President Jackson and the Removal of the Cherokee Indians :: American History Essays

President Jackson and the Removal of the Cherokee Indians The decision of the Jackson administration to remove the CherokeeIndians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s was more areformulation of the national policy that had been in effect since the1790s than a change in that policy. The dictum above is firm and can beeasily proved by examining the administration of Jackson and comparison tothe traditional course which was carried out for about 40 years. After 1825the federal government attempted to remove all easterly Indians to the GreatPlains area of the Far West. The Cherokee Indians of northwestern Georgia,to protect themselves from removal, made up a constitution which said thatthe Cherokee Indians were sovereign and non subject to the laws of Georgia.When the Cherokee sought tending from the Congress that body only allottedlands in the West and urged them to move. The Supreme Court, however, inWorcester vs. Georgia, ruled that they constituted a domestic de pendentnation not subject to the laws of Georgia. Jackson, who sympathized withthe frontiersman, was so outraged that he refused to enforce the decision.Instead he persuaded the tribe to give up its Georgia lands for areservation west of the Mississippi. gibe to Document A, the map shows eloquently, the relationshipbetween time and policies which effected the Indians. From the Colonial andConfederation treaties, a significant amount of land had been acquired fromthe Cherokee Indians. Successively, during Washingtons, Monroes, andJeffersons administration, more and more Indian land was beingcommandeered. The administrations during the 1790s to the 1830s hadgradually acquired more and more land from the Cherokee Indians. Jacksonfollowed that precedent by the acquisition of more Cherokee lands. According to Document B, the first of which is by raising an army,and destroying the resisting tribes entirely or 2ndly by forming treatiesof peace with them, under the existing circums tances of affairs, thejoined States have a clear right, consistently with the principles ofjustice and the laws of nature, to go bad to the destruction or expulsionof the savages. The use of the word savages, shows that the American hadirreverence toward other ethnic backgrounds. Henry Knox wanted to destroythe cherokee tribes inorder to gain land for the United States, although hequestions the morality of whether to acquire the cherokee land, hisconclusion forbodes the appropriation. According to Document C, That theCherokee Nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to