Trail Of Tears

Improved Essays
US government’s cruel treatment to American Indians According to a professor of ethnic at the University of Colorado whose name is Ward Churchill, the North American Indian population reduced from estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237000 in 1900. It is a big difference, which we can regard this as a vast genocide. Moreover, written by a historian at the University of Hawaii, Native Americans had undergone the worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents. The major reason of that reduction is the expansion of greedy US government. America was their own lands, and they should have the right to live, hunt, and enjoy their life in there. Because of the hateful Manifest …show more content…
The Trail of Tears was the foremost crime that US government made. It was the migration route members of the Cherokee Nation followed in 1838–1839 when the federal government forced their removal from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. During this removal, estimated 4000 of 16000 Cherokees died. In 1835, President Andrew Jackson appointed Reverend John F. Schermerhorn as a treaty commissioner to organize a negotiation with the Cherokee. The US government would pay $4.5 million to the Cherokee as compensation to their land, which known as the Treaty of New Echota. Then, Schermerhorn had a meeting with a small number of Cherokee Council members who were prepared to accept the treaty. Actually, they were not the main members of Cherokee Council. These Cherokees signed the document on December 30, 1835. This treaty ceded all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River. Although Chief Ross, who is the leader of Cherokee, presented a 15000-signature petition for opposing the treaty, the US government still set a date of May 23, 1838 as the deadline for the removal of the Cherokee. This was definitely an unethical behavior of US government. It was just like giving …show more content…
The significant case was the Dawes Act, or General Allotment Act of 1877, which was signed by President Grover Cleveland. The major purpose of this act was to assimilate Natives into European cultural and behave like white Americans, and their slogan was “Kill the Indian, save the man”. The first step was to break reservations into smaller parts called allotments, it’s just for making them more individual. The second step was asking them to live separately from their tribes, in return, they would be granted US citizenship. The most important step was transmitting the whites’ culture and traditions, for example, families were supposed to farm on their allotments rather than hunting bison. They also founded schools for Native American children. These school were mostly established by Christian missionaries, and the main purpose was to educate Natives European-American cultures, such as cutting their hair short. They also introduced Christianity to them to build up their concepts of religion. In practice, this act was failed. The main reasons were that all of these Native Americans lived in the lands that were not fertile, hence they didn’t even have the condition to farm or ranch. Some of them didn’t want to adopt a different way of life. Others sold their lands to white settlers for money. Furthermore, Sioux tribe felt their cultural

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    The Trail of Tears and the Wounded Knee Massacre By George Sloan In the 1830s there were about 120,000 native Americans living in Georgia Tennessee Alabama North Carolina and the Florida Islands. The tribes living in those areas were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Chacto Seminole and Creek. To the southwestern US, they were known as the Civilized Natives. But in 1936, the Government would drive 15000 Creek to…

    • 68 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Another incident that involved race and ethnicity, is with the Native Americans in 1838 when Martin Van Buren enforced the Indian Removal Act, forcing the Cherokee nation to officially give up their land and move east to an area that is present day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this the “Trail of Tears” because of the effects of this journey. In which the Cherokee people suffered from hunger, exhaustion, and disease on the march. These effects caused over four thousand of the fifteen thousand Cherokees to die on the march.…

    • 90 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The white settlers had wanted the Native Americans land for farming. Jackson had decided to remove all Native Americans from their land. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, ordering all Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi River. The Five Civilized Tribes consists of The Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the Worcester vs. Georgia im 1832 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee were not to be relocated. President Andrew Jackson, however tried to override the ruling and demanded the Cherokee be removed. He was allowed to do so based upon the Treaty of New Echota. This treaty was signed by about 100 Cherokee leaders and surrendered all land east of the Mississippi River to the United States in exchange for money and land in the west. At this time the Cherokee had passed their own law within the Cherokee National Council stating that all Cherokees that signed away land would be put to death.…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Trail Of Tears History

