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Impact of the indian removal act
Perspective on indian removal
Perspective on indian removal
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Impact of the indian removal act
Perspective on indian removal
Perspective on indian removal
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Recommended: Impact of the indian removal act
“The settler colonial logic of elimination in its crudest form, a violent rejection of all things Indian, was transformed into a paternalistic mode of governmentality which, though still sanctioned by state violence, came to focus on assimilation rather than rejection.” –Patrick Wolfe, After the Frontier: Separation and Absorption in US Indian Policy, 13 Wolfe’s statement illustrates how the US government put more emphasis on legalized absorption of Indians into the White society rather than using forceful and violent methods to acquire the Natives’ land. After the colonization of the westward land and the end of the Frontier era, the US government’s method of assimilation of the Indians started revolving around allotment and blood quanta. With no place to further push the Natives away, the established Bureau of Indian Affairs and the government took action to eliminate the Natives culturally and spiritually instead of physically.
The Act led to an array of legal and moral arguments for and against the need to relocate the Indians westward from the agriculturally productive lands of the Mississippi in Georgia and parts of Alabama. This paper compares and contrasts the major arguments for and against the
The existence of tribal sovereignty over hundreds of years has sparked the assimilation that the doctrine of American Indians is not only a lawful perception, but also an essential component that defines the evolution of our country. Tribal sovereignty addresses the right for tribes to govern themselves (Internet citation) and for them to mandate their property and their land’s decisions, but if so is the case, why have infinite number of tribes been removed from their territories? Without a doubt, this paper will explore and argue how our country has been affected because of unfair laws and policies that have unreasonably been established to tribes. In order to justify this argument, I will discuss the concerns revolving the Doctrine Discovery,
Andrew Jackson, John Marshall, and The Trail of Tears There have been many dark times in our History as Americans. Among them is the Trail of Tears,brought upon by Andrew Jackson, which exiled the Indians from the American south and resulted in the death of thousands on the way to Oklahoma. Before this trying time there was speculation within the supreme court whether to treat the Native tribes as a sovereign foreign nation or as a dependent entity within the United States. I will discuss how these decisions came to be, the reactions to said decisions, and the aftermath of these rulings which inevitably leads to the Trail of Tears.
Furthermore, Natives occupied only a small portion of the territory as evident by the concentration of migrants in the southern most area (Doc 7). Naturally, this transition wasn’t seamless as some tribes refused to leave their sacred homeland. The Cherokees were a prominent opposer, having been forcibly removed and subjected to the infamous Trail of Tears in 1838. Despite being known as the tribe most assimilated to American society, the Cherokees were still forced to leave their ancestral home. Jackson and other politicians reasoned that the removal was for the Native Americans’ own safety and the preservation of their culture, but the removal only tore tribes away from the origins of their culture and
Bridgette Adesuwa Omon Olumhense DBQ #2 The time period between 1789 and the mid 1830’s was quite ambiguous. With the British gone and the United States now in her building stages, an attiude needed to be taken towards the Native Americans, specifically the Cherokee Indians. The administrations before Jackson treated the Cherokee Indians with a somewhat docile, amiable hand, however much was left to be desired on the side of the United States. Many did not want to share the newly freed land with those that were not their own. Underneath the façade of friendship was manipulation, guarded ethnocentrism and racism.
In 1828, Georgia passed a string of laws that violated the rights of the Cherokee people. One of the law passed by the state of Georgia also allowed the removal of the Cherokee from their own land After the settlers that were after the natives land had been burn and destroying houses and towns, and trespassing among other things, with the support of the state government the Cherokee’s brought a case to the supreme court. The treaties negotiated between Georgia and the Cherokee were negotiated as the Cherokee as an Independent Nation, this guaranteed the independence of both the land and the people of the Cherokee Nations. Cherokee tried negotiating with congress and Andrew Jackson, both of which failed. The Cherokee Nation, represented by John Ross who was the principal chief of the Cherokee’s, then filed for an Injunction at the Supreme Court against Georgia repeal the unfair laws.
“In 1817, Americans burned a Seminole village on the border (Florida), killed five Indians, dispersed the rest.” (Shi and Tindall, 306) This comes to show that the trail of tears was not the first ruthless obtainment of territory on America’s part, and as shown throughout History, it was not the last. Territorial expansion helped raise the population and diversity of white men and women, but through the expansion of America in unscrupulous ways millions of Native Americans and black slaves were killed. America’s hunger for more territory was not always satisfied by the thieving of other ethnic group’s territories, soon America began pioneering west once more.
All that the Cherokees wanted was the liberty to remain in the land that they had been inhabiting for generations. Instead, they were tossed around like dolls by the U.S. The Native Americans stood up for themselves and the rules that the U.S. was founded on, yet they got punished. This letter from the Cherokee nation shares the same
Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green argues that although the Cherokee nation had a vibrant and dynamic culture, the fight for their lands brought to surface voices from social groups a part of the American nation that disagreed with the government decision to remove the Cherokee nation from what was rightfully theirs. “If the separate existence of the Indian tribes were an inconvenience to their neighbours, this would be a slender reason for breaking down all the barriers of justice and good faith” (Perdue and Green, 109). Not only did the discussion for Indian removal bring about a new revolution, it sets the political foundation for American women “…with the opportunity to focus their benevolent concerns on a political issue” (Perdue and
7). The work is bookended with contributions by Deloria, each giving consideration to the complex nature of federal Indian policy in the United States. The essay contributors utilize a wealth of primary source material in the construction of narratives addressing various topics related to American Indian life during the twentieth century. These topics include, the rights of American Indians within the context of international decolonization, American Indians and the First Amendment, and American Indian voting behavior. Deloria describes the goal of American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century as providing “some substantial building blocks” with which to engage and analyze the evolution of federal Indian policy in the United States (p. 7).
Many tribes were affected by this act but the major tribes affected are cherokee, chickasaw, creek,seminole,choctaw these tribes were most damaged as also the most civilized. They knew their own language and had many of their own invention to their way of life. When the Europeans came to native homelands they brought deadly diseases and that brought many deaths just about 3,000 Choctaw died and many more tribes suffered but in 18 38 the cherokee were forced out of their homeland and joined the march of tears. On there way over 4,000 were killed or died this brought native populations down 98 % of native americans died during the trial the government was trying to get as many tribes as they could to sign treaties. Chief black hawk leader of the fox and sauk tribes was a victim of the government 's “persuasive” tactics meaning they tortured and abused the natives to get them to sign treaties but some florida indians fought back for several years but the U.S. had power, weapons and numbers.
The case of Cherokee Nation V Georgia was a very important one. For a long time the Cherokee Nation lived in Georgia for hundreds of years. The Cherokee Nation has helped shape our country. When Hernando de Soto came to what is now the United States, he encountered at least three Cherokee Native American tribes. In the year of 1711, the English have given firearms to the Cherokees in exchange for their help in fighting the Tuscarora in the Tuscarora War.
According to the article, “Move the Cherokee to Indian Territory”, it says, “ It is estimated that there are no more than 50,000 Indians in the southwest, which represents more than one square mile per person”. That is a lot of land for the Indians. Technically, each person could get one square mile of land for themselves. Also, the same article states that, “Not only were they given the land in Indian Territory for free, but they were also given $5 million.” The Americans were offering so much for the Indians, but none of them were grateful enough to accept it.
Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less than respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history, and the US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. This precedent of mistreatment of minorities began with Andrew Jackson’s indian removal policies to the tribes of Oklahoma (specifically the Cherokee indians) in 1829 because of the lack of respect given to the indians during the removal laws.