The Re-birth, Revolt, and Removal of the Cherokee Essay

They cried, they wept, they grew stronger. It was a story of hope, courage, and survival. This was the Trail of Tears. Many events led up to the Cherokee’s removal. The Indian Removal caused the Cherokee indians to move west. A man named Major Ridge struck lots of bargains with the United States. This man, Major Ridge, was one of the native sons, born in 1771, that lived in the Cherokee territory. The Cherokee’s lived in the Christians Eden because they believe their ancestors once lived in the same area. Throughout Major Ridge’s youth years, the Shawnees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the United States endangered the Cherokees. Mr. Ridge and his family watched his town get burnt down by riflemen due to picking the wrong side during the American Revolution. The Cherokees watched their world change all around them. The Cherokee population dwindled to 12,000 in 1805, and lost over half their precious land. The United States wanted the Cherokees land, and for them to move west. The Americans offered a path for them to walk down. The Americans developed a policy called civilization which taught the Cherokees how to grow wheat; how to eat meals at regular set times instead of when ever they pleased, how to dress; how to speak English; how to pray in church at certain set times. The United States wanted all the tribes to be equivalent of their white neighbors. Thomas Jefferson states that they could be equal to the whites. John Ross was the future Cherokee chief; he grew

The Cherokee people were forced out of their land because of the settler’s greed for everything and anything the land had to offer. Many Cherokee even embraced the “civilization program,” abandoning their own beliefs so that they may be accepted by white settlers. Unfortunately for the Cherokee though, the settlers would never accept them as an equal citizen. A quote from historian Richard White says it very well, “The Cherokee are probably the most tragic instance of what could have succeeded in American Indian policy and didn’t. All these things that Americans would proudly see as the hallmarks of civilization are going to the West by Indian people. They do everything they were asked except one thing. What the Cherokees ultimately

The Cherokees had lived in the interior southeast, for hundreds of years in the nineteenth century. But in the early eighteenth century setters from the European ancestry started moving into the

The Cherokee Indians trace back somewhere around 10,000 B.C. If you’ve ever seen the movie Pocahontas, that can give you somewhat a good visual to what the Cherokee Indians were like. Dating back to the B.C. and A.C. days, Indians did their own way of living. They didn’t conform to anyone else and made up their own

The Cherokee removal process dates back as early as the times of the first European encounters. When the explorers arrived in the New World, lack of immunity from disease played a role in decimating the native population. Smallpox, measles, and typhus spread everywhere and eventually, only around sixteen thousand natives remained by the 1700's. Even with the overwhelming victory of the British during the French and Indian war, the Cherokee were able to preserve many aspects of their society such as their own local governments and maintaining their crops. Nevertheless, the monarchy still ruled the region and even by the end of the Revolutionary War when the Americans had won, Constitutional policies were implemented to contain and control the native peoples. Peaceful relations existed in the beginning, but it was not until powerful resistance from the Cherokee that forced change among the settlers who kept pushing for westward expansion.

A long time before this land was called the United States, the Cherokee people used to live in this land in the valleys of rivers that drained the southern Appalachians. These people made their homes, farmed their land, and buried their dead. Also these people, who are now called Indians claimed larger lands. They would use these for hunting deer and gathering material, to live off of. Later these lands were called Virginia and Kentucky. As it is mentioned in the text, these people had their own culture and own way of life. They had their own gender roles and religion; even eating food had a different definition than the white man’s culture. They had equality between genders, and other members of the tribe had equal rights to talk. But

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

For a thousand years before Europeans came to North America, the Cherokees occupied a large area where the states of Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia now come together. They inhabited over 50 towns. Cherokee women tended crops while the men hunted and made war.

     The Cherokee culture went through some drastic changes. Schools were set up to instruct the Indians. Men farmed instead of hunting. They established some of their own laws. In 1827, the Cherokees wrote a constitution that provided for a bicameral legislature, a chief executive, and a judicial system (Perdue 13). The Americans tried to make the Indians become Christians. They developed their own writing system. They even began to publish their own newspaper called the Cherokee Phoenix (Perdue 14). The Cherokees became more civilized than in the past. The Cherokees tried to become civilized to make their relationship with the Americans better.

