Indians in American History

1
Indians in American History

• Civilization and Removal

2
Treaties

• Treaty--Alliance
• symbolic joining
• government to government
• honor

3
Earliest Treaties

• Friendship
• Est. alliance
• Mutual defense assistance
• Trade Economic Symbolic
• weapons, tools, cloth other goods
• food, forest products, leather furs

4
Indian Trade

• Symbolic Act of Friendship
• Economic
• Foundation of colonial economies
• Integrates American Indians into world exchange
  economy
• Goods transform native societies
• new material goods
• new emphasis on commercial hunting

5
Trades Impact
6
Land-Treaties-Boundaries

• Proclamation of 1763
• Establishes Boundary Line
• Boundary to be
• negotiated
• marked
• recognized

7
Transition Tribe to Nation

• Creeks Line Like a stone wall never to be
  broke
• fixed boundary
• fixed permanent boundary
• existence guaranteed with colonial neighbors

8
American Revolution

• Indians on the Losing Side
• Trade economy on decline
• Americans want land--not trade
• American population Rising
• Americans Expanding--moving west

9
American view of Indians

• The Enemy
• The Conquered Enemy
• Indians savage--based on Indian warfare and
  lifestyle

10
Constitution Federalist Indian Policy

• Indian tribes sovereign, independent nations
  w/right to self govt
• Encroachment war
• Moral obligation to protest Indians
• tribes declining
• Want land acquired honorably

11
Expansion with Honor

• Tribes sovereign, independent nations
• Govt to govt relationship with Federal govt
  (not states)
• Purchase land--for national expansion
• by public treaty
• under authority of United States

12
Civilization of Indians

• Two assumptions
• Indians arent civilized
• some can become civilized
• Southeastern Indians
• Intermarriage and progress
• 1790 Treaty of New York (Creek)
• 1791 Treaty of Holstein (Cherokee)
• Northeast Indians
• savage
• Treaty of Greenville

13
Civilization Program

• Economic
• hunting to commercial agriculture
• private land v. communal lands
• Social
• women sexual reformation and domestic gentility
• patrilineal v. matrilineal inheritance
• educate and Christianize
• Political
• abandon town life
• erode power of tribal governments

14
Civilization Program

• some would call it cultural genocide
• goal make Indians imperceptible from their white
  neighbors
• Indians culturally deficient
• Africans race the issue

15
The Creek Country
16
The Creek Country, ca. 1798
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The Tallapoosa River Valley
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Hopthle Mico
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A Federal Agents View

• Hawkinss Sketch
• What does the description of Tal-e-see tell us
  about Creek society and govt?
• What does it say about Hawkins?

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Cherokees

• Civilized?
• Written Law Code
• Constitution
• Learn to write in Cherokee
• Tensions
• religion
• patrilineal v. matrilineal
• traditional v. new ways

21
Federal-State Conflict

• How and Why?
• states want Indians out
• extend inequitable laws over tribes
• program of harassment and pressure
• extreme pressure by S. and W. on federal govt to
  extinguish Indian title to land

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Georgia Laws, 1829-1830

• Laws of the Cherokee Nation null void
• Illegal to prevent and Indian from emigrating
• Illegal to prevent an Indian from selling
  property
• No Indian or descendant of any Indian shall be a
  competent witness in court
• Tribal assembly unlawful

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Motives

• Greed - land and other resources
• Racism - Indians inferior
• Fear

24
Views Lewis Cass

• Indian populations declining
• Civilization a total failure
• Indians
• despise labor
• government unknown among them
• roam the forests at will
• have not reclaimed the earth from a state of
  nature as the Creator intended

25
Views William Penn (Jeremiah Evarts)

• Indians have a right to their land
• Indians have their own form of govt and have not
  surrendered their sovereignty
• U.S. should uphold previous treaties

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Views William Penn (Jeremiah Evarts)

• Are we to declare to mankind, that in our
  country law is totally inadequate to answer the
  great end for which human laws are made, that is,
  the protection of the weak against the strong?

