The Trail of Tears - Term Paper Example

?The Trail of Tears The history of the US indicates one of the greatest violations of human rights and land grabbing. One of such happenings is what is commonly referred to as the Trail of Tears. This phrase is used to refer to the forced movement and relocation of Native Americans nationals who were residing in the southern parts of the US following the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Among those removed were members of Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Muscogee (Creek) communities. These communities were evacuated from their homelands and settled in the Indian Territory; the eastern regions of the current state of Oklahoma. As suggested by its name, the event was such a painful one for the people involved because they suffered while on the move, and many of them lost their loved ones. Slaves who were mainly African-Americans were also not spared in the unfortunate situation that resulted from the events leading to the Trail of Tears. The events leading up to the trail of tears The forced removal of the Cherokee materialized after the passing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. However, there are several things that motivated the US Congress to pass the Act. The sequence of these events can be traced from 1814 to the 1830s, although some of them overlap. Between 1814 and 1824, Andrew Jackson became useful in negotiating 9 out of 11 treaties whose intentions were to divest Five Civilized Tribes, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Creeks, of their eastern lands in exchange for free lands in the west. As a result of these treaties, the US was able to control three quarters of Florida and Alabama as well as parts of North Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee. This was a period characterised by voluntary Indian migration. However, only a small percentage of Cherokee, Choctaws and Creeks moved to the new lands1. Around the same time, that is, during the 1820s, there was the creation of the Indian Territory which is the current-day Oklahoma. This marked the genesis of the reservation system for aboriginal Americans. In 1827, the Cherokee adopted their own written constitution declaring themselves to be an independent, sovereign nation and the Congress felt threatened by this. In 1828, there were three major things that contributed toward the creation of the Indian Removal Act. First, Andrew Jackson was elected to become the president of the US. In his campaigns, Jackson had made promises one of which was to “free land” later to be given to white settlers. The land specifically was to be in the southern frontier states. His appeal was primarily directed to settlers of Georgia. At that time, the Cherokee Indians occupied a total of 35,000 acres in Georgia. The second contributing even in 1828 was that the Georgian legislature passed a legislation incorporating or annexing all Cherokee country within the borders of the state. The state legislature also abolished all existing Cherokee customs and laws, and commissioned surveyors to map out 160-acre land lots out of Cherokee land. These lots were to be distributed through public lotteries to white citizens residing in Georgia2. The third contributing event was the discovery of gold near Dahlonega. This was a region located in northern Georgia and it was in the middle of the Cherokee territory. This led to tensions between the residents of Georgia and the Cherokees. President Jackson used this tension to pressure the Cherokee community to sign a removal treaty34. Jackson had no desire to protect the Cherokees using the powers vested in the national government5. In his First Annual Message to the Congress in 1829, Jackson called for the displacement of the Indian community from their native lands. The same year, John Ross, who was the leader of the Cherokee, travelled to Washington D.C. in order to protest against the actions of the Georgian legislature, and plead for justice for the Cherokee community. While in Washington, Ross found sympathizers among the members of the Congress but unfortunately, most of them were anti-Jackson. Ross was therefore forced to meet with President Jackson to table his request but Jackson declared to him that members of the Cherokee community had to relocate to the Indian Territory. Finally, the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in May, 1830 and the bill was signed into law in September by President Jackson. In December the same year, Jackson defended his idea of removing the Indians through his Second Annual Message to the US Congress6. The Indian Removal Act was made more powerful by events that took place during the following few years leading to the evacuation of many people belonging to the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Creeks communities. An example of this was the 1831 ruling by the Supreme Court of the US. This ruling was made to deal with the controversy surrounding the Cherokee Nation and Georgia as a state. The Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was not identified as a sovereign nation. Neither was it identified as a foreign nation residing within the US’ boundaries. This ruling became a great setback for the Cherokee Nation. The removal of the Cherokee did not take place in the same year. In 1834, Cherokee chiefs appealed to the US Congress by offering a two-part compromise. They offered to become US citizens after a