Trail of Tears: Jackson's Legacy of Hatred

 

By the time Andrew Jackson won the 1828 presidential election, the Cherokee people, living primarily in Georgia, had adopted the ways of their white neighbors, even to the extent of utilizing Africans for plantation slave labor. As a separate community within Georgia, established by earlier treaties that gave land rights to the Cherokee “forever,” the Indian nation had become transformed into an agricultural society. None of this mattered, however, to the new president whose first message to Congress in 1829 called for removal of all indigenous people to lands beyond the Mississippi. For the Cherokee, the result was the Trail of Tears.

 

The Cherokee Nation in 1828

 

Christian missionaries worked tirelessly with the Cherokee to facilitate their absorption into a white community. Cherokee children attended schools and learned to read their own language following the development of an alphabet or “syllabary.” Women worked at looms while men tended the farms. The Cherokee Phoenix, first published in 1828, provided news.

 

Their homes were made of logs, much like the white farmers, and wealthy Cherokee could afford grander dwellings that were modeled on the proto-plantation dwellings of larger estates. Over 1,200 slaves were owned by wealthy Cherokee farmers. At the time President Jackson determined to remove them to Oklahoma, the Cherokee had put into a place a constitution that was modeled on the federal Constitution.

 

In 1828, gold was discovered on Cherokee land. Speculators poured into the area, creating conflict that frequently ignited into violence. The Georgia legislature passed laws extending its state sovereignty into Cherokee lands, in clear violation of earlier treaties. Some Cherokees, seeing the inevitable result, began to voluntarily leave for lands beyond the Mississippi.

 

Court Challenges to Indian Removal

 

In 1831, the first challenge to Georgia was brought before the Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. The court, under the leadership of John Marshall, dismissed the case on grounds of jurisdiction. Marshall’s opinion, however, left open the door to further challenges.

 

This came in 1832 in the case Worcester v. Georgia in which Samuel Worcester, a missionary, challenged the state’s right to require a license of any non-Cherokee to live and work in Cherokee lands. This time, the court heard the case and ruled against the state of Georgia. President Jackson, however, refused to uphold the court’s decision and ordered the army into the state to forcibly remove the Cherokee. This was the beginning of the Trail of Tears.

 

Jackson’s Military Response

 

In his first message to Congress, December 6, 1831, the president elaborated on the need for Indian removal. “This emigration should be voluntary: for it would be as cruel and unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers, and seek a home in a distant land.” By 1838, however, this was no longer the presidential view.

 

General Winfield Scott arrived in Georgia where the army proceeded to round up Cherokee and place them into hastily constructed stockades. These primitive conditions directly resulted in the deaths of 2,500 Indians. The subsequent forced march – the Trail of Tears, took many more lives. According to army records, 13,149 Cherokee began the journey, but only 11,504 survived. Many more died once they arrived in Oklahoma from disease, deprivation, and inter-tribal hostilities.

 

Cherokees Remaining in the East

 

The most sizeable portion of remaining Cherokee lived in the North Carolina mountains on land few whites were interested in. Over time, these Cherokee developed a modern tourist destination and have built a casino and first-class hotels. Maggie Valley, North Carolina is visited by tens of thousands of people every year.

 

The historical legacy of the Trail of Tears, however, stands as an atrocity and tarnishes the image of a president often considered one of the greatest. Ironically, the same voices that preached abolition were often silent when it came to the treatment of Native Americans.

 

Sources:

 

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Volume Four (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Russell Thornton, The Cherokees: A Population History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990)

First published 9/22/2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich, copyright