Cherokee Laws Essay

The main way Cherokees could be considered “civilized” was to accept Christianity. The U.S. government sent missionaries into Indian Territory to build schools. At these schools though they not only taught literature, math, and English, but they also taught young Cherokees how to read using the Bible and

The Treaty of Hopewell in 1785 established borders between the United States and the Cherokee Nation offered the Cherokees the right to send a “deputy” to Congress, and made American settlers in Cherokee territory subject to Cherokee law. With help from John Ross they helped protect the national territory. In 1825 the Cherokees capital was established, near present day Calhoun Georgia. The Cherokee National Council advised the United States that it would refuse future cession request and enacted a law prohibiting the sale of national land upon penalty of death. In 1827 the Cherokees adopted a written constitution, an act further removed by Georgia. But between the years of 1827 and 1831 the Georgia legislature extended the state’s jurisdiction over the Cherokee territory, passed laws purporting to abolish the Cherokees’ laws and government, and set in motion a process to seize the Cherokees’ lands, divide it into parcels, and other offer some to the lottery to the white Georgians.

Did you know the word cherokee means those who “live in the mountains. The cherokee were very superstitious. ”The beliefs, culture and history of the cherokee tribe can easily be seen in “How the World Was Made.”

The first American slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Their job was to aid in the production of crops such as tobacco as the Virginians “were desperate for labor, to grow enough to stay alive… needed labor, to grow corn for subsistence, to grow tobacco for export” (Zinn 24,25). The slaves that were being brought to the Americas were seen as builders of the economic foundations of the new nation and as time passed the ownership of slaves dwindled but inequality and segregation grew to be more prevalent in the U.S (“Slavery in America”). On January 1st, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order which freed slaves in the United States not within the Confederacy, under Union Control. Two years later the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery but many Southern States managed to create unattainable prerequisites for blacks to live, work or participate in society. With nearly one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans were still treated just as unequally. Oppression, race-inspired violence, segregation and an unequal world of disenfranchisement lingered across Southern States for African-Americans. The Jim Crow Laws

Since international law said that England had discovered the American colonies, they therefore owned all of the land. That meant that the natives or "uncivilized" people no longer owned the land. This group of the "uncivilized" consisted of many Indian tribes which were forced out of their homeland, including the Cherokee.

Since neither the United States nor Native Americans would give up their goals, the government of United States figured that to win Native Americans and get all they wanted, government needed to spend lots of money and time. The United States tried to figure out a peaceful way to communicate with Native Americans. The new workable system fell to President George Washington’s first Secretary of War Henry Knox (p. 10).Henry Knox brought a new relation between Americans and Native Americans. Knox and Washington believed that the “uncivilized” Indian life was based on them not knowing better. On the other hand, their inferiority was cultural not racial (p. 11). In 1791 they announced the Cherokees may be led to a greater civilized society instead of remaining hunters. So women started to weave cloth, these Cherokee planters became rich, and the first law established in 1808 was about preventing the theft horses, also Cherokees invented a system for writing the Cherokee language.

The Cherokee tribe had lost a vast amount of land by siding with the British during the

The Civil War, fought between the North and the South, stemmed from issues regarding the slavery of African Americans. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proposed the 13th amendment which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. The amendment was not ratified until December 1865, after Lincoln’s death on April 14, 1865. Following Lincoln’s death, Vice President Andrew Johnson became the new President of the United States. Andrew Johnson attempted to follow Lincoln’s plans for the time period following the Civil War that focused on easing the transition of newly freed African Americans into a free society, called the Reconstruction Era. The Reconstruction Era set ground for many accomplishments for African Americans including

Looking throughout the overwhelming events the American Revolution had on everyone involved, allows us to examine how the governments’ policies toward the Indians changed over time. It shows how the policy changes effected the Indians as well as the Americans’, their attitudes toward each other as the American’s pushed westward and the Indians resisted. Then the actions on both sides which lead up to the final removal of all Indians to west of the Mississippi in 1830’s.

Once at the highest court available in the State, the Cherokee had kept with their rhetoric that they were not wishing to attack the Europeans or those living near them. They only wished to have the promise of the government that they made to not encroach onto their lands and then everyone can

During the U.S. Civil War, African Americans that were slaves became people of the United States and gained the rights they deserved. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 which ended slavery. This signing also led to the 13th Amendment being created. This goes along with the idea of the civil war that took place in America that was fought over slavery. Lincoln abolished slavery hoping to reunite the Union. During Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation speech, he says, “All persons held as slaves within any State or designed part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be them, thenceforward, and forever free” (Document 10, unit 4). Abraham Lincoln had now freed slaves in

Beginning in 1791 a series of treaties between the United States and the Cherokees living in

Later on “there was intense pressure to acquire Indian land, by debt-ridden states and a federal government anxious to use public land to pay off war debts, and from speculators who saw fortunes to be made from the sale of thousands of square miles of virgin timber and agricultural acreage, of waterways, mill sites, harbors, and so forth” (Wallace 30). Profits and paying off others were more important than the Indians and their rights. Due to these pressures and greed, “the U.S. commissioners at the Treaties of Fort Stanwix, Fort McIntosh, and Fort Finney in 1784, 1785, and 1786 “gave” peace to the Iroquois and the Indians of Ohio. In return, the Indians present at these meetings promised that their tribes would vacate much of their land north

On November 28, 1785 the Cherokee tribe signed the first peace treaty between themselves and the Americans; the treaty was named The Treaty of Hopewell. This said that the Cherokee land was, in fact, theirs and it couldn’t be taken from them. The Cherokee occupied the lands of present day Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. This treaty held its own for a few decades until Georgia decided that they wanted to deal with the “Indian problem” (Wing, Trail of Tears). By 1802 Georgia and the president at the time, Thomas Jefferson, signed an agreement. This agreement was called the Georgia Compact and its sole purpose was to take the Indian lands and force them to move out of Georgia boundaries (Conley 46). The Cherokees did not want to leave their homeland but the Americans, the south specifically, did not give them much

In 1810 the confrontation between Tecumseh and William Harrison at Vincennes, Indiana leads to more lose of land for the Tribes. The signing of the Treaty of Greenville, which took more of the Indians land from them was intended to make things work easer for Tribal members and settlers. During that time frame additional treaties (Treaty of Grouseland and Treaty of Vincennes) were signed. More land was given to Americans but still “resulted in an easing of tension by allowing the settlers into Indiana and appeasing the Indians with reimbursement for the lands the settlers were squatting on”.(DBQ Doc 3)