From the day that European colonizers first set foot on the continent, Native Americans have resisted and fought for their survival. However, the objective of US authorities has always been to exterminate their existence as a people.

Documented policies targeting Native nations began in Andrew Jackson's presidency. Today, you will investigate: 

• What were the causes of Indian Removal policies? 

• How did US government policies affect Native American nations? 

• How did Native American resist removal? 

By the time of Thomas Jefferson's presidency, the government was employing two conflicting policies, assimilation and removal, to attempt to control Native Americans. 

Assimilation encouraged indigenous people to adopt the customs and economic practices of white Americans. The government provided financial assistance to missionaries in order to Christianize and educate Native Americans and convince them to adopt single-family farms. Supporters defended assimilation as the only way Native Americans would be able to survive in a white-dominated society. By the 1820s, the Cherokee had demonstrated the ability of Native Americans to adapt to changing conditions while maintaining their tribal heritage and culture. Sequoyah, a leader of these people, had developed a written alphabet. Soon the Cherokee opened schools, established churches, built roads, operated printing presses, and even adopted a constitution.

The other policy—Indian removal—was first suggested by Thomas Jefferson as the only way to ensure the survival of Native American cultures. The goal of this policy was to encourage the voluntary migration of Indians westward to tracts of land where they could live free from white harassment. Pressure to remove Native Americans from their land came from politicians, business interests, land speculators, and population growth that demanded new railroads and cities. After initially supporting both policies, Andrew Jackson decided to pursue removal as the policy the U.S. would follow by signing into law the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

The primary aim of Jackson's removal policy was to encourage Native Americans to sell their homelands in exchange for new lands in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Such a policy, the president maintained, would open new farmland to whites while offering indigenous people a haven where they would be free to develop at their own pace. "There," Jackson wrote, "your white brothers will not trouble you, they will have no claims to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty."

This shift in federal Indian policy came partly as a result of a controversy between the Cherokee nation and the state of Georgia. The Cherokee people had adopted a constitution asserting sovereignty (authority/rule) over their land. The state of Georgia responded by abolishing tribal rule and claiming that the Cherokee fell under its jurisdiction (power/authority). The discovery of gold on Cherokee land triggered a land rush, and the Cherokee nation sued to keep white settlers from encroaching on their territory. 

In an important case called Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court ruled that states could not pass laws that went against federal Indian treaties and that the federal government had to stop white intruders from settling on Indian lands. In the decision, Chief Justice John Marshall defended the rights of the Cherokees, stating: “The Cherokee nation...is a distinct community, occupying its own territories… in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter.” Angered, Jackson is said to have exclaimed: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

During the winter of 1831, the Choctaw became the first tribe to walk the "Trail of Tears" westward. Government assistance that had been promised failed to arrive, and malnutrition, exposure, and a cholera epidemic killed many members of the nation. Then, in 1836, the Creek suffered the hardships of removal. About 3,500 of the tribe's 15,000 members died along the westward trek. Those who resisted removal were bound in chains and marched in double file. 

Emboldened by the Supreme Court decisions declaring that Georgia law had no force on Indian territory, the Cherokees resisted removal. Most Cherokees held out until 1838, when the army evicted them from their land. All told, 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokee died along the trail to Indian territory in what is now Oklahoma.  

One Cherokee woman later reminisced about the experience of the Trail of Tears: 

"The women and children were driven from their homes, sometimes with blows and close on the heels of the retreating Indians came greedy whites to pillage the Indian's homes, drive off their cattle, horses, and pigs, and they even rifled the graves for any jewelry, or other ornaments that might have been buried with the dead. The aged, sick and young children rode in the wagons, which carried provisions and bedding, while others went on foot. The trip was made in the dead of winter and many died from exposure from sleet and snow, and all who lived to make this trip, or had parents who made it, will long remember it, as a bitter memory.”

DIRECTIONS: 

1. Click on the red image below to explore the "on the ground" realities of removal policy and its impact on the Cherokee people. (read until you get to the discussion questions at the end)

2. Examine the painting entitled "Trail of Tears"

3.  Answer the questions in the form entitled "Trail of Tears"