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Removal

• Accomplished via Treaty (not law)
• Actual form Land Exchange

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Jacksons Message on Indian Removal

• Indians able to pursue happiness in their own
  way
• characterized as fair exchange
• will save the Indians
• to go to a new land to better oneself is a normal
  event

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Jacksons Message on Indian Removal

• end federal-state conflict
• open up large tracts of land for civilized
  population
• national security
• protect Indians from power of the states

30
Jacksons Message on Indian Removal

• Some facts incorrect
• Some assumptions invalid
• Not all motives revealed

31
Indian Removal Act,1830

• Pres. to set aside Indian territory on public
  lands west of Miss. R.
• Exchange districts there for land occupied by
  Indians in the east
• Grant tribes absolute ownership to new land
  forever
• treat with tribes for rearrangement of boundaries
  to effect removal

32
Indian Removal Act, 1830

• Property left behind by emigrating Indians to be
  appraised and compensation paid
• grant emigrants aid and assistance on journey
  and first year in new country
• protect emigrants from hostile western Indians
  and other intruders
• continue power exercised over tribes by Trade and
  Intercourse Acts

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Southeastern Removal Treaties (Civilized Tribes)

• 1830 Removal Act
• 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (Choctaw)
• 1832 Treaty of Pontotoc (Chickasaw)
• 1832 Treaty of Paynes Landing (Seminole)
• 1832 Treaty of Washington (Creek)
• 1835 Treaty of New Echota (Cherokee)

34
Removal Treaties

• U.S. employed questionable methods
• bribes
• negotiated w/ non-authorized chiefs
• coercion

35
EmigrationA Brutal Experience

• Choctaw unprepared and under funded
• Creeks (war in 1836)
• Cherokee Trail of Tears
• Seminole fight

36
Cherokee Indians

• Fight in the U.S. court system
• Wage public relations campaign
• Divided
• John Ross
• Treaty Party (John Ridge)

37
Ah-he-lah-qey-yah

• Spoliation Claim
• What does the claim tell us about
• the process of removal?
• the lifestyle of Ah-he-lah-qey-yah?

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Removal-Discussion Questions

• Were the assumptions about Indians valid?
• Was removal ethnic cleansing?
• Was it constitutional?
• Was it in the best American tradition?
• What were the other options?

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Removal-Discussion Questions

• Indians divided over the proper course. Put
  yourself in their shoes. What do you believe was
  the best option for Indians in the 1830s?

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Removal-Discussion Questions

• Wallace The U.S. acquired millions of acres of
  fertile Southern land, which it sold at little or
  no profit to speculators and settlers, thereby in
  effect subsidizing the expansion of the cotton
  industry and the slave system along with it. Do
  you agree?

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Teaching Resources

• U. S. Indian Policy, 1815-1860 Removal to
  Reservations A Unit of Study for Grades 8 12.
  Compiled by David L. Ghere and Jan F. Spreeman.
  Organization of American Historians and the
  National Center for History in the Schools, 2000.
• http//www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/

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Teaching Resources

• National Humanities Center Web Site A toolbox
  with on-line professional development seminars,
  including documents and background information.
  Includes excellent unit on Expansion (1815-1850).
• http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/pds/pds.htm

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Suggested Readings
44
An overview of removal

• Foreman, Grant, Indian Removal The Emigration of
  the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Norman
  University of Oklahoma Press, 1932. A dated but
  valuable source.

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Primary Sources

• The Cherokee Removal A Brief History with
  Documents. Edited with an Introduction by Theda
  Perdue and Michael D. Green. The Bedford Series
  in History and Culture. Boston Bedford/St.
  Martin's Press, 1995. (a great source of primary
  documents)

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For the Creek Indians

• Wright, J. Leitch. Jr. Creeks and Seminoles
  Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge
  People. Chapter 10 "Dispersal and Survival."
  Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 1986.