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In history classes students are briefly taught about the Trail of Tears and many never think of it again. This historic event is an attempt at the eradication of a race of people just like the Holocaust but history is written by the victors so the awful treatment of the Native Americans is summed up to two words, "Manifest Destiny." So much Indian history was lost along the Trail of Tears where over 5,000 Cherokees died or went missing because almost nothing was kept on record and almost everything was word of mouth (History.com). The rare books and manuscripts that do remain are safely preserved in museums and special libraries like the ones here at the University of Georgia where everyone is granted access to the material upon request. The…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the Creek War (1813-14), the Maskókî tribes that were in Alabama at the time revolted against the settlers, “the brutal repression and disastrous treaty forced upon them by General Andrew Jackson sent thousands of the most determined warriors and their families migrating southward to take refuge in Spanish Florida.” This of course refers to the First Seminole War (1814-18) when Andrew Jackson was too ambitious at trying to control the Indian problem. While there they merged with the tribes that have lived there for thousands of years and would eventually be known as the Seminoles. Florida was still controlled by Spain up until 1821, although the states surrounding it were already US Territories, and it was obvious that the US wanted Florida for itself and would do anything to get it (including violence).…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Andrew Jackson’s First and Second Annual Message demonstrated the President’s view of American superiority to the Indian. With their traditions ignored and way of life shattered, the Indians suffered, powerless to America’s new strength. Jackson’s Indian Removal Act eventually led to the Trail of Tears where thousands of Indians died in their forced journey west. America's thirst for westward expansion had a devastating cost for many Native…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Trail of Tears The Cherokee Trail of Tears occurred in 1838, in response to the Indian Removal Act of the 1830’s. The forced Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, under the supremacy of Andrew Jackson. Jackson had long despised the Native population and went to great lengths to exclude them from their sovereignty. Shortly after, the U.S. government passed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 to justify the policies of the removal. The treaty was the result of a mutual agreement between a local Cherokee leader, along with a small constituency of Indians known as the Treaty Party, and the United States.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Americans had long admired the Indians and felt that they could be equals to the white man, and thus had led many missionary efforts to convert them to Christianity…

    • 2197 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While there were protest for many Christian missinaries, there were a very huge support from non-Indian people living in the south,that were more than eagar to have access to the Indian land. The trail of tears was one of the series of the forced relocation of the Native nations that followed after the Indian Removal Act of 1830, where the Natives were force to walk across the country. The Trip to the Mississippi was anything but pleasent. Through the route the Native used, they endued harsh weather and treatment for the settlers. Along with exposure to strange diseases for their people and starvation The Native lost men, women, and children, by the time the trail of trail were over more than half of the Native American were dead thanks to…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Trail of Tears The Cherokee people called the journey, The Trail of Tears because of its devastating effects and because of the route along which the united state government force several tribes of NativeAmericans including the Seminole,Chickasaw,Choctaw, and Creeks to migrate and give up the land of reservations west of the Mississippi River in the 1800’s. The Trail of Tears is refers to the movement of the Native American communities from the South Eastern regions of U.S. As a result of the Indian removal act in 1830. In the year 1838,with the president Andrew Jackson’s policy of Indians removal. The Cherokee people was forced to surrender their land to the Mississippi River. And they migrate to the present day of Oklahoma Territory…

    • 180 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the fall and winter of 1838 the Cherokee tribe was forcibly removed from their tribes land on a trail to lands west of the Mississippi. Cherokee legislative council voiced that “we, the great mass of people think only of the love we have to our land… to let it go it will be like throwing away our mother that gave birth to us.” (Cherokee legislative council 1830) This trail became known as the trail of tears after approximately 4000 Cherokee members died on the march to new lands. As expansion grew Native American tribes shrunk, their tradition disappeared, their languages were forgotten, and many people lost their lives fighting for their home land.…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was when the Cherokee Indians were forced to move out from Georgia to Indian Territory in 1838. The Indian Territory is now present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee then knew for sure that they had no real protection from the U.S. Constitution. Along this journey, more than 4,000 Cherokees died from the hard conditions they were facing. Some Indians from other Indian tribes decided to side with the British in the American Revolutionary War in 1775.…

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The natives land was constantly being settled on, their livestock stolen, even their villages burned to the ground by the European American Settlers. By signing with the Indian Removal Act, the indigenous peoples were given an opportunity to get away from the violence and discrimination of the settlers. The Indian Removal Act gave the Native Americans a means of survival, thus benefitting the Native Americans and saving many lives that may have been lost on both the European American and the Native American sides had the Native Americans remained on their homeland.            The Native American Tribes were offered land west of the Mississippi River that they would have total sovereignty over. President Andrew Jackson was given the legal right by the Indian Removal Policy to grant the land west of the Mississippi River to the Native Americans for them alone to govern over to the tribes that did agree to give up their ancestral homelands. Most of the European American population believed that America would never expand beyond the Mississippi River, so the Native American Tribes would be safe from the settlers heading west to create their homes on the new…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Trail Of Tears Summary

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the book “Trail of Tears: The Rise and fall of the Cherokee Nation” a book where more than 18,000 Indians were forced to move to Oklahoma in a march known as The Trail of Tears, John Ehle explains with details all the events that led to this happening. In the book we learn a lot from the Cherokee nation which was one of the most important tribes at that time. There are also many characters discussed in this book, like the life of major Ridge who was one of the most well known and important leaders of the Cherokee tribe and played a major role during the negotiations of the white men and Cherokees trying to fix their issues and come together on laws, culture and land. It also talks about John Russ who was also a well known Cherokee leader like major Ridge, he fought against the federal government to allow the Cherokee nation to stay in Georgia instead of moving to Oklahoma and leave everything they had built as a tribe.…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays