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Why did Indian Removal cause the Trail of Tears

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[[File:Trails_of_Tears_en.png|left|thumbnail|300px|left|Map showing the trails that Native Americans were forced to follow during Indian Removal]]The Trail of Tears was a series of forced Indian removals by the United States government during, but the removal of the Cherokee nation from Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama is 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 an appalling loss of life. ====US Treaties with Native Americans====The U.S. Government used treaties as one means 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 the spread of European Americans westward across the continent. As the 19th century began, land-hungry Americans poured into the backcountry of the coastal South and 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 the result of 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), where 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 way in 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 appetite of the settlers 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, and 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 of no other sovereign whosoever.” When Andrew Jackson became president (1829–1837), he decided to build a systematic approach to Indian removal on the basis of these legal precedents.
====Why Remove Native Americans?====
[[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 Creek tribe, but 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 peaceful. 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 authority over their lands, because they viewed themselves as independent nations.  <div class="portal" style='float:right; width:35%'>====Related Articles===={{#dpl:category=History of the Early Republic|ordermethod=firstedit|order=descending|count=6}}</div>
====Andrew Jackson and The Removal Act 0f 1830====
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 permanently removed west of Louisiana.
In Jackson 's 1830 message to Congress he stated: <blockquote> "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 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 proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement."</blockquote>
Jackson's The first major 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 off their land to make way white settlers.
====Cherokee Legal Opposition====
The Cherokee Nation resisted, however, challenging in court the Georgia laws that restricted their freedoms on tribal lands. In his 1831 ruling on Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that “the Indian territory is admitted to compose a part of the United States,” and affirmed that the tribes were “domestic dependent nations” and “their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.” However, the following year the Supreme Court reversed itself and ruled that Indian tribes were indeed sovereign and immune from Georgia laws. President Jackson nonetheless refused to heed the Court’s decision.
Despite public opposition - 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 A minority faction of the Cherokee nation led by John Ridge realized that there was little they could do to prevent removal was “just and humane” because it would leave the Indians free from influence their lands. Instead of fighting it, they decided to negotiate a treaty with the statesJackson saw anti-removal movement as hypocritical considering United States to get the treatment of Indians in the NorthCompared to Clay 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 hater, but he also did not believe that Treaty and they should be assimilated like JeffersonJackson also believed that Indians ultimately were inferior promised $5 million dollars 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 faction of Tears occurred after his administration he set the policies Cherokee, and the majority followed Principal Chief John Ross in a desperate attempt to hold onto their land. This attempt faltered in motion1838, 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 that the court lacked jurisdiction law allowed the Indians financial and material assistance to hear travel to their new locations and start new lives and guaranteed that the case because Indians would live on their new property under the Cherokee nation was a “domestic, dependent nation.”Cherokee Nation was not sovereign authority under Article 3 of Constitution and were wards protection of the federal governmentIn Worcester vUnited States Government forever. GeorgiaWith the Act in place, Marshall somewhat challenged Jackson and his own ruling from a year before followers were free to persuade, bribe, and held that Georgia laws violated Cherokee threaten tribes into signing removal treaties, commerce clause, and sovereign authority of leaving the Cherokee nationSoutheast. Georgia had created With the exception of 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 Cherokee lands and sentenced to 4 years hard labor Marshall created a mess with his two contradictory rulings.Did not require Florida, by the 1840s, from the law to be enforcedBest described as an effort by Marshall Atlantic to avoid staining his legacy without creating a direct conflict with the Executive BranchJackson refused to accept Mississippi, no Indian tribes resided in the Worcester ruling and essentially ignored itAmerican South. Became moot when Marshall died and he was replaced by Jackson ally and pro-removal Roger TaneyMissionaries were freed after a few months
====Early Removal====[[File:Trails_of_Tears_enIn general terms, Jackson’s government succeeded.png|left|thumbnail|400px|left|Map showing By the trails that end of his presidency, he had signed into law almost seventy removal treaties, the result of which was to move nearly 50,000 eastern Indians were forced to follow during Removal]]Most Indian Territory—defined as the region belonging to the United States west of the southern tribes gave up Mississippi River but excluding the states of Missouri and moved westIowa as well as the Territory of Arkansas—and open millions of acres of rich land east of the Mississippi to white settlers.Seminoles and fugitive slaves who lived with them - resisted Despite the vastness of the Indian Territory, the government intended that the moveIndians’ destination would be a more confined area—what later became eastern Oklahoma.Started Through a combination of coerced treaties and the Second Seminole War (1835-1842).Approximately 3,000 people (evenly split between Seminoles contravention of treaties and US troops were killed).3judicial determination,000 Seminoles forced to move west - a small group remained the United States Government succeeded in Floridapaving the way for the westward expansion and the incorporation of new territories as part of the United States.
====Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears====Cherokees split on the issue of removal.Some members 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 removal[[Category:US State Department]] [[Category:Wikis]]People starved and died [[Category:United States History]] [[Category:History of disease on the way westEarly Republic]] [[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category:Political History]] [[Category:Diplomatic History]][[Category:Native American History]]
====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]

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