Native American Removal Policy and the 'Trail of Tears'

1
Native American Removal Policy and the 'Trail of
Tears'
2
Early American Views of Native American Land
Rights

• From the beginning of European settlement on the
  East Coast of what would become the United
  States, American colonists looked for
  justification to displace Native American
  populations.
• This piece written by John Cotton, a Puritan
  leader, who helped establish the groundwork for
  colonization and property rights as the measure
  for possession of the land.
• The placing of a people in this or that country
  is from the appointment of the Lord. . .
• Quest. Wherein doth this work of God stand in
  appointing a place for a people?
• Answ. First, when God espies or discovers a land
  for a people, as in Ezek. 206 "He brought them
  into a land that He had espied for them." And,
  that is, when either He gives them to discover it
  themselves, or hears of it discovered by others,
  and fitting them.

3

• This is an excerpt of a letter written in Boston
  four years after its founding, with future
  Connecticut governor John Winthrop explaining the
  difficulties of establishing a self-sustaining,
  self-governing settlement.
• Most notably, Winthrop described the colonists'
  mounting conflict with the Indians and the death
  of many Native Americans from smallpox as a sign
  of providence and good fortune.
• Our Churches are governed by Pastors, Teachers
  ruling Elders and Deacons, yet the power lies in
  the whole Congregation and not in the Presbytery
  not in a larger council of churches further
  than for order and precedence. For the natives,
  they are near all dead of the smallpox, so the
  Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.

4
Hopewell Treaty with the Cherokee (1785)

• Beginning shortly after the founding of the
  United States, Georgia officials initiated
  agreements with the Cherokee Indians of the area
  that eventually eroded the Cherokees' claims to
  the land.
• The opening act in the dispossession of Cherokee
  lands was concluded at Hopewell, Georgia in 1785.
  
• Specifically, the treaty established boundaries
  for Cherokee hunting grounds, erecting
  limitations on culturally significant land.
• Although, in the treaty's conclusion, the
  hatchet, is said to be forever buried and
  peace and friendship re-established, the
  post-Hopewell realities proved far different.

5
Holston Treaty with the Cherokee (1791)

• Six years after the Hopewell Treaty, another
  landmark US/Cherokee treaty was concluded at
  Holston manufacturing further boundaries and
  extinguishing forever all claims of the Cherokee
  nation" to land in the stipulated areas.
• Expanding upon the dispossession guaranteed at
  Hopewell, the Holston treaty began the
  progressive erosion of Cherokee land rights on
  non-hunting grounds.
• Marked by its aggressive rhetoric, the Cherokees
  agreed to relinquish and cede all lands
  residing outside the established demarcation line
  and permitted citizens of the United States
  access to a road running through Cherokee lands,
  as well as navigation of the Tennessee River.

6
Treaty of Cherokee Agency (1817)

• This treaty marked the beginnings of a new
  campaign designed to divide the Cherokee nation
  with an ever-present eye on the ultimate goal of
  mass removal.
• Although extensive land seizure was included as
  part of the treaty, the nature of the
  governments grand strategy could be seen by
  1817.
• "The United States, my children, are the friends
  of both parties, and, as far as can be reasonably
  asked, they are willing to satisfy the wishes of
  both. Those who remain may be assured of our
  patronage, our aid, and good neighborhood. Those
  who wish to remove, are permitted to send an
  exploring party to reconnoitre the country on the
  waters of the Arkansas and White rivers, and the
  higher up the better, as they will be the longer
  unapproached by our settlements, which will begin
  at the mouths of those rivers.

7
Treaty of Washington (1828)

• This treaty addressed members of the Cherokee
  nation west of the Mississippi, guaranteeing them
  seven million acres of land and a perpetual
  outlet west as far as the sovereignty of the
  United States, extends.
• Such agreements set the stage for the
  justification of mass removal.
• ART. 7. The Chiefs and Head Men of the Cherokee
  Nation, aforesaid, for and in consideration of
  the foregoing stipulations and provisions, do
  hereby agree, in the name and behalf of their
  Nation, to give up, and they do hereby surrender,
  to the United States, and agree to leave the same
  within fourteen months, as herein before
  stipulated, all the lands to which they are
  entitled in Arkansas,

8
Andrew Jacksons First Annual Message to Congress
(1829)

• While denying the sovereign right to Native
  American tribes within state limits, threatening
  extinction as a consequence for remaining east of
  the Mississippi, and combining the language of
  paternalism, Jackson lays out his policy of
  voluntary removal to areas west of the
  Mississippi.

9
The Indian Removal Act (1830)

• Passed during Andrew Jacksons second year in
  office, the Indian Removal Act set the stage for
  his administrations handling of Native American
  affairs during the remainder of Jacksons
  presidency.
• Removal of eastern tribes to lands west of the
  Mississippi became the hallmark of Jacksonian
  Indian policy including, most notably, the 'Trail
  of Tears,' (which actually transpired shortly
  after Jackson had left office.)
• Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
  Representatives of the United States of America,
  in Congress assembled, That it shall and may be
  lawful for the President of the United States to
  cause so much of any territory belonging to the
  United States, west of the river Mississippi, not
  included in any state or organized territory, and
  to which the Indian title has been extinguished,
  

10
Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

• In this landmark decision, the Supreme Court
  ruled the State of Georgia had no power to pass
  any law affecting the Cherokee Nation,
  maintaining the exclusivity of federal
  jurisdiction.
• As a distinct political community bound by
  territorial boundaries and established rights,
  Worcester, in principle, guaranteed the sovereign
  claims of the Cherokee nation and the lands
  within their boundaries.
• Although a potential watershed moment, the
  decision sparked intense disagreement between the
  three branches and crumbled under the weight of
  Jacksons objection.
• Responding to Chief Justice John Marshalls
  written decision it was rumored Jackson remarked,
  The Chief Justice has made his decision, now let
  him enforce it.
• Unfortunately for the Cherokee Nation the social
  principles outlined in Worcester never became a
  political reality because of later developments.

11
Treaty of New Echota (1835)

• After a winding trail of treaties designed to
  dispossess the Cherokee Nation of various parts
  of their land, the Treaty of New Echota
  represented the final blow to traditional
  Cherokee land rights.
• Dripping with paternalism, New Echota ceded all
  land possessed by the Cherokee Nation east of the
  Mississippi to the United States and reaffirmed
  the seven million acre and perpetual outlet
  commitments.
• The United States shall always have the right to
  make and establish such post and military roads
  and forts in any part of the Cherokee country, as
  they may deem proper for the interest and
  protection of the same and the free use of as
  much land, timber, fuel and materials of all
  kinds for the construction and support of the
  same as may be necessary

12

• In an impassioned letter to Congress, Chief John
  Ross exposed the illegitimacy of the Treaty of
  New Echota and described its consequences on the
  people of the Cherokee Nation.
• His words echo through the history of treaty
  negotiations between Native Americans and the
  government of the United States.
• We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our
  utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the
  condition in which we are placed, by the
  audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have
  managed their stratagems with so much dexterity
  as to impose on the Government of the United
  States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and
  reiterated protestations.
• The instrument in question is not the act of our
  Nation we are not parties to its covenants it
  has not received the sanction of our people.

13
The 'Trail of Tears'

• In 1838, General Winfield Scott arrived in
  Georgia with approximately 7,000 men to enforce
  the provisions of the Treaty of New Echota, which
  prescribed the relocation of the Cherokees in
  Georgia to what is now Oklahoma.
• Somewhere between 3,000-5,000 Cherokees died en
  route in what became known as the 'Trail of
  Tears.'