Book Report on "Cherokee Removal"

Book Report 4 pages (1230 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Cherokee Removal

The "Trail of Tears": Historical Background

In the spring of 1838, U.S. troops began to round up people of the Cherokee nation and imprison them for eventual removal from their land. With the exception of a few Cherokee Indians who remained in North Carolina, thanks to agreements with that state, most Cherokees were forcibly removed. The poor logistics, hot weather, and the travails of removing people against their will took its toll, causing thousands of deaths and spreading diseases among the Cherokees. The process of removal came to be known as the "Trail of Tears" and has remained as a blot in the consciousness and memory of the United States. As one of the strongest advocates of Indian Removal, President Andrew Jackson is often condemned by historians for carrying out what essentially was a racist act. But the Indian removal was a more complex process because there were defenders of Cherokee Indians among Anglo-Americans and some Cherokees agreed to the withdrawal act. To understand the complexity of the removal, it is important to look at events leading up to the "Trail of Tears."

When the United States won the revolutionary war against Britain, the British claims to lands and territories in North America were handed to the government of George Washington. Although in the wake of the Revolution many Americans believed that they had the right to dispossess Native Americans off their land because they had allied themselves with the British during the war -- and many American Indians indeed were driven off their land forcefully -- with the establishment of the United States Constitution and the increasing awareness of the power and resilience of Native American tribes, the government began to advocate a peaceful negotiation. This led to a serious of agreements which placed the Cherokee Nation under the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution.

More importantly, Washington and his Secretary of War Henry Knox believed that the Cherokee people could be "civilized" through proper education. Knox believed that the Cherokee were only culturally "backward," not racially. To Knox and many Americans "civilization" at the time meant the manner of living, speaking, dressing, and behaving like European-Americans. Knox also believed that Indians needed to be "saved" from the contact with the "civilization." So, government advocated a policy of gradually "civilizing" the Cherokee through education and encouragement of adopting American ways of life. The Treaty of Holston, signed in 1791, said: "That the Cherokee nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to become herdsmen and cultivators, instead of remaining in a state of hunters, the United States will, from time to time, furnish gratuitously the said nation with useful implements of husbandry" (Perdue & Green 11). The Cherokee signed the agreements but agreed to embrace "civilization" partially. For example, they welcomed new schools but rejected Christianity. Nevertheless, many Cherokee Indians began to adopt American form of husbandry, dress code, the language; some of them even began to own African slaves, and many Americans considered the Cherokee the most "civilized" of all Indian nations.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the situation, however, began to change as more and more Americans wanted land, while the attitudes toward Native Americans shifted more towards racism. In particular, many Georgians wanted the Cherokee land and they pressured their government to act on their behalf. In 1829-30, Georgians passed Acts of the Georgia General Assembly, proclaiming that the laws of Georgia shall extend over the territory "now in the occupancy of the Cherokee Indians," and stating that "all laws, ordinances, orders and regulations of any kind whatever, made, passed, or enacted by the Cherokee Indians, either in general council or in any other way… READ MORE

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