Andrew Jackson 's The Trail Of Tears

Andrew Jackson, born on March 15,1767 was the 7th president of the United States, who was a self made man, rising to money and power. He is viewed as a controversial historical figure in American history between being a hero or villain. Andrew Jackson is a villain due to his controversial decisions during his presidency, such as the spoils system, the nullification crisis, the Second Bank of the United States, and lastly the most impactful decision, the Indian Removal Policy. Jackson may have been seen as the common man leader,and did many things to benefit the people, but that can not justify his unacceptable actions.

supported a man by the name of Andrew Jackson who was running for President of the

The death and burials of the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears, will determine if the forced relocation can be considered an act of genocide. However, determining the number of how many people lost their lives on the Trail of Tears is difficult to calculate. An exact death toll of the round-up alone cannot be verified by historians. Most modern historians and other professionals agree on the number 4,000 deaths or one-fourth of the Cherokee Nation (Thornton, 1984). 4,000 deaths, is an estimate determined from the 1835 Census that tallied roughly 16,000 Cherokee in Georgia. Only 12,000 made it to Oklahoma, so the death estimate is 4,000 (Wilkins, 1986). A missionary by the name of Dr. Butler, who traveled with the Cherokee, estimated the death toll using eyewitness accounts and his personal observations along the journey. One traveler from Maine described an encounter of one of the detachments stating, “…we learned from the inhabitants on the road where the Indians passed that they buried fourteen or fifteen at every stopping place, and they make a journey of ten miles per day only on an average,” (Wilkins, 1986). Observations like the traveler’s, were the kind Dr. Butler would use to determine his estimate. Later he did bump his estimate up to 4,600 Cherokee deaths when presented with more evidence. However, the 4,600 is still an estimate and the exact number of lost lives is still unknown.

The Age of Jackson was a key indicator of what Jackson is really classified as. The first order of business that Jackson did as President was to create the Spoils System. The Spoils System is where Andrew Jackson fired most, if not all, of his workers in the government. This then allowed Jackson to hire his friends and supporters to work for him in the government. Many people saw this as unfair since it resulted in uneducated citizens working in the government. A positive thing for the citizens of America was the Indian Removal Act. This is where gold was found located in the state of Georgia, where the Native Americans homeland was located. General Jackson tried to force out Natives to retrieve the gold, but treaties declared the land as the Natives property. Because of this, a case between the Natives and the state of Georgia was held in the supreme court. The ruling was in the Natives favor, but Jackson went against the ruling. He then forced the Natives out of their land. Because the Natives were forced out of their land, they had to march all the way from Georgia to Oklahoma, this was called the Trail of Tears. Jackson was somewhat generous since he supplied the Natives with some supplies and money, but it was not nearly enough to last them their whole journey. Many of the Natives died from starvation or from the cold temperatures on this devastating march. The Seminole Indians refused to give up land, though which resulted in a seven year war between them and the United States. Many of the Seminoles ended up hiding in the Everglades, or were forced west. As you can see, the Age of Jackson was actually a cruel and gruesome time for many, but people still somehow saw Jackson as a hero during that

Westward expansion was the “God Given” right to the whites that would allow them to expand westward. Many settlers turned their attention to wealth and conquest more than they had before and because of this greed, memorable impacts were left behind. As settlers moved westward, they started to affect the living of the Native Americans. Native Americans did not like how the settlers came to their home to take over and when westward expansion became a trend, conflict and tension occurred. This tension and conflict led to the Trail of Tears, which was part of Andrew Johnson’s Indian removal policy. The Native Americans were forced to give up their land and migrate to another area. During the Trail of Tears most of the Native Americans died all

In the early 19th Century, the Manifest Destiny led many White Americans to conquer new territories and force Native Americans out of their homeland. The growing population caused the need for people to move to have more space for farms and crops. The religious groups were also wanting to sweep God’s word across the nation by going west. The Native Americans were unwilling to give up their land and fought to keep it. Outmatched by the U.S. Military, the Indians were forced to leave and settle in a territory that was not claimed by Whites. Andrew Jackson, the 8th President of the United States, participated in some of the battles with the Natives Americans and the removal of 5 different tribes from their homeland into what is now Oklahoma.1 This research paper is to study about Andrew Jackson, his battles with the Natives, and what led to the Trail of Tears.

