the Indian country within their borders (Purdue and Green, 125). President Jackson ever felt as if the Cherokee or any Indian would or could be civilized. The Indians, therefore, had two choices They could emigrate beyond the Mississippi or adopt to the laws of those States (Purdue and Green 125). Women and removal in 1817 and 1818 had on two separate make Cherokee women choosing to speak up.They spoke up when it came to the removal and the allotment of lands. They did not want to move and they did not want any more land to be sold they felt as if they had done everything that they possibly could to follow what the President had wanted them to do. They had become farmers, man ufactured their own clothing, to have our children instructed. To this advice we have go to in everything as far as we were able (Purdue and Green, 133). So then Alias Biotins editorials in The Cherokee Phoenix took up the cause for the Cherokee people.The newspaper was for anyone who subscribed, so not only Cherokee, but United States citizens and British could read about the plight of the Cherokee people the paper would go into detail about Cherokee removal, symmetricalness from the President, Secretary of War and Principal Chief as well as the position of the Cherokee on removal. The Treaty of New Echoed was drawn up and it involved Alias Button, John Ridge, and other Cherokee leaders after the realisation that they would in all probability never receive the justice they deserved.This realization finally came after missionaries that had sided with the Cherokee had been coherent released by the Supreme Court and Georgia refused to do so. This new treaty set up sustenance for the Cherokee they would receive pay for their losses and provisions for the move. However, the the opposition continues with John Ross, Principal Chief for the Cherokee, trying everything that he knew to do to try and prevent the injustices that were being aired out against the Cherokee.He not only tried to get the Treaty of New Echoed thrown out because he claimed that the Treaty Party, behaved unethically, illegally, and undemocratically and he believed they had subverted the incontrovertible will of the people (Purdue and Green, 153). John Ross also tried his best to get more money for the land in the East, title to the land in the west guaranteed, alternatives to removal, and possibly deportation into Mexico so that the Cherokee people would be finished with the United States once and for all.None of these worked for John Ross o he took to writing about the injustices done to the Cherokee people not only by the United States but also by the Treaty Party, with the help of a frie nd John Howard Payne. The Treaty Partys Defense was taken up by Alias Button who along with the others whom had formed the Treaty Party believed that the only way for Cherokees to get out of their current maculation was to give up land. The Georgia Laws prevented the Cherokee from holding any type of elections or debates regarding the removal process and so therefore Button could not phonation his opinions or concerns for the Cherokee people.The only way that Button had to get his point crosswise was to start writing about what he felt the Cherokee people needed to hear in other publications. Button also felt that most Cherokee would and could not make rational decisions when it came to removal. This all led up to readjustment for the Cherokees which was not only a slow process but one that not many would take into consideration. The Cherokee that did enroll would revoke their citizenship and then there was the matter of discouraging others from signing the enrollment forms. With Georgia being so mad about the slowness of the move, President Jackson appointed n 1831 Benjamin F.Currency as chief enrolling agent. Mr.. Currency wanted to make the lives of the Cherokee Indians so bad that they would take to the move without further stall. However, forced removal would come to the Cherokee in the end they were forced into stockades in which many died before the move even began. or so of the missionaries whom had been with the Cherokee and had taken up their cause went along with them to the stockades. This move would prove to the Cherokee Just how much the missionaries cared for them and the situation that the United States had put the Cherokee people in.Even Jones was one of those missionaries and he would be placed in charge of one of the many detachments of Cherokee people when they finally start moving along the Trail of Tears. Once the move began the Cherokee people would be waiting to cross the Mississippi because of huge chunks of ice which made the dange rous river even more so. Some of the detachments of Cherokee would camp along the river as they waited for the thaw to occur this waiting was unbearable, extremely cold and very damp. These conditions were another reason some of the Cherokee would not make it to the new Cherokee Nation.The removal to the new Cherokee Nation was not only operose for the older Cherokee but also to the Cherokee children. Removal through a childs look was a very difficult thing to swallow the children see that their lives are not being valued by the United States. They are being forced to move once again from land that is rightfully their peoples some of them are also being separated from their families. For them it is probably difficult to represent the full extent of what is happening and some of them were told of what happened as they grew up because of their young age at the mime of the removal.Once the Cherokee finally reach their destination it is time for rebuilding the Cherokee Nation which s till consists of political turmoil however, the resilient Cherokee people are starting to rebuild their lives. Not only are they building homes, but they are farming, sending their children to school and attending council meetings. It is as if things are starting to become normal for them again they want to forget the quondam(prenominal) and look towards their future. Removal 150 years later is still something that should be taught and talked about. As you read of the things that theUnited States people did to the natives of this great country it is Just alarming to think that this is how this country began. In reading the Cherokee Removal it teaches you Just the shape of trials and tribulations that the Cherokee people went through. To think that the people of the United States called the Cherokee or other Indians uncivilized is a laughing matter if anyone in this country was uncivilized it would be the people who came in and took over what rightfully belonged to the natives. Ch erokee Removal is something that should have never been allowed to happen hey were here first.If the Cherokee rebelled they had every right to do so, they were losing everything that they had worked for to people who hadnt bring up a finger to do so. This brings me to a whole new realization that the great United States and her people back then were not so great, they were bullies, many of which would not stand up for what is right in this world. They wouldnt take a stand to those who thought that they could Just come in and take over a land that did not belong to them. People of power sometimes Just need a good cold lesson in manners and hats right and whats wrong.