Focus Questions
• Document A: Compare and contrast this Constitution with the Preamble of the
United States Constitution. What does this show about the values of the Cherokee
people?
Similarities:
a. Values
i. Liberty
ii. Education
iii. Equality
iv. Religion
v. Equal justice
vi. Tranquility-peaceful
vii. Common welfare
• Document B: In what ways did the Cherokee people try to imitate the white man?
1. Selling of cotton
2. Washington sent missionaries
Document C: What was written about the connection between religion and being “civilized?”
If they didn’t believe in the same god that she did, then they were considered uncivilized.
• Document D: What does Jackson say when the Cherokees complained about leaving their homes and moving to a new land?
He thinks that he’s right and they’re wrong. He didn’t have a problem with killing them. He had NO sympathy for them at all. He wants to civilize them, make them happy and prosperous, cast off their savage habits, and make them Christian. He believes that we should take over the NA and do what we want to do with them. We could kill them just because they’re different.
• Document E: What does Jackson promise the Cherokees if they move to a new
land as he suggested they do?
He has pleaded to their fathers. He promised that they would get to live. He promised them fertile and extensive country. They would be able to adapt easily with the fine climate and other natural advantages. They were given housing and materials.
• Document F: What are two specific complaints that the Cherokees have had with Congress over previous treaties?
1. They had given them land but now they are going to take it back from them and make them move farther away in 1802. They did this for their convenience. What the US wanted was land to the West.
2. They make treaties with them but the United States never live up to their end of the treaty. The Cherokees think it is unfair that they are the only ones have to accept, agree, and follow through with the treaties. The US government is not sharing responsibilities/rights/treaties. In order to break a treaty, both sides have to come together and agree, which isn’t happening because the US isn’t giving anything to the Cherokees. The US keeps changing what they first said, which means that the Cherokees are not getting anything out of the treaties.
• Document G: What is the point of view, from women, about the removal of the Cherokees?
1. They should not be oppressed; despite color, they are still human.
2. They work hard to keep their culture and should be allowed to.
*They feel that it is ungodly to be teaching their children something and then have someone else come into their home and tell them that they are wrong. This is called assimilation.
• Document H: Did the United States ever make a treaty with the Cherokee Nation? What happened to that treaty and why?
Yes. It was made by unauthorized people so then it was void. The Native Americans became strangers to their land. They became savages again. The treaty was against the will of the Cherokee people. They were forced to act like the white men. (Assimilation)
• Document I: Describe three details shared with us about the Trail of Tears? How do you react to what was written?
They were forced to sleep on the ground or on wagons. Some of them had to walk with no shoes and through rain/sleet/snow, freezing. There were 4,000 graves.
*There was a Trail of Tears because of Manifest Destiny. The whites wanted Georgia. Instead of pushing them to Alabama, then to Mississippi, then to Arkansas, they thought it would be best to just push them to Oklahoma.
Document J: According to John Ross, Chief of the Cherokees, what did the state of Georgia specifically do to violate the treaty with the Cherokees? Why did they do that?
· Instead of honoring the previous treaty, which provided the Cherokee with a reservation in Georgia, the government attempted to buy the reservation. They bought it without the approval of the Cherokees. They didn’t talk to the Cherokees about what they wanted, they just did what they wanted to do. They wanted to start settling west. They did this to acquire new lands, expand west, all to fulfill Manifest Destiny.