In 1828 Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States. The presidential election of was a victory for Andrew Jackson. Andrew’s Father died soon after his birth. He was raised by a single mother who wanted him to be a Presbyterian minister. When he was thirteen he and his brothers Hugh and Robert volunteered to fight the British. He later lost his brother Hugh to a heat stroke. He lost his brother Robert to smallpox they both got while in prison. He lost his mother at the age of 14 as well to a disease called cholera. Jackson then became an orphan. By the age of 20 Jackson became a lawyer. By the age of 21 Jackson was appointed as the district’s prosecuting attorney. He was known as a hot tempered. Andrew Jackson and the Democratic

Andrew Jackson was born in Waxhaws border of the Carolinas into a family of poverty. His father died before he was born. His mother and brothers died from diseases, which were contracted from the British during the Revolutionary War. Jackson wanted revenge on the "red coats." The War of 1812 was his perfect opportunity. In a brutal battle to keep New Orleans, he defeated the British and became a national hero. In 1828, he became the seventh president of the United States. Although Jackson was a national hero from the Battle of New Orleans, his presidential administration was flawed due to creating the spoils system, sending troops to states that disagreed with him, and the demise of thousands of Native Americans.

Throughout America’s History Native Americans have had their land taken away from them. This started with the Europeans landing in America with Native Americans, claiming they conquered the Americas. This was all allowed by the doctrine of discovery, that allowed European Christians to claim land if documented first (Meyers). Columbus and his crew took the claim of discovering the Americas, also labeling the Natives as Indians because he believed he landed in India. Europeans brought of countless diseases such as bubonic plague, chicken pox, pneumonic plague, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and whooping cough (Ojibwa).This caused countless Natives to die because they had no immunity to these diseases. Next one of the first treaties were broken which cause the Native Americans to endure a great journey and travel countless miles to their new land known as The Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears was a part of Andrew Jackson 's Indian Removal policy, which made 15,000 Cherokees up and leave their land because whites wanted their land(Historical Documents: The Trail of Tears). During this journey, 4,000 out of the 15,000 Cherokee’s died because of lack of food, exhaustion,and diseases(Historical Documents:The Trail of Tears). The continuing mistreatment of Natives has not ended, it is still going on today.

In the early 1830s, approximately 125,000 Native Americans thrived on millions of acres of land in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Alabama. In the next 10 years, a scarce number of natives lingered anyplace in the Southeastern United States. In 1838 and 1839, the Cherokee nation was brutally forced to give up its rightful land and travel on foot to designated “Indian Territory” in modern-day Oklahoma. Upon this involuntary journey, thousands of Indians faced exhaustion, disease, and famine. This heartbreaking event became known as the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears is important to the history of the United States because it is the wickedest human civil rights tragedy to ever fall upon the Native American population, and it was the beginning of the destruction of an entire people.

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Carolina’s. His parents, Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, were Irish immigrants that had immigrated right before Jackson was born. Just weeks before Jackson was born his father died suddenly with an unknown cause of death. Jackson had a very troubling childhood, as a teenager Jackson’s older brother was killed in battle and at the age of 13 him and his brother were captured by the British where there, Jackson would have received his permanent scar on his hand and face from not following orders from the Redcoats. While being captured both him and his brother had received smallpox but his brother would not recover and at the death of

The Trail of Tears was a testament to the cruelty and disrespect we showed toward the Native Americans. This paper will show how the United States used its legislative power and brute force to remove the Indian tribes. From the election of Andrew Jackson, and the implementation of the Indian Removal Act. The Creeks, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole and their actions against the removal process. Finally, how the Cherokee used the legal process to fight evacuation of their nation.

Before the Eastern World knew that the America’s were there, natives to the American lands were already here and thriving. As the land was discovered, more and more people from the European side of the Hemisphere traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to stake a claim for land in this newfound world. Throughout these Europeans settling in, and making new homes and lives for themselves these natives stayed to their own ways, and were slowly pushed westward. The problems between the Indians and now Americans were brought to the forefront as the population of the states grew, and there was a need for expansion. When the Louisiana Purchase was struck between the United States and France, the land previously inhabited by the natives were now under the control of the United States government. As the population continued to climb in numbers, individuals along with the United States government decided to take actions for the removal of these natives. Throughout the book, The Long, Bitter Trail, Andrew Jackson and the Indians by: Anthony F.C. Wallace, the events leading up to, during, and the effects of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Individuals such as Andrew Jackson along with the government used different methods to remove these Indians from the southeastern lands of the United States. Starting in the beginning of the 1800’s,

“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.”

President Andrew Jackson is known as Old Hickory, was born in 1776. At age 13 he joined the South Carolina Militia to fight the British during the American Revolution. He was captured by the British and became a prisoner-of-war. As a young man, he worked as a lawyer in Tennessee. In the war of 1812, Jackson served as a Major General, leading the fight against the British in New Orleans. In 1828, he was elected President, and in an earlier address to congress he suggested eliminating the electoral