period that was to be fixed by the US and to cede Georgia as part of their territory on condition that they would be protected from invasion. During the same year, there arose divisions among the people of Cherokee. One group was ready to move willingly to the designated region. This group believed that more resistance to the demands of the US government and Georgia were bound to be futile. This group was led by two leaders of Cherokee Nation; Major Ridge and Elias Boudinotled. A larger population led by Ross continued to refuse to part with their land in submission to Congress’ demand. In 1835, Major Ridge and Elias Boudinotled led a delegation to meet the US government officials with the signatures of less than 2% of the Cherokee population. The delegation signed away all the lands belonging to Cherokee. This was called the Treaty of New Enchota. Later, it turned out that Major Ridge was bribed with $30,000 to sign away the land belonging to the nation of Cherokee even with the signatures of very few people from the tribe. In 1837, Ridge, Boudinotled and 465 followers from the Cherokee nation departed for the new land in the West while approximately 17,000 others people remained in their original land. In 1838, 15,665 Cherokees protested against this treaty and were later joined by all other American citizens who were outraged by this. However, the Congress ignored this and instead ordered federal troops to move to Georgia and initiate forced eviction7. In May, Brigadier General Winfield Scoot and a group of army men were sent by the US government to Georgia to enforce a mandatory compliance to the Treaty of New Echota. A total of 13 stockade forts are built and the people of Cherokee were forcefully removed from their homes and taken to the forts from where they were transported to the Indian Territory. Approximately 1500 of them died while housed in the stockades. Between June and July, several hundreds of Cherokees were transported to the Indian Territory along a water route. About 13,000 more left for the same destination between October and November on an overland trail. Ross left in December with the last group carrying the laws and records of the Cherokee Nation. He had been selected as the superintendent of the removal process by the Cherokee chiefs in August the same year. The Creeks were forcefully removed in 1836 after their land was divided into individual allotments which they were required to sell to earn money to move westward. Alternatively, they could choose to remain and submit to states laws. However, they were defrauded by squatters and land speculators leading to the Creek War of 1836 which ended in a forceful eviction of the Creeks to the Indian Territory. Of the nature of the forceful event, a Georgian soldier who participated in the removal noted that “I fought through the War between the States and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew”8. The results and effects of the forceful eviction on the lives of the Native American tribes involved The forced evections had a lot of painful effects on the Native American tribes involved. The migration journeys were characterized by harsh environmental and climatic conditions and many other life threatening problems. In the course of their journey, many of them died as a result of drought conditions experienced during the winter and summer months. Other causes of death at this time included contaminated food and various diseases. Statistics taken on the survivors in month indicated that about 4,000 members of the tribe had died in the course f the eviction. This figure represents one person out of every four people. This gives the impression that many widows, widowers and orphans were made out of the forced eviction because people lost their loved ones. The loss of land and other property cannot be ignored. This resulted in the economic backwardness of the once flourishing nation and it took them many years to regain their previous economic power. In their destination, many of them found themselves in slums around urban areas and went without basic needs. The money given by the US government as compensation was very little and could not help them settle comfortably. For those who were left behind, life was no better. They had to live by the mercy of the people who had already taken over all their land and property. At this time, they were no longer recognised as the legal owners of their own lands. Some of them had to become servants to the new owners of their lands in order to find shelter. A few who were lucky were taken care of by the new settlers and were privileged to obtain some education or intermarried with them. The forced march The forced match refers to the forced trekking of Cherokee families who did not want to move voluntarily to the designated destination. This mainly occurred after the May, 23rd, 1838 deadline had passed and these matches recorded the highest numbers of deaths during the eviction of the Cherokees. With bayonets fixed to their guns, squads of federal troops stealthily set out on 26th May, 1838 to surround the little cabins found in Georgia. These were the cabins where the Cherokees lived. The troops then rushed inside the cabins, seizing entire families and leading them into the stockades. Men were seized while walking or in their fields, women were captured from their spinning wheels and children were captured in their play. From the stockades, the seized Cherokees would