Cherokee Removal: The Trail of Tears

Unlike other Indian tribes, the Cherokee Nation made a sincere effort to adapt to white culture, adopting trades, dress and other customs. Many, like John Ross, lived in brick houses and operated prosperous farms. They even invented an alphabet and started their own newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. Like all other tribes, however, they discovered that nothing could stop white encroachment. With the 1828 election of Andrew Jackson to the White House, they were left with two choices: "voluntary" removal to the west, or extinction. Ross, a chief, and the great majority of Cherokee, thought they had another option: that the states would recognize their political autonomy.

The federal government had, since the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell, guaranteed their claim to the land, but the states that grew up around them following the Revolutionary War did not, and Georgia by 1829 had legislated them out of existence and parceled out their land in a lottery system. The state had, since an 1802 compact, claimed Cherokee lands as its own and was impatiently awaiting their voluntary removal. State officials offered bribes and probed for informants, hoping to divide the nation. At the same time President Jackson sought to convince them that the time to move had come.

The Cherokee themselves had no intention of moving.

Their National Council had gone on record in 1823, "It is the fixed and unalterable determination of this nation never again to cede one foot more of our land." Ross and the main body of the tribe would never alter this position.

Jackson's December 1829 message to Congress made plain, however, that time was running out for the Cherokee, who, he said, increasingly found themselves "surrounded by the whites and their arts of civilization". He warned them of a fate that "surely awaits them," if they refused to move, and proposed "setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi," for a new permanent home, where they could, with benevolent white help, "raise up an interesting commonwealth."

By the spring of 1830 Georgians were swarming into the Cherokee territory, including gold-seekers, who "found their employment exceedingly profitable. " as Governor George Gilmer reported in a June 17 letter to Jackson, When federal troops stepped in to drive them away. he complained of the interference: "The President is aware that such an exercise of power is believed not to be authorized by the Constitutions (sic) of the United States," while asserting Georgia's legal jurisdiction over the region. He was, however, willing to overlook the affront, provided it meant speedy "execution of its contract of 1802."

Gilmer reported that the Indians had taken possession of the gold mines, an insult Georgia was not prepared to accept. If the Cherokee were allowed to profit from the mining, Gilmer feared their becoming "fixed upon the soil of Georgia," and even attracting Cherokees from other states. "The State of Georgia cannot permit her rights to be violated," he informed the president.

When, in March 1833, the Cherokee sought an injunction against Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall acknowledged the Indian right to "the lands they occupy," but he refused to stand in the way of progress. "If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal to redress the past or prevent the future."

A month later, Gilmer asked Col. Stanford of the State Militia to help persuade the Cherokee to recognize Georgia's sovereignty and sign an agreement to leave. He asked Stanford if the Court's decision had weakened their resolve, and also inquired about "half-breeds who could be trusted" with helping swing opinion.

Stanford replied that the Cherokee were still far from willing to move, and they were under the influence of "mischievous and intermeddling" missionaries. Gilmer would soon inform the president that the state had acted to remove "all white men among them disposed to excite their opposition," and that he had the gold mines under guard.

A jailed missionary, the Rev. Samuel Worcester, took a new case against Georgia to the high court, which found that the tribe did have political authority on its own lands, and that this was "not only acknowledged but guaranteed by the United States." The decision freed Worcester from 4 years' hard labor, but did nothing to change Jackson's determination. In fact he was said to be openly contemptuous of the court's opinion.

By 1834, some Cherokee were beginning to discuss the terms of removal, as more and more Georgians occupied their territory and it seemed nothing could be done. The "Treaty Party" was led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge and Elias Boudinot, editor of the Phoenix. They had long opposed emigration, but by November 1834 they had become discouraged about their future in Georgia and felt "It would be the greatest act of humanity to devise immediate measures" and make the best deal they could.

This made them popular with Georgia's new governor, William Lumpkin, who acted swiftly to protect them. They petitioned the U.S. Congress, on behalf of the tribe, for a treaty, but Lumpkin wrote to Jackson, in May 1835, doubtful that the treaty would be accepted, because, "John Ross and his associates,"still controlled the tribe's thinking, although he accused Ross and his friends of a pecuniary motive.

In October 1835 Jackson directed his agent, J.F. Schermerhorn, to make Ross capitulate. It was clear that Ross and his supporters would never approve the Ridge-Boudinot treaty, so Schermerhorn demanded that the tribe meet with him an New Echota, Georgia. He made it plain that there was no room for negotiation, and that a final deal would be made at the meeting. But Ross intended to bring a case before the government on his own terms, and did not attend. Those who did, namely the Ridges and Boudinot, with a small number of supporters, accepted the New Echota Treaty on December 29. The agreement specified a price of $5,000,000 and gave the Cherokee 7,000,000 acres west of the Mississippi. It gave them two years to vacate Georgia.

The deception was obvious. In March 1836, Maj. William Davis wrote to the Secretary of War explaining that "nine-tenths" of the Cherokee would, if given an opportunity, instantly reject the deal, which he judged "a gross and bare betrayal."

Jackson was more than satisfied with New Echota, and in September 1836 he directed Brig. Gen. John Wool to see that it was "religiously fulfilled" despite Wool's concern that the bulk of the tribe considered it a fraud,

The Cherokee Nation was rounded up beginning in May of 1838. Federal troops pursued them all that spring and summer, and the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology would report, 60 years later, many "saw their homes in flames, fired by the lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and pillage." In October they were assembled in their stockades and began to march west. At least 4,000 died on the journey, of cold, disease, and starvation. President Van Buren happily reported to Congress in December that the emigration was a genial affair.

The New York Observer noted difficulties in January. "...many of the aged Indians were suffering extremely from the fatigue of the journey," and their anonymous correspondent wished, with irony, "The president could have been there...and have seen the comfort and willingness with which the Cherokees were making the journey."

Sources:

Cherokee National Council, Statement, 1823

Eaton, John, Secretary of War; Correspondence to William Carroll, Governor of Tennessee, 1829

Everett, Edward, US Congress, MA; Address to the House, 1830

Gilmer, George, Governor of Georgia; Correspondence to President Andrew Jackson, 17 June 1830

Georgia Legislature; Bill, 19 December 1829

Jackson, Andrew; First Annual Message to the Congress, 1829

Marshall, John, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, Opinion, 5 March 1831

Mooney, James, "Myths of the Cherokee" 1897-98

Troup, G.M., Governor of Georgia, Correspondence to Congressman John Forsyth, 1825