Search

The Online Encyclopedia and Dictionary

 
     
 

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Quotes

   
 

Trail of Tears

(Redirected from Trails of tears)

The Trail of Tears refers to the forced removal of the Cherokee American Indian tribe by the U.S. federal government, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Cherokee Indians. In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Tsuny — "the trail where they cried."

The Cherokees were not the only Native Americans forcibly removed to the American West, and so the phrase "Trail of Tears" is sometimes used to refer to similar events endured by other Indian peoples, especially among the "Five Civilized Tribes." See Indian Removal for an overview of the era and details about the other "trails."

Contents

Georgia and the Cherokee Nation

The rapidly expanding population of the United States early in the nineteenth century created tensions with American Indian tribes located within the borders of the various states. While state governments did not want independent Indian enclaves within state boundaries, Indian tribes did not want to relocate or to give up their distinct identities.

With the Compact of 1802 , the state of Georgia relinquished to the national government its western land claims (which became the states of Alabama and Mississippi). In exchange, Georgia expected that the national government would work to remove the Indian tribes within Georgia, thus giving Georgia control of all land within its borders.

However, the Cherokees, whose ancestral tribal lands overlapped the boundaries of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama, declined to move. They established a capital in 1825 at New Echota (near present-day Calhoun, Georgia). Furthermore, led by principal Chief John Ross and Major Ridge, the speaker of the Cherokee National Council, the Cherokees adopted a written constitution on 26 July 1827, declaring the Cherokee Nation to be a sovereign and independent nation.

Gold rush and court cases


These tensions between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation were brought to a crisis by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1829, resulting in the first gold rush in U.S. history. Hopeful gold speculators began trespassing on Cherokee lands, and pressure began to mount on the Georgia government to fulfill the promises of the Compact of 1802.

When Georgia moved to extend state laws over Cherokee tribal lands in 1830, the matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Marshall court ruled that the Cherokees were not a sovereign and independent nation. However, in Worcester v. State of Georgia (1832), the Court ruled that Georgia could not impose laws in Cherokee territory, since only the national government – not state governments — had authority in Indian affairs.

President Andrew Jackson has often been quoted as defying the Supreme Court with the words: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" Jackson never actually said this, but he was fully committed to the policy of Indian removal. Jackson had no desire to use the power of the national government to protect the Cherokees from Georgia, since he was already entangled with states' rights issues in what became known as the nullification crisis. With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. Congress had given Jackson authority to negotiate removal treaties, exchanging Indian land in the East for land west of the Mississippi River. Jackson used the dispute with Georgia to put pressure on the Cherokees to sign a removal treaty.

Removal treaty and resistance


With the reelection of Andrew Jackson in 1832, some of the most strident Cherokee opponents of removal believed that removal was now inevitable. Led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge and nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie, they became known as the Ridge Party, or the Treaty Party. The Ridge Party believed that it was in the best interest of the Cherokee Nation to get the best possible terms from the U.S. government. Quietly and cautiously, John Ridge began unauthorized talks with the Jackson administration. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Cherokee removal, the state of Georgia began holding lotteries in order to divide up the Cherokee tribal lands among white Georgians.

However, elected principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokee people remained adamantly opposed to removal. Political maneuvering began: Chief Ross cancelled the tribal elections in 1832, the Council impeached the Ridges, and a member of the Ridge Party was murdered. The Ridges responded by eventually forming their own council, representing only a fraction of the Cherokee people. Both the Ross government and the Ridge Party sent independent delegations to Washington.

In 1835, Jackson appointed the Reverend John F. Schermerhorn as a treaty commissioner. The U.S. government proposed to pay the Cherokee Nation 4.5 million dollars (among other considerations) to remove. These terms were rejected in October 1835 by the Cherokee Nation meeting in full council. Chief Ross, attempting to bridge the gap between his administration and the Treaty Party, traveled to Washington with John Ridge to open new negotiations, but they were turned away and told to deal with Schermerhorn.

Meanwhile, Schermerhorn organized a parley of the pro-removal council members at New Echota. Only five hundred Cherokees (out of thousands) responded to the summons, and on December 30 1835, twenty-one proponents of Cherokee removal, among them Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot, signed or left "X" marks on the Treaty of New Echota. John Ridge and Stand Watie signed the treaty when it was brought to Washington. Chief Ross, as expected, refused. The signatories were violating a Cherokee Nation law drafted by John Ridge and passed in 1829 which had made it illegal to sign away Cherokee lands.

Not a single elected tribal official signed the document. This treaty gave up all the Cherokee land east of the Mississippi. Despite the protests by the Cherokee National Council and principal Chief Ross that the document was a fraud, Congress ratified the treaty on May 23 1836 by just one vote. A number of Cherokees (including the Ridge party) left for the West at this time, joining those who had already emigrated. By the end of 1836, more than 6,000 Cherokees had moved to the West. However, about 17,000 remained, and the terms of the treaty gave them two years to leave.

Forced removal

The protests against the Treaty of New Echota continued. In the spring of 1838, Chief Ross presented a petition with more than 15,000 Cherokee signatures, asking Congress to invalidate the treaty. Many white Americans were also outraged by the dubious legality of the treaty, and called on the government not to force the Cherokees to move. For example, on April 23 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter to Jackson's successor, President Martin Van Buren, urging him not to inflict "so vast an outrage upon the Cherokee Nation." Letter to President Van Buren, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838-04-23

  1. ^  Prucha p. 241n58, Ehle pp. 390-92, Thornton p. 118.

References

  • Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
  • Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Volume I. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
  • Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars. New York: Viking, 2001.
  • Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
  • Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.

External links

Documents:

Articles:

Places and events:

Last updated: 05-07-2005 06:27:50
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04