The Cherokee tribe is an excellent example of the havoc and devastation caused by the Europeans. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the Cherokee people were one of the largest of five Native American tribes that were settled in the American Southeast, although they were originally from the Great Lakes region of the country. They were of Iroquoian descent. Contrary to the stereotypical assumption that many people make that all Native American Indians lived in teepees, the Cherokee people lived in log cabins. They were a large, highly religious tribe split into several smaller sections, each section led by a chief. Interestingly, when the American Revolution occurred, the Cherokee Indians assisted and supported European soldiers, even going as far as to partake in several attacks and battles. Around the time of the 1800s, the Cherokee Indians had adopted the European culture, dressing similarly and utilising European methods of farming, building and cooking. During the year of 1828, the discovery of gold was made by Europeans on the

The day the colonists first set foot on American soil marked the beginning of an arduous struggle for Native Americans. When the colonists first arrived, there were ten million Native Americans; over the next three centuries, over 90% of the entire population was wiped out due to the white man. The removal of Native Americans marks a humiliating period of United States history. President Andrew Jackson attempted to consolidate the Native Americans when he told them “‘circumstances render it impossible that [they could] flourish in the midst of a civilized community. [They] have but one remedy within [their] reach, and that is to remove to the west. And the sooner [they] do this, the sooner [they] will commence your career of improvement and prosperity.’” In contrast to Jackson’s justification for removal, historians such as Charles Hudson describe removal as a “‘gentle, almost antiseptic word for one of the harshest, most crudely opportunistic acts in American history.’” A number of American people were opposed to removal, the most notorious of which included newspaper editor Noh-Noh-He-Tsu-Nageh. Author Walter T. Durham seeks to illustrate the abdominal nature of Cherokee Removal in his article "Noh-Noh-He-Tsu-Nageh and the Cherokee Removal” through Noh-Noh-He-Tsu’s personal accounts and through the flaws of the various treaties signed with the Native Americans.

The Jacksonian Indian Policy that was supposed to turn the west into an area of self-sufficient, landowning farmer was soon overhauled… In the end, Judge Kent and Andrew Jackson,…helped impose a system of materialism, dependence and impersonal authority over other. Although this applied to white and Native Americans alike, it is once again the experience of the Native American that provides the most excruciating illustration of the effects of westward movement…” It is the Native Americans who had to contend with greedy as well as power hungry individuals in the government. The forced migration of the Natives west was the key Jackson needed to bolster economy and send more settles out into the country to gain more territory and grow the United

Not knowing how to cultivate the land or domesticate animals, the Cherokee at a standstill. The Whites, who knew how to cultivate the land and domesticate animals, would have been able to utilize the land to its fullest potential instead of withering away precious resources. The Whites tried various methods to persuade the Cherokee to part with their land, but they refused and were frequently abused. “… we have come to the conclusion that this nation cannot be reinstated in its present location, and that the question left to us and to every Cherokee, is, whether it is more desirable to remain here, with all the embarrassments with which we must be surrounded, or to seek a country where we may enjoy our own laws, and live under our own vine and fig-tree.” If the Cherokee had agreed to relocate further west, they would not have had to go through adversity. The Whites would have left them alone, free to create their own laws and free to do what they wanted. The Cherokee pushed their source of food westward leaving a shortage of deer and buffalo and they did not have the knowledge or resources to cultivate the land. Due to these facts, they were not self-sufficient and would not have been able to survive using their outdated methods of living. Compared to the Whites, the Cherokee population was miniscule, spread across a vast amount of land. “The

The Trail of Tears was one that some Native American Tribes resisted, others followed the path. One of the tribes who followed the Trail of Tears were the Cherokees of Georgia; abandoning their lives and adopting the American ideals of agriculture. The tribe adopted the notion of private property, going against their normal ideals. Schools were opened by Missionaries for Cherokees, they essentially embraced the American norm of church and education. In 1808 the Cherokee National Council adopted a constitution the three branches of government, the same as the American ideals. Some of the tribe even started a cotton plantations and had slaves; they had a total of 1,300 slaves by the 1820s. The tribes that also adopted the same concepts were the

Most of us have learnt about the Trail of Tears as an event in American history, but not many of us have ever explored why the removal of the Indians to the West was more than an issue of mere land ownership. Here, the meaning and importance of land to the original Cherokee Nation of the Southeastern United States is investigated. American land was seen as a way for white settlers to profit, but the Cherokee held the land within their hearts. Their removal meant much more to them than just the loss of a material world. Historical events, documentations by the Cherokee, and maps showing the loss of Cherokee land work together to give a true Cherokee