1830 Indian Removal

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Cherokee Chief John Ross began to devise a plan to counter this removal and he stated with the Blood Law which stated that any Cherokee that made a deal to sell land to the United States without the consent of the entire tribe faced dire and certain consequences. Chief Ross then set out to take the Cherokee case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case of Worcester v Georgia the U.S. Chief Justice, John Marshall ruled The Cherokee Nation is a distinct community, occupying its own territory with boundaries accurately described and which the laws of Georgia can have no force and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the consent of the Cherokees themselves. The Cherokees were astatic with this ruling. However, …show more content…

Militiamen were ordered to charge Cherokee country with force. Women and children at play were rustled up and placed in prison stockades. The Cherokees final sight of there once homes would be in flames, loved one’s gravesites being desecrated as they searched for silver pendants and other valuables. A volunteer who formally served in the Confederate Army would state, “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal would be the cruelest I ever saw.” Within a single week 17,000 Cherokees were rounded up and herded to concentration camps where they would await their 850 mile walk of the Trail of Tears. In their walk they would undergo the harsh elements of the weather, sickness and fatigue. They would bury sometimes 14-15 of their people at every stopping place, the majority being infants and elderly. The Cherokee’s would arrive to their new home without their past or their future.
The U.S. stood to gain copious amounts of land and in return the American government would sacrifice its honor. The Trail of Tears and the 1830 Indian Removal would be the beginning of a great division that would occur within the U.S. Americans would later watch in disguised WWII would occur speaking to the similarities of the events and the comparisons of leaders. But what remains fact is the 1830 Indian Removal was nothing short of ethnic