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Indian Removal Dbq

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One of the many subjects of critical importance in American history was the relocation of American Indians, known as the Indian Removal. President Andrew Jackson favored the rapid settlement of Western and Southern lands by whites, therefore he wanted to make a drastic change, and he certainly did. In his two terms as president, Jackson worked to implement his vision of a politics of opportunity for all white men (The American Promise, 285). He held the belief that previous efforts to promote the assimilation of Indian peoples had failed. In his 1830 letter to Congress, Jackson announced the benefits resulting from the relocation of the native people, and the “pecuniary advantages” that such movement would bestow on the Anglo American population …show more content…

Conversely, the Choctaws, Creeks, and the Chickasaws negotiated resettlement. Sadly, they never saw any of the promised federal money they were assured to receive. The Seminoles retreated into the swamp lands of Florida where from 1835 to 1842 they fought United States troops. In the end, only a few hundred eluded death or capture. Meanwhile, the Cherokee had been trying every available avenue to resist the removal policy. The immense majority of Cherokees did not want to move west, and their leadership, primarily John Ross, fought very hard against the removal. They fought the relocation in a number of ways, but there was one that was most significant. Their fight in Supreme Court brought a great deal of attention to the historians. In 1832, the Worcester v. Georgia case was handed down by the Supreme Court. This case recognized that the Cherokees did indeed have sovereign rights. It also recognized their existence as a “distinct community, occupying its own territory, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force” (The American Promise, 287). This decision was extremely important because it nullified Georgia law within the Cherokee …show more content…

The government did nothing about it, allowing the situation to worsen. Georgia legislature then established a lottery and began distributing Cherokee land to its own citizens. In 1835, a small, unauthorized faction of the acculturated leaders signed a treaty selling all the tribal lands to the state, which rapidly resold the land to the whites (The American Promise, 287). In October of 1838, the forced migration on 18,000 Cherokees began, known as the Trail of Tears. Men were seized in their fields, women were taken from their wheels, and children from their play. In 1838-1839, they lost people in the stockades and they lost them on the cold walk in the dead of the winter. Around 4,000 died, and this atrocity separated families and broke apart communities. The historic patterns of villages and families were disturbed and destroyed. Survivors joined the fifteen thousand Creek, twelve thousand Choctaw, five thousand Chickasaw, and several thousand Seminole Indians also forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (The American Promise,

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