1830 Indian Removal

( A Soldier Recalls the Trail of Tears, 1838-39) " The long painful journey to the west ended March 26th, 1839, with four-thousand silent graves reaching from the foothills of the Smokey Mountains to what is known as Indian territory in the west. And covetousness on the part of the white race was the cause of all that the Cherokees had to suffer." A white soldier tells the journey of the natives as long and painful because of the natives being forced against their will to leave their homes forever killing four thousand natives. President Jackson didn’t contemplate the natives life's because all he wanted was more land for the U.S..

As a part of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Native American people were forcefully assembled and made to endure one of the longest walks from Georgia to Oklahoma on what has become known as the Trail of Tears. President Andrew Jackson’s motives for movement of the Native people to a new territory was to eliminate the Native race by stripping the victims of their vital resources needed for basic survival. After 178 years of expansion and growth in the United States of America, the circumstances for Native Americans remain unchanged. President Jackson’s sentiments have permeated the present society in issues associated with the physical and emotional fight to decolonize. Decolonization is both the individual and communal effort to regenerate

The Trail of Tears is an important and controversial part of American history. John Ehle really digs deep into the happenings during this time. Ehle’s purpose of writing this book is to enlighten people that do not know much of the removal of the Cherokees from their land. He wants to inform and make people aware of the politics, changes in society, and the struggles of the Cherokees back in the 1800s.

In the article it states that 10% of the cherokee Indians only moved to the new Indian territory. This means that the cherokee doesn’t wanna move due to their past problems, the cherokee possibly doesn’t want to move due to the fact that their land was carved into something they love, the cherokee may not want to move. Also, the supreme court even says “...Indian Territory shows how little support the treaty has.” , this obviously means that the Cherokee doesn’t want to move at all. More the reason why they shouldn’t move.

They were being treated like animals. They had to travel in the freezing winter with sleet and snow beating down on their backs. They either had to sleep in the wagons with many others or outside on the ground without a fire. The cause of death for many of the Cherokee was pneumonia from the cold and exposure. The Cherokee were obviously not happy leaving their land and being forced to travel west.

The Trail of Tears was a massive transport of thousands of Native Americans across America. After the Indian removal act was issued in 1830 by president Andrew Jackson, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole tribes were taken from their homelands and transported through territories in what many have called a death march. The government, on behalf of the new settlers ' cotton picking businesses, forced the travel of one hundred thousand Native Americans across the Mississippi River to a specially designated Indian territory for only the fear and close-mindedness of their people. The Native Americans were discriminated against by not only their new government, but also the people of their country and forced to undertake one of the most difficult journeys of their lives.

The Indian Removal Act was signed in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson to remove the Cherokee Indians from their homes and force them to settle west of the Mississippi River. The act was passed in hopes to gain agrarian land that would replenish the cotton industry which had plummeted after the Panic of 1819. Andrew Jackson believed that effectively forcing the Cherokees to become more civilized and to christianize them would be beneficial to them. Therefore, he thought the journey westward was necessary. In late 1838, the Cherokees were removed from their homes and forced into a brutal journey westward in the bitter cold.

In May of 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed The Indian Removal Act into law.32 This law allowed the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for tribal lands within State borders. Few Natives moved peacefully, most resisted the new relocation policy.35 Approximately 125,000 Natives of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ – Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole and Cherokee, lived on the millions of acres in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida.36 As new settlers were flooding into the United States, prime farm land was coveted by them.37 Georgia passed laws limiting Native Peoples sovereignty and rights and the Natives used the courts to regain their rights.38 In a few cases, such as Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)

Some Indians relocated peacefully, while most resisted. The Cherokee Indians were a particularly difficult tribe to relocate because they demanded to stay in Georgia. Eventually, the Cherokees settled to sell the land to the federal government for $5 million dollars. The relocation of Cherokee Indians became known as the Trail of Tears, where 4,000 Indians died because of the mistreatment of the Indians while relocating. While relocating, the military that was supposed to escort the Cherokees would take their blankets and food to sell for profit (Jones, 290).

The marches took place over two thousand-two hundred miles, moving the Cherokees from the east to the Midwest. Over four thousand Cherokees died during the march. Those who died consisted of the elders and the infants who could not endure the harsh conditions they were exposed to. Removing them was morally wrong because

The Cherokee, a small tribe of Indians, has been forced to move from their homeland after John Ridge met secretly US official to sign a removal treaty for the selling of Cherokee’s land. Ridge and almost 2000 Cherokee migrated to Oklahoma while the vast majority of the population ignored the illegal treaty and remained on their lands. When the deadline of removal past, the general Winfield Scoot arrived in Georgia with seven thousand soldiers with the orders to remove the Cherokee. And this action was the decline of the Cherokee. After reading the book about writing by John Ehle about the Cherokee nation, we can try to analyze the impact of this removal in the Cherokee’s live.

In the 16th century, the Cherokee Indians were classified as the one of the most socially and culturally advanced Native American Tribes. The Trail of Tears forcefully removed the innocent Cherokee tribe from their homelands. In this paper, I will explain the how the Trail of Tears affected the Cherokee Indians. I will do this by explaining the Cherokee Indians life before, what happened during the Trail of Tears, and the Cherokee life after.

The removal was done by walking, horses or boat. None of those ways of transportation were pleasant for the Indians. The Cherokee Indians in the South were not treated with any dignity or respect. The Trail of Tears tells the story about the removal of the Cherokee Indians from the southern land in the United States.

Nobody's lives would be the same after losing the ones they had lost during the long journey. The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears were terrible events for the Native American people to live through. They lost lives, supplies, homes, and family memories.

While making this gruesome travel more than 4,000 Indians died from disease, starvation and treacherous conditions. This travel became known as the “trails of tears”. These Native Americans were not how white settlement described them. Many of the tribes adopted Euro-american practices and created their own communities with schools and churches, even developed their own languages and created bilingual newspapers.