be led on a forced march to Oklahoma, their new homeland. The forced march was brutal and involved a three-month long trek towards the west. The marchers were subject to violence and extortion along the route. The troops drove the Cherokees through rivers without allowing them to remove their shoes. One Cherokee man was given 100 lashes after hitting a one of the troops who had pushed his wife. The next forced match started in October, 1838. The forced marches passed through a variety of landforms and water routes, through Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas. The people were maintained in closely quartered groups throughout the journey. A deaf Indian who turned left instead of right was shot dead. Because of this closeness, communicable diseases spread fast through the community killing many. Many of the Cherokees succumbed to dysentery, diarrhoea and colds9. The last group that left in or after December 1837 were not spared either. They were forced to set out during the coldest or the hottest months of the year and 5,000 Cherokees were trapped by the harsh winter east of the Mississippi leading to the deaths of many people in the group. One third of the Chowtaw nation was killed by insufficient rations, disease, starvation, harassment by the local frontiersmen and exposure to harsh environmental factors. Anyone who died was left behind unceremoniously. The political ramifications/consequences of the trail of tears and how it affected both the people living in Oklahoma and the people forced to move there The Cherokee nation from Georgia was not the only group of people who had relocated to the Tallequah area of Oklahoma. Another group of Cherokees from Arkansas who were called the Old Settlers had moved into the region in the late 1820s. These Old Settlers had already established a nation, but the influx of 13,000 Georgian Cherokees created friction on their arrival. When the new group had completed their journey, they formed the majority of the tribe immediately. Issues of administration arose leading to deep divisions within the tribe and this was mainly witnessed as the Georgia Cherokees became more powerful and gained control of the nation. Ross was chosen to be the leader of the new community. There also emerged differences among the Georgian Cherokees. There were those who considered it well to adapt to the mainstream society and other who favoured he maintenance of their traditional ideals - the conservatives10. When Ross returned to power, the tribe’s attention turned to those people who had betrayed the Cherokee people while they were still in Georgia. A new constitution was ratified and the position of Ross as Principal Chief was reaffirmed. During the night of Ross's success, his loyal men spread out to execute the final act of the Trail of Tears; the execution of the Ridge family. The biggest traitor Major Ridge died outside on the roadway, his son John Ridge was pulled from his house and stabbed as his wife and children watched. His next, Elias Boudinot was surrounded and killed after coming from the home of Samuel Worchester Conclusion There are a number of factors that contributed to the idea of forced eviction of the five civilized communities during the Trail of Tears. However, the main aim behind most of them was the need to evict some native citizens so as to create room to accommodate the increasing population of white settles. The idea gained more support and impact after the adoption of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The nation of Cherokee and other Native American tribes were forcefully evicted from their rightful homelands. These victimized communities live to remember this inhuman act because of the pains and losses they suffered. Many people died during the migration journeys because of the harsh environmental conditions in the routes they passed, drought and food poisoning. It is because of such reasons that the Cherokee nation remembers its movement from their migration from their homeland to the Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears. There are strong disputes over the use of the term forced march to refer to the forceful eviction of the Cherokees and other Native America communities. However, the truth is that it involved a lot of inhuman treatment of the evicted people, some of whom died from violence, disease, lack of food and exposure to harsh environmental elements. Because of this, there is a need for the federal government to make an official apology to the identified five native tribes and especially, the Cherokee community Bibliography Cerritos.edu.com. Sequence of Events – Trail of Tears. 2010. Accessed 7th, December, 2011. http://www.cerritos.edu/soliver/American%20Identities/trail%20of%20tears/Sequence%20of%20Events.htm. Mooney James. Myths of the Cherokee. New York: Barnes & Noble. 2007. Remini Robert Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars. New York. Viking. 2001. Prucha Paul. The Great Father. The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln and London. University of Nebraska Press. 1984. Cave Alfred. “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830.” The Historianm. 6 (2003) 36-51. Remini, Robert. “Invasion”: The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. New York. Grove Press. 2000. Globalsecurity.org. The Trail of Tears. 2011. Accessed 7th, December, 2011. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/trail-of-tears.htm. Read More