Changes

The Trail of Tears was a series of forced Indian removals by the United States government during. Still, but the removal of the Cherokee nation 's removal from Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama is are the most famous of these forced marches. While the Cherokee removal is the relocation that is most often associated with the Trail of Tears, but it was not the only one. The Seminoles (1832), the Choctaw (1830), the Chickasaw (1832), the Creek (1832), the Fox (1832), the Sauk , and the Cherokee (1835) were all removed from their ancestral lands. Each of these removals resulted in an appalling loss of life. ====US Treaties with Native Americans====The U.S. Government used treaties to displace Indians from their tribal lands, a mechanism that was strengthened with the Removal Act of 1830. In cases where this failed, the government sometimes violated both treaties and Supreme Court rulings to facilitate European Americans' spread westward across the continent. As the 19th century began, land-hungry Americans poured into the backcountry of the coastal South. They began moving toward and into what would later become the states of Alabama and Mississippi. Since Indian tribes living there appeared to be the main obstacle to westward expansion, white settlers petitioned the federal government to remove them. Although Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe argued that the Indian tribes in the Southeast should exchange their land for lands west of the Mississippi River, they did not take steps to make this happen. Indeed, the first major transfer of land occurred only as a result of the war. ====Native Americans faced increasing pressure from Western Expansion====In 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson led an expedition against the Creek Indians, climaxing in the Battle of Horse Shoe Bend (in present-day Alabama near the Georgia border). Jackson’s force soundly defeated the Creeks and destroyed their military power. He then forced upon the Indians a treaty whereby they surrendered to the United States over twenty-million acres of their traditional land—about one-half of present-day Alabama and one-fifth of Georgia. Over the next decade, Jackson led the Indian removal campaign, helping to negotiate nine of the eleven major treaties to remove Indians. Under this kind of pressure, Native American tribes—specifically the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw—realized that they could not defeat the Americans in war. The settlers' appetite for land would not abate, so the Indians adopted a strategy of appeasement. They hoped that if they gave up a good deal of their land, they could keep at least some a part of it. The Seminole tribe in Florida resisted in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) and the Third Seminole War (1855–1858). However, neither appeasement nor resistance worked. From a legal standpoint, the United States Constitution empowered Congress to “regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” In early treaties negotiated between the federal government and the Indian tribes, the latter typically acknowledged themselves “to be under the protection of the United States of America, and no other sovereign whosoever.” When Andrew Jackson became president (1829–1837), he systematically approached Indian removal based on these legal precedents.

[[File:Andrew_Jackson_by_Ralph_E._W._Earl_1837.jpg|thumbnail|275px|left| Andrew Jackson (1837) by Ralph E. W. Earl]]Why was Jackson so committed to removal? Jackson fundamentally believed that Native Americans represented a serious security risk to the United States. Jackson had taken part in the United States campaign against members of the Creek nation who followed Tecumseh in 1814. Tecumseh believed that the United States represented an existential threat to not only the Creek tribe, but and all Native Americans in the United States. Tecumseh lead a revolt against the United States to push back the advance of American settlers. Tecumseh's revolted was defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, but Jackson had already decided that Native Americans and US settlers could not live together peacefulpeacefully. As a result , the Tecumseh's defeat, Jackson imposed terms on the entire Creek nation that removed them from their ancestral lands.

Native Americans also held some of the farmlands in the Southeast United States. Several of these tribes had already begun to farm these lands and earnest and make them productive. Both states and settlers wanted to seize these agricultural lands from the Native Americans. The states, such as Georgia, cared little that Native Americans had placed farms on these lands, purchased slaves, or built homes. The tribes did not recognize the states state's authority over their lands, because they viewed themselves as independent nations.

Jackson strongly favored removing the 60,000 Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw , and Creek and Seminole (the Civilized Tribes) from North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. Indian Removal was one of Andrew Jackson's most important goals. It was so important that during Jackson’s first message to Congress, he asked for a bill and funds to move these tribes west of the Mississippi. Jackson's message was clear, Indians needed to be permanently removed west of Louisiana.

In Jackson's 1830 message to Congress , he stated:

"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...Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government 's policy toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and . It proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement."

The first piece of legislation passed after Jackson took office was the 1830 Indian Removal Act. The 1830 Act was just a first step in a long process that forced Native American Americans off their land to make way for white settlers.

While there was some public opposition to Indian Removal, - Jackson ensured that Congress passed bills that removed Indians and gave Jackson ====The Treaty of New Echota Splits the ability to set aside Western landsCherokee Nation====Jackson believed that removal was “just and humane” because it would leave the Indians free from influence A minority faction of the statesJackson saw anti-Cherokee nation led by John Ridge realized little they could do to prevent removal movement as hypocritical considering the treatment from their lands. Instead of Indians in fighting it, they decided to negotiate a treaty with the NorthCompared United States to Clay get the best terms possible. The Cherokee Nation divided on between Ridge's Treaty Party and others - Jackson John Ross's National Party. A delegation was more humane regardingJackson was not sent to negotiate a simple Indian haterTreaty, but he also did not believe that and they should be assimilated like JeffersonJackson also believed that Indians ultimately were inferior promised $5 million and reinforced notions of racial supremacyJackson did little the right to compensate Indians for lost hold the lands or homes (typically only in modern-day Oklahoma in perpetuity. Ridge's group agreed to the terms and received 10% to 20% approval from the Treaty Party in New Echota. Congress then ratified against the protests of their value)Jackson provided woefully insufficient funds to ensure Daniel Webster and Henry Clay in 1835. The Cherokee signing party represented only a safe relocation - while Trail fraction of Tears occurred after his administration he set the policies Cherokee, and the majority followed Principal Chief John Ross in motiona desperate attempt to hold onto their land. This attempt faltered in 1838, when, under the guns of federal troops and Georgia state militia, the Cherokee tribe were forced to the dry plains across the Mississippi.

Jackson ====Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears====Cherokees had split on the issue of removal. Some members of the tribe left early and cherry-picked some of the best lands in Oklahoma, while others resisted forced removal. Chief John Ross supported passive resistance, but it accomplished little. Martin Van Buren organized the removal of 18,000 Native Americans between 1838 and 1839. Anyone who resisted removal was also outraged by imprisoned and then forcibly removed. Due to the claim lack of preparation and funding by the United States government, 4,000 Cherokees that they were a sovereign nation - unconstitutional died from exposure, starvation, and unrealisticHe believed that no new state could be created in disease on their way to Oklahoma. The Cherokees named this forced march "the trail on which we cried," aka the jurisdiction Trail of a stateTears.

====Opposition to Indian Removal====Triggered the creation The Trail of Tears is one of a reform movement - Catherine Beecher (later Stowe) started a the largest petition movement at the that timemost devastating disasters in American history.“The William Penn Essays” was a anti-removal Treatise and became extremely well-known.Martin Van Buren was surprised by More people died on the level Trail of opposition.Anti-removal reform movement led many activists to abolitionismTears than from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, or the 1906 San Francisco fire.

====Cherokee Legal OppositionConclusion====In Cherokee Nation vTo achieve his purpose, Jackson encouraged Congress to adopt the Removal Act of 1830. GeorgiaThe Act established a process whereby the President could grant land west of the Mississippi River to Indian tribes that agreed to give up their homelands. As incentives, Marshall found the law allowed the Indians financial and material assistance to travel to their new locations and start new lives and guaranteed that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear Indians would live on their new property under the case because United States Government's protection forever. With the Cherokee nation was a “domesticAct in place, dependent nation.”Cherokee Nation was not sovereign authority under Article 3 of Constitution Jackson and his followers were wards of the federal governmentIn Worcester v. Georgiafree to persuade, bribe, Marshall somewhat challenged his own ruling from a year before and held that Georgia laws violated Cherokee threaten tribes to sign removal treaties, commerce clause, and sovereign authority of leave the Cherokee nationSoutheast. Georgia had created Except for a law that required whites on Cherokee lands to register with state authoritiesSeven missionaries were arrested for being small number of Seminoles still resisting removal in Florida, by the 1840s, no Indian tribes resided in Cherokee lands and sentenced to 4 years hard labor Marshall created a mess with his two contradictory rulings.Did not require the law to be enforcedBest described as an effort by Marshall to avoid staining his legacy without creating a direct conflict with American South from the Executive BranchJackson refused Atlantic to accept the Worcester ruling and essentially ignored itMississippi. Became moot when Marshall died and he was replaced by Jackson ally and pro-removal Roger TaneyMissionaries were freed after a few months

Most [[Category:US State Department]] [[Category:Wikis]][[Category:United States History]] [[Category:History of the southern tribes gave up and moved west.Seminoles and fugitive slaves who lived with them - resisted the move.Started the Second Seminole War (1835-1842).Approximately 3,000 people (evenly split between Seminoles and US troops were killed).3,000 Seminoles forced to move west - a small group remained in Florida.Early Republic]] [[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category:Political History]] [[Category:Diplomatic History]][[Category:Native American History]]

<div class="portal" style='float:left; width:35%'>====Cherokee Removal and the Trail of TearsRelated Articles====Cherokees split on the issue of removal.Some members {{#dpl:category=History of the tribe left early and cherry picked some of the best lands in OklahomaChief John Ross supported passive resistanceMartin Van Buren forcibly imprisoned and then removed 18,000 CherokeesIn 1838-39, the 18,000 Cherokees were herded west and 4,000 died on the wayThe Federal government never adequately funded removalEarly Republic|ordermethod=firstedit|order=descending|count=6}}People starved and died of disease on the way west</div>

====Conclusion====The Cherokees were removed in 1835 despite a Supreme Court decision, <i>Worchester v. Georgia<* Select portions of this article are republished from [https://i>, that found that Cherokee was a sovereign nation that had rights under existing treatieshistory. Forcibly removing the Cherokees violated these treatiesstate. Andrew Jackson ignored gov/| Office of the courts rulings and pushed with Indian removal. UltimatelyHistorian, over 4,000 Cherokees were killed during their march west. United States Department of State]In a * Article: [https://history full of civil rights violations .state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/indian- treaties| Indian Treaties and the Removal was one Act of the most egregiousIndians were removed simply because states wanted to take over productive farming operations created by Indians, especially GeorgiaNumbers of Indians east of the Mississippi was minimal after removal1830]