Trail of Tears

California College San Diego
HIS220
October 4, 2014
Will Palmer

Trail of Tears Long before Amerigo Vespucci and other European explorers reached the New World, Native Americans successfully inhabited the land. There has been much debate as to how many people were here. It has been documented as high as 16 million to as low as under four million (Brinkley, 2008). The Europeans’ relationship with the Native Americans was that of give and take. Both taught each other techniques for cultivating crops, the introduction of domestic livestock and basic survival. The Europeans not only bought with them diseases that killed millions of Native Americans, but also their conviction that their own civilization was greatly superior to that of the natives (Brinkley, 2008). This discussion will include Andrew Jackson’s opinion and policy concerning Native Americans, white Americans’ opinion of Native Americans, the “Five Civilized Tribes,” and the Trail of Tears.
Before becoming the President of the United States, Andrew Jackson had already made a name for himself in history. He was a lawyer, politician and judge, wealthy planter and merchant, and in 1801 received the appointment of the commander of the Tennessee militia. During the War of 1812, white settlers near the Spanish owned Florida border were under attack by the Creek Indians. According to Brinkley (2008), on March 27, 1814, in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Jackson and his men retaliated and slaughtered Creek women, children, and warriors. Jackson received a commission to major general in the United States Army. Later in the year, during the Seminole War, Jackson captured Spanish forts at Pensacola and St. Marks in Florida. In 1821, he served as Florida’s military governor for nine months. Jackson, 1828, won the election for the seventh President of the United States, serving two terms from 1829 to 1837. Jackson was a staunch proponent for the removal of Native Americans. According to Africans in America (n.d.),
From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of eleven treaties, which divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west. The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons. They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment. As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, and North Carolina (pp. 3).
In 1830, Congress approved President Jackson’s Indian Removal policy, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders (The Library of Congress, 2010). Africans in America (n.d.) note that, “Jackson's attitude toward Native Americans was paternalistic and patronizing -- he described them as children in need of guidance and believed the removal policy was beneficial to the Indians.” There has always been some tension between Native Americans and the white Americans. In the eighteenth century white Americans thought the Native Americans to be “noble savages, but by the first decades of the nineteenth century, they thought of them as “savages” and wanted them removed from all the lands east of the Mississippi (Brinkley, 2008, p. 233). After the War of 1812, the white Americans wanted more land for agricultural reasons. Some were upset because the Native Americans harbored fugitive slaves, which fought with them during the wars. The Native Americans wanted to hold on to their land and rights. Some of the tribes left without resistance, some fought and then left, and then there were some that refused to move. In 1830, living in western Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida were the Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee tribes. They are the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Some assimilated into the ways of the Europeans and refused to move, which angered white Americans even more. The Choctaws moved in 1830 after signing a treaty. In 1832, the Chickasaws began moving westward. The leaders of the Creeks were imprisoned in 1837, and 15,000 Creeks were forced to move westward. The Seminoles fought two more wars against the U.S. Army until they finally moved westward in 1857. These tribes moved to “Indian Territory” which is present day Oklahoma. All the forced movement was tragic, but the most notable was the moving of the Cherokees. Here is a brief synopsis that led to the Trail of Tears (Africans in America, n.d.): * In 1833, the Treaty of New Echota was illegally signed and over 15,000 Cherokees, led by Chief John Ross, signed a petition in protest. * The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836. The Cherokees were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which time they would be forcibly removed. * By 1838, only 2,000 had migrated and 16,000 remained on their land. Under President Van Buren’s orders, the U. S. Army, with seven thousand troops forced the Cherokees into stockades. Then they began their long trek from Georgia to “Indian Territory” without their belongings, in the dead of the winter. * Four thousand Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease (pp.15).
Although he supported moving the Native Americans out of the lands, Jackson adopted two Native American children that had become orphans due to the wars. Jackson did what he felt was right and what the Americans wanted in the pursuit of “America was destined−by God and by history−to expand its boundaries over a vast area” (Brinkley, 2008).

References
Americans in Africa (n.d.). Indian removal (1814-1858). Retrieved from Public Broadcasting Service.org: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html
Brinkley, A. (2008). The unfinished nation: A concise history of the american people (5th ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
The Library of Congress. (2010, July 30). Indian removal act. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html