DOCUMENT PROJECT 10

The Cherokee Removal

In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which allowed for the relocation of eastern Indians, such as the Cherokee, who lived in Georgia, to lands west of the Mississippi River. Over the previous decades, the Cherokee Indians had adopted “Americanization,” as tribal leaders promoted Christianity, republican government, and domesticity in order to exist peacefully within the borders of the more powerful United States. Although these ideals seemingly aligned with those of Andrew Jackson, the president nevertheless championed removal (Document 10.1), arguing that the United States could not progress as long as the Indians lived in the East. The Cherokee Indians were also under assault from the government of the state of Georgia, which had initiated new plans to subjugate them. The tribe turned to the federal courts for relief, and the Supreme Court (Document 10.3) ruled on two significant Cherokee cases. In the end, however, the Court offered only a limited confirmation of Cherokee rights and did little to block federal removal plans.

The plight of the Cherokee Indians and other tribes subject to removal became a national topic of debate. The lithograph of Andrew Jackson as the Great Father (Document 10.4) offers one example of how discussions played out in the increasingly popular form of political cartoons. White men and women, primarily in the North, viewed Indian removal as an injustice and launched petition drives to fight the policy. Cherokee women participated in petitioning as well (Document 10.2).

Cherokee resistance could not stave off relocation. In December 1835, the Cherokee Treaty Party, a small, rogue group of Cherokees, signed the Treaty of New Echota, which exchanged Cherokee land for $68 million and 32 million acres of land in Indian Territory in the West. Cherokee chief John Ross (Document 10.5) was furious but could not convince Congress to reject the treaty. As a result, in 1838–1839 the U.S. government forced 15,000 Cherokees to abandon their homes and march to Indian Country in starvation conditions, a brutal Trail of Tears.

The following documents consider the question of Cherokee removal from different viewpoints: the federal government, the press, and the Cherokee Indians themselves. As you read, consider how these different voices envisioned the place of the Cherokee Nation in the American body politic.