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The Trail of Tears – A Turning Point in United States History
"In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" ("Declaration of Independence: A Transcription", n.d.).
Five men crafted the Declaration of Independence, 56 signed it, and the document only gave inalienable rights to the White man. Not women nor people of color. Native Americans were commonly feared and disliked by white Americans. Indigenous people appeared to them as strange, alien people who occupied land that white settlers desired and believed they deserved. President George Washington, for example, believed that the best way to handle the "Indian problem" was to "civilize" the Native Americans in the early years of the American republic. This civilization campaign aimed to make Native Americans as white as possible by encouraging them to convert to Christianity, learn English, and adopt European-style economic practices such as individual ownership of land and other property. 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, the Carolinas, and Florida at the start of the 1830s, land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for hundreds of years. Only a few natives remained in the southeastern United States by the decade's end. The federal government forced the Natives to abandon their homelands and walk hundreds of miles on the other side of the Mississippi River to a specially designated "Indian area" on behalf of White settlers who wished to produce cotton on their land. The Trail of Tears is the name given to this grueling and dangerous journey. The Trail of Tears was a turning point in Cherokee history as well as United States history. It meant the loss of Cherokee territory, the loss of many Cherokee lives, and the struggle to forge a new identity and constitution in “Indian Territory.” The Cherokees faced political instability due to the expulsion, as the violent transformation highlighted the tensions between the Cherokee, the colonists, the government, and the militia ("Trail of Tears", 2020).
Fast forward to the early 1800s. Since the goal of the white man was to assimilate the Native people, the white man had encouraged them to worship their god, learn to speak, read, and write English, and adopt economic practices such as land ownership. The Native people did not believe in land ownership, believing it was provided for them to use, and they needed to be good stewards of the land. The Cherokees' two struggles were their attempts to safeguard their area from white settlers and the Natives' attempts to adapt their culture to meet the attractions and pressures of the white man's cultures. The white man posed a direct threat to their survival. White settlers landed on Cherokee territory that had been sold to them, then moved into areas that had not been sold, a tide unchecked by their government, a people obsessed with the land (Ehle, 1988).
President Andrew Jackson had long advocated for "Indian removal," as he called it. He had spent years as an Army commander commanding ruthless operations against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns that saw hundreds of thousands of acres of property transferred from Indian nations to white farmers. He continued this crusade as president. He signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, giving the federal government the authority to trade land held by the Natives east of the Mississippi for land west of the Mississippi in the "Indian colonization zone" (now called Oklahoma) that the US had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Federal treaties safeguarded tribes' rights to self-government and their territory. The sanctity of these accords, on the other hand, would soon be called into question by those Americans who campaigned for their hasty removal (Carbaugh, 2017).
In a report by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, the Senate gave an overview of the Indian Removal Act and the Five Civilized Tribes. To reinforce the claim that the tribes did not own their land, he established the concept of the right of discovery. In this situation, the right of discovery referred to the idea that whoever discovered land became the owner of the land. It gave the discoverer and settler nation the right to seize the indigenous people's land because the Europeans regarded them as savages and barbarians. According to this theory, European explorers who first encountered indigenous peoples of the Americas during the Age of Exploration had a legitimate claim to their homeland (Carbaugh, 2017).
State governments aided the endeavor to force Native Americans out of the South. Several states had passed legislation restricting Native American sovereignty and rights and infringing on their land (Carbaugh, 2017). The United States Supreme Court objected to these methods in Worcester v. Georgia (1832) stated that native nations were independent nations "in which the laws of Georgia and other states can have no power (McBride, n.d.). Despite this, the abuse continued. If no one planned to implement the Supreme Court's rulings, the opinions would be for nothing, as President Andrew Jackson stated in 1832. Southern states were adamant about gaining control of Indian territories and would take tremendous measures to do so. (Carbaugh, 2017).
The Creek tribe was the first tribe to succumb to the Southern states' ambition. The Treaty of Indian Springs caused the Nation to lose its territories. The contract was signed erroneously by Georgia's governor, George Troup, with the help of his cousin, William McIntosh, who happened to be a Creek chief at the time. President John Quincy Adams initially ratified the deal, but it was suspended soon after. Governor Troup forcibly removed the Creeks from their lands a few years after receiving permission. The Creek Nation's people were naturally enraged by this pact, which was signed in secret (Carbaugh, 2017).
Jackson disregarded several critical portions of the Indian Removal Act. He abused the authority under the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1802, which he used to engineer removal. He also failed to keep promises made in his name to get legislative support for the removal. He violated several government treaty commitments to Natives, including several he negotiated. In contrast, Jackson was not the only president to abuse Congress's powers bestowed upon him. His failure to recognize the illegalities of most of his Native policies led to the oversimplistic picture of Native American removal prevalent in much of the historical literature (Cave, 2003).
The evacuation of the Indians, as carried out by Jackson and his successor Martin Van Buren, was far from voluntary. Several witnesses presented scathing testimony about fraud, coercion, corruption, and malfeasance in the negotiation and execution of removal treaties. Agents of the Jackson administration used massive bribes from compliant and corrupt tribal authorities to gain removal treaties. They frequently intimidated independent Indian chiefs who opposed relocation (Cave, 2003).
