10. Document Projects for Exploring American Histories, Document Project 10: The Cherokee Removal

**Quiz for Document 10.5: John Ross, On the Treaty of New Echota (1836)**

Quiz for Document 10.5: John Ross, On the Treaty of New Echota (1836)

Document 10.5: John Ross, On the Treaty of New Echota (1836)

Select the best answer for each question. Click the “submit” button for each question to turn in your work.

Question 10.13

1. John Ross argues in this document that the Treaty of New Echota is illegitimate because

it was negotiated and signed by Georgia representatives rather than by U.S. leaders.

the Indians who negotiated and signed it were not official representatives of the Cherokees.

the Americans who negotiated it refused to honor Jackson’s promise to pay for the land.

it violated the decision of the Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.

Question 10.14

2. Why does John Ross praise George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and call the U.S. government and the people of the United States “honorable and highminded” and kind and humane, even though they are responsible for the treaty he speaks about?

He hopes that appealing to American political ideals will convince U.S. leaders to reverse their actions.

Ross respects the U.S. government’s history of decency in its relations with Indians and hopes good relations will continue.

He believes that unauthorized Americans created the treaty and that the government played no part in it.

Ross thinks that Andrew Jackson was behind the treaty but that the other branches of government won’t permit it to stand.

Question 10.15

3. John Ross emphasizes the Cherokees’ adoption of “comfortable dwellings and cultivated fields,” their “[m]ental culture, industrious habits, and domestic enjoyments,” and their embrace of Christianity in an effort to

convince the U.S. government that they should be granted American citizenship and gain access to suffrage.

persuade the U.S. government and its people that they can serve as role models for less civilized Indians on the East Coast.

make a case that the U.S. government should consider them a full-fledged sovereign nation and not domestic dependents.

demonstrate that the Cherokee people are in many ways similar to white Americans and deserving of fair treatment.

Thinking through Sources forExploring American Histories, Volume 1Printed Page 76