Andrew Jackson & the Cherokee Nation

Indian Removal Act

By the 1820s-30s the Cherokees were referred to as a "civilized nation". Many of their leaders were well educated; many more could read and write; they had their own written language, a constitution, schools, and their own newspaper. They had also adopted many of the skills of the white man to improve their living conditions.

However, the white population of Georgia had run out of new land in the state to settle on and farm. By the 1820s poor whites sought to get their hands on the fertile Cherokee lands of western Georgia. Additionally, in 1830 gold was found on Cherokee lands. So, the state of Georgia held lotteries to give Cherokee land and gold rights to whites. The state was eager to push the Cherokee off their land and turn it over to white settlers.

Things got worse for the Cherokee. In 1830 Congress passed a law known as the Indian Removal Act. This law gave President Andrew Jackson the power to make treaties which would relocate the eastern Indians to a territory west of the Mississippi

Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia (Supreme Court Case)

Why should the Cherokee be removed from their lands when they no longer threatened white settlements and could compete with them on many levels? They intended to fight against their removal, and they figured they had many ways to do it. As a last resort they planned to bring suit before the Supreme Court.

In the celebrated Cherokee Nation v. Georgia the Cherokee asked the court to allow the Cherokee to remain in Georgia without interference by the state’s government.

Chief Justice John Marshall handed down his decision on March 18, 1831. Marshall ruled that the Cherokee had to follow laws of the United States government, but he also ruled that Georgia could not force the Cherokee off their land. When the Cherokees read Marshall's decision their main Chief told his people they had won and did not need to leave their land.

Supreme Court Case- Worcester v. Georgia

Andrew Jackson and the authorities of Georgia continued to push to get the Cherokee off their land. In late December 1830, the state passed another law prohibiting white men from entering Indian country after March 1, 1831, without a license from the state. This law was intended to keep interfering white ministers and missionaries from encouraging the Indians to disobey Georgia law. Eleven such missionaries were arrested for violating the 1831 law, nine of these missionaries accepted pardons from the governor in return for a promise that they would cease violating Georgia law. But Samuel A. Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler refused the pardon, and they were sentenced to the state prison. They appealed the verdict and their case came before the Supreme Court.

On March 3, 1832, Chief Justice John Marshall again ruled in the case Worcester v. Georgia. In this case the Supreme Court ruled that all the laws of Georgia dealing with the Cherokees were unconstitutional, null, and void, and the two imprisoned missionaries were freed. According to the court’s decision in Worcester vs. Georgia, the state of Georgia did not have the right or power to make laws for the Cherokee… this included laws that would remove them from their land.

President Andrew Jackson disagreed with the courts decision in this case and was not going to let it stand in the way of his plans top remove the Cherokee. In his response to the court’s decision Jackson stated: “Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it”.

Treaty of New Echota

At this time two different groups of Cherokee politicians emerged both claiming to be the representatives of the whole Cherokee Nation. One group was led was by Chief John Ross, a mixed-blood of Scottish and one-eighth Cherokee descent. Ross’s group was opposed to the removal and planned to resist the US Government. Ross’s group was supported by the vast majority of the Cherokee people. However, a second group of pro-removal Cherokee led by Elias Boudinot and John Ridge also claimed to be the leaders of the Cherokee people… even though only a very small minority of the Cherokee supported them. Boudinot and Ridge did not want the Cherokee to resist President Jackson’s order leave their homeland and to move west.

Under Jackson, the U.S. government negotiated with Boudinot and Ridge instead of John Ross. The result of these negotiations was the Treaty of New Echota under which the Cherokee would give up their lands in Georgia and move to a territory west of the Mississippi River known as the “Indian Territory”. The treaty was signed by about 100 Cherokees known as the “Treaty Party”. However, the treaty was rejected overwhelmingly by 15,250 of the Cherokee people who denounced it in petitions sent to the US Senate.

Despite the Cherokee petitions Jackson used the treaty as justification to begin the removal of the Cherokee from their native lands. In 1836 the US Senate approved the treaty with a majority of 31 members voting for it and 15 against. Jackson added his signature to it and proclaimed the Treaty of New Echota official. The Cherokee were given two years -- until 1838 -- to cross over the Mississippi and take up their new residence in the Indian Territory.

The leaders of the pro-treaty Cherokees- the ones that had signed the Treaty of New Echota- were seen a traitors by their own people, and indeed all of them were subsequently marked for assassination. Not too many years later, Elias Boudinot and John Ridge were slain with knives and tomahawks in the midst of their families.

THE TRAIL OF TEARS

By 1838 Jackson’s hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren had been elected President and planned to continue Jackson’s Indian policies. In 1838 Van Buren ordered the removal of the Cherokee to be completed. Under General Winfield Scott, 5 regiments of the US troops and 4,000 Georgia militiamen charged into the Cherokee country and drove the Cherokees from their cabins and houses. With rifles and bayonets they rounded up the Indians and placed them in prison stockades that had been erected for gathering and holding the Indians in preparation for their removal. Men were seized from their fields, women were taken from their houses, and children from their play. As they turned for one last glimpse of their homes they frequently saw them in flames, set ablaze by the lawless settlers who followed the soldiers, scavenging what they could. These outlaws stole the cattle and other livestock and even desecrated Cherokee graves in their search for silver pendants and other valuables. They looted and burned. Said one Georgia volunteer who later served in the Confederate army: "I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest I ever saw."

In a single week some 17,000 Cherokees were rounded up and herded into what was surely a concentration camp. Many sickened and died while they awaited transport to the west. In June the first contingent of about a thousand Indians boarded a steamboat and sailed down the Tennessee River on the first lap of their westward journey. Then they were boxed like animals into railroad cars drawn by two locomotives. Again there were many deaths on account of the oppressive heat and cramped conditions in the cars. For the last leg of the journey the Cherokees walked. Small wonder they came to call this 800-mile nightmare "The Trail of Tears." Of the approximately 18,000 Cherokees who were removed, at least 4,000 died in the stockades along the way, and some say the figure actually reached 8,000. By the middle of June 1838 the general in charge of the Georgia militia proudly reported that not a single Cherokee remained in the state except as prisoners in the stockade.