A divide exacerbated the Cherokees' problems in the tribe over whether to accept or resist deportation. A small percentage claimed that the Cherokees were powerless to halt the land-hungry Europeans and that the only way for the tribe to survive was to go west. Major Ridge, a long-time Cherokee political figure, led the so-called "Treaty Party" in favor of deportation ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004)
The Cherokee chief, John Ross, led the tribal administration, and most Cherokees opposed relocation. The Cherokees should maintain their legal rights as a sovereign country via treaties dating back to George Washington, according to the "Ross Party." Ross attempted but failed to negotiate a new treaty with the US. Finally, in 1835, authorities from the United States convened a meeting in New Echota, the Cherokee capital ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004).
Major Ridge and some of his supporters signed a compact giving the United States all the lands owned, claimed, or possessed by the Cherokees while Ross was in Washington. The US promised to pay the tribe $5 million in exchange for the new land in the West that would never be part of any future state ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004).
Individual Cherokees were also entitled to compensation under the Treaty of New Echota, which mandated the US government to reimburse them for their homes and other property. Finally, the Cherokees were told that the United States would cover their emigration costs and maintain them for a year after they arrived in Indian Territory ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004).
The Cherokee General Council rejected the treaty because it did not reflect the will of the Cherokee majority. Despite widespread popular opposition, the pact was confirmed by a single vote in the United States Senate in 1836. The Cherokees were given two years to withdraw under the treaty's terms. However, more than 16,000 Cherokees refused to sign the treaty and refused to leave their homes ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004).
By 1838, the United States had evicted most Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast. The Seminoles held out for a decade, fighting a guerilla battle against the United States. Meanwhile, land-seekers from Georgia proceeded to evict Cherokee families from their homes and farms. By the deadline for Cherokee removal in 1838, President Andrew Jackson had completed his second term. When most Cherokees refused to emigrate, Martin van Buren, the new president, ordered General Winfield Scott to collect them up and force them to depart. Around 15,000 Cherokees were imprisoned and marched into crude stockades by Scott's army in the summer of 1838. Poor food, insufficient water, filthy living conditions, and sickness killed 3,000 Cherokees even before the march west began. With no option except to surrender to the US Army, Chief Ross opted to arrange and conduct the evacuation himself. He divided the Cherokees into groups of around 1,000 people who left in small groups every few days. Because federal funds for the mass exodus were sluggish to arrive, Ross and other well-off Cherokees footed the bill for many of the costs. The first group set out in October 1838 on a trip that could have lasted up to four months. Many folks walked. As the winter weather became more severe, many older people and children died due to disease and terrible conditions. The worst was when parties were stranded on the Mississippi River's east bank, which was jammed with floating ice. In March 1839, the last groups arrived in their new homes ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004).
Another 1,000 people died on the voyage west, including John Ross' wife and the hundreds who died in the military stockades. During what the Cherokees refer to as the "Trail of Tears," nearly a quarter of the tribe died. The United States government breached its word once more in 1907 when it incorporated the new Cherokee property into the state of Oklahoma. Despite this, the Cherokees have managed to endure. They are the country's largest tribe of Native Americans today ("BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Trail of Tears", 2004).
The Trail of Tears was a significant moment in the United States' history. It showed the depravity of specific individuals in prominent positions in government and set the tone for the next 200 years. Even today, we have people in power that wish to keep others enslaved or at the mercy of the white man. In 200 years, we should be further along towards equality than we are. Slavery should not still be legal under the Thirteenth Amendment. We have people who wish to cherry-pick the Constitution but scream when they get caught doing something forbidden by the Constitution. We have a state wishing to secede from the United States because it does not agree with our federal government. We have legislators blocking bills that would benefit most of the people of this country because it does not help their pockets. Other legislators threaten to remove safety nets that they claim are entitlements that will cause starvation and mass homelessness. All of this is a direct result of how the explorers came into this country, how the Europeans took over the country from the Native Americans and then forced them off their lands. Our current politicians emulate people like Andrew Jackson, and he is one of the reasons we are where we are today.
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References
BRIA 21 1 c Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the “Trail of Tears”. (2004). Retrieved 21 June 2022, from https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-21-1-c-indian-removal-the-cherokees-jackson-and-the-trail-of-tears.html (Secondary)
Carbaugh, J. (2017). The Indian Removal Act: A Legal Deception [Ebook]. St Petersburg, FL. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1188&context=honorstheses (Secondary)
Cave, A. (2003). Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830 [Ebook]. Retrieved from http://www.trinityhistory.org/AH/pdfs/Cave,%20Abuse%20of%20Power.pdf (Secondary)
Declaration of Independence: A Transcription. Retrieved 17 June 2022, from https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript (Primary)
Ehle, J. (1988). Trail of Tears. New York, NY: Random House. (Primary)
McBride, A. The Supreme Court. The First Hundred Years. Landmark Cases. Cherokee Indian Cases (1830s) | PBS. Retrieved 15 June 2022, from https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/landmark_cherokee.html
Trail of Tears. (2020). Retrieved 18 June 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
