Moral Turning Point

Native Americans have been pushed around by white settlers since the beginning. Treaties have been signed, skirmishes fought, peace established then broken. But the 1800s marked a change in the attitude of the US Government towards the Tribes. Before, they had mostly treated them somewhat respectfully as a state of their own, signing treaties with different tribes like The Treaty of Holston in 1791 or even the Treaty of Hopewell of 1785 that actually protected Cherokee lands. But by the turn of the century the attitude became less civil. The Battle of Timbers in 1794 marks the last actual battle between the US Government and the Native Americans. Battle would imply there was an actual fight with two sides facing each other. But after that point, it was mostly the US Army forcing and eliminating. In 1811, US forces attack and destroy a community on the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers. In 1814, Andrew Jackson attack the Creek Indians and force them to cede over 20 million acres. And finally, in 1830 Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, followed by the Trail of Tears. This is a shift in the way Native Americans were being treated, brought down to less than human beings, herded at gunpoint and driven to the point of death.