Trail Of Tears

We have had many times of crisis during the development of the United States, from the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812 to the Civil War. Of all of these devastating events in America’s history, many people claim that the Trail of Tears was the most traumatizing. The trouble started in 1719, by the Treaty of Holston. This treaty was created by Americans in the hope of making Cherokee tribes live as the Americans did by becoming farmers of some sort, instead of the Cherokee way of being hunters. The Cherokee tribe soon converted themselves into a mostly agricultural society. The white man practices of turnpike operators, ferrymen, slaveholders, and wealthy landowners, was also used by the Cherokee tribe. This advancement in economics by

President Jackson was far from done, he passed the Indian removal bill, which was arguably the cruelest law passed by the United States government. It called for exchanging Indian territories in the East for the land west of the Mississippi River. Many people, including American citizens, themselves, objected to the Indian Removal Act. A deeply Christian man by the name of Frelinghuysen, questioned the statement of the American nation having native ‘brothers’. The Indian Removal Act proved how the United States government stole the land that the Cherokees called home. When the Indian Removal Act received much resistance by the Cherokees, the Treaty of New Echota was passed. It gave the Cherokee lands west of the Mississippi River to the Congress in return for $5 million as well as the cost it will take to emigrate. It may seem like a kind gesture for the Congress to pay for the emigration of the Cherokees, and it would be, if the federal government actually paid for it. When John Ross and other leaders planned out the route of the removal, the cost of the removal was higher than Congress expected, so the Cherokees had to pay for their own

The Georgia state laws made it so that Cherokees could not defend their land claims, and report the white men trespassing their land. It stated that the Cherokees had no right to sue or testify whites in court. This law, passed in 1828, took away many of the Cherokee’s rights. Due to the crazy, lawless gold frenzy, Chief John Ross, asked President Jackson to at least cover the money of the gold digger’s intrusions. The Cherokee focus on the discovery of gold, however, seemed to only enhance the Georgia legislature to argue that the Cherokee tribe was depriving the state unfairly, of their wealth. This statement made by the Georgia legislature should not have been valid since they did not have claims to the Cherokees’ land until June of 1830, and the gold rush occurred in 1829. Georgia, nonetheless, gave no concern to that mistake, and eventually in 1830, the governor of Georgia, announced that he forbade Indians or whites from digging up gold in the Cherokee area. The governor of Georgia had no right to stop the Indians from excavating gold in their own land. Chief John Ross challenged the statement of Georgia’s governor, and went to Washington DC to beg for the Cherokee case. Unfortunately, because of the lack of support President Jackson gave, Ross was not able to invalidate Georgia’s