Jackson’s Policy toward Native Americas

Ø During Jackson’s presidency, Native Americans were forced to move west of the Mississippi River.

Ø This forced removal forever changed the lives of Native Americans in the United States.

ONE AMERICAN’S STORY

For 12 years, a brilliant Cherokee named Sequoya (sih KWOY uh) tried to find a way to “teach the Cherokees to talk on paper like the white man.” In 1821, he reached his goal. Sequoya invented a writing system for the Cherokee language without ever having learned to read or write in any other language. Helped by his young daughter, he identified all the sounds in Cherokee and created 86 characters to stand for syllables. Using this simple system, the Cherokees soon learned to read and write. They even published a newspaper and books in their own language. A traveler in 1828 marveled at how many Cherokees had learned to read and write without schools or even paper and pens.

A VOICE FROM THE PAST

I frequently saw as I rode from place to place, Cherokee letters painted or cut on the trees by the roadside, on fences, houses, and often on pieces of bark or board, lying about the houses.

Anonymous traveler, quoted in the Advocate

Sequoya hoped that by gaining literacy—the ability to read and write—his people could share the power of whites and keep their independence. But even Sequoya’s invention could not save the Cherokees from the upheaval to come.

Native Americans in the Southeast

· Since the 1600s white settlers had pushed Native Americans westward as they took more and more of their land. However, there were still many Native Americans in the East in the early 1800s. Some whites hoped that the Native Americans could adapt to the white people’s way of Life. Others wanted the Native Americans to move. They believed this was the only way to avoid conflict over land. Also, many whites felt that Native Americans were “uncivilized” and did not want to live near them.

· A brilliant Cherokee named Sequoya invented a writing system of 86 characters, for the Cherokee language.

· By the 1820s about 100,000 Native Americans remained east of the Mississippi River. The majority were in the Southeast. The major tribes were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole. Whites called them the Five Civilized Tribes because they had adopted many aspects of white culture. They held large areas of land in Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

The Cherokee Nation

· More than any other Southeastern tribe, the Cherokee had adopted white customs, including their way of dressing. Cherokees owned prosperous farms and cattle ranches. Some even had slaves. From Sequoya, they acquired a written language, and they published their own newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix.

· Some of their children attended missionary schools. In 1827, the Cherokees drew up a constitution based on the U.S. Constitution and founded the Cherokee Nation. A year after the Cherokees adopted their constitution; gold was discovered on their land in Georgia. Now, not only settlers but also miners wanted these lands. The discovery of gold increased demands by whites to move the Cherokees. The federal government responded with a plan to remove all Native Americans from the Southeast.

Jackson’s Removal Policy

· Andrew Jackson had long supported a policy of moving Native Americans west of the Mississippi. He first dealt with the Southeastern tribes after the War of 1812. The federal government ordered Jackson, then acting as Indian treaty commissioner, to make treaties with the Native Americans of the region. Through these treaties forced on the tribes, the government gained large tracts of land.

· Jackson believed that the government had the right to regulate where Native Americans could live. He viewed them as conquered subjects who lived within the borders of the United States. He thought that Native Americans had one of two choices. They could adopt white culture and become citizens of the United States, or they could move into the Western territories. They could not however, have their own governments within the nation’s borders.

· After the discovery of gold, whites began to move onto Cherokee land. Georgia and other Southern states passed laws that gave them the right to take over Native American lands. When the Cherokee and other tribes protested, Jackson supported the states.

· To solve the problem, Jackson asked Congress to pass a law that would require Native Americans to either move west or submit to state laws. Many Americans objected to Jackson’s proposal. Massachusetts congressman Edward Everett opposed removing Native Americans against their will to a distant land. There, he said, they would face “the perils and hardships of a wilderness.” Religious groups such as the Quakers also opposed forced removal of Native Americans. After heated debate, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The act called for the government to negotiate treaties that would require Native Americans to relocate west.

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· Jackson immediately set out to enforce the law He thought his policy was “just and liberal” and would allow Native Americans to keep their way of life. Instead, his policy caused much hardship and forever changed relations between whites and Native Americans.

The Trail of Tears

· As whites invaded their homelands, many Native Americans saw no other choice but to sign treaties exchanging their land for land in the West. Under the treaties, Native Americans would be moved to an area that covered what is now Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Nebraska. The area where the Native Americans were relocated came to be called the Indian Territory.

· Beginning in the fall of 1831, the Choctaw and other Southeast tribes were removed from their lands and relocated in Indian Territory. The Cherokees, however, first appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to protect their land from being seized by Georgia. In 1832, the Court led by Chief Justice John Marshall, ruled that only the federal government, not the states, could make laws governing the Cherokees. This ruling meant that the Georgia laws did not apply to the Cherokee Nation. However, both Georgia and President Jackson ignored the Supreme Court. Jackson said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

· A small group of Cherokees gave up and signed a treaty to move west. But the majority of the Cherokees, led by John Ross, opposed the treaty. Jackson refused to negotiate with these Cherokees.

· In 1828, federal troops commanded by General Winfield Scott, rounded up about 16,000 Cherokees and forced them into camps. Soldiers took people from their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Over the fall and winter of 1838-1839, these Cherokees set out on the Long Journey west. Forced to march in the cold, rain and snow without adequate clothing, many grew week and ill. One fourth died. The dead included John Ross’s Wife.

· One Soldier never forgot what he witnessed on the trail.

A VOICE FROM THE PAST

Murder is murder and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in 1838. Somebody must explain the four-thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile. I wish I could forget it all, but the picture of six-hundred and forty-five wagons lumbering over the frozen ground with their Cargo of suffering humanity still lingers in my memory.

John G. Burnett, quoted in The Native Americans, edited by Betty and Ian Ballantine

· This harsh journey of the Cherokee from their homeland to Indian Territory became known as the Trail of Tears.

Native American Resistance

· Not all the Cherokees moved west in 1838. That fall, soldiers had rounded up an old Cherokee farmer named Tsali and his family, including his grown sons. On the way to the stockade, they fought the soldiers. A soldier was killed before Tsali fled with his family to the Great Smokey mountains in North Carolina. There they found other Cherokees. The U.S. Army sent a message to Tsali. If he and his sons would give themselves up, the others could remain. They surrendered, and all except the youngest son were shot. Their sacrifice allowed some Cherokees to stay in their homeland.

· Other Southeast tribes also resisted relocation. In 1835, the Seminoles refused to leave Florida. This refusal led to the Second Seminole War. One elderly Seminole explained why he could not leave: “If suddenly we tear our hearts from the homes around which they are twined, our heart strings will snap.”

· One of the most important leaders in the war was Osceloa. Hiding in the Everglades, Osceola and his band used surprise to defeat the U.S. Army in the many battles. In 1837, Osceloa was tricked into capture when he came to peace talks during a truce. He later died in prison.

· But the Seminoles continued to fight. Some went deeper into the Flordia Everglades, where their descendants live today. Others moved west. The Second Seminole War ended in 1842. Some tribes north of the Ohio River also resisted relocation.

· The Shawnee, Ottawa, Pottawatomie, Sauk and Fox were removed to Indian Territory. But in 1832, a Sauk chief named Black Hawk led a band of Sauk and Fox back to their lands in Illinois. In the Black Hawk War, the Illinois militia and the U.S. Army crushed the uprising.