The Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson in authorized the federal government to relocate tribes within state borders to unsettled land west of the Mississippi River. When white settlers encroached on Cherokee land to grow cotton and search for newly discovered gold, the United States ordered the Cherokee to join the Creek, Seminole, Choctaw and Chicksaw tribes in resettling to present-day Oklahoma. The first Cherokees to relocate—approximately 2, men, women and children split into four groups—did so voluntarily in and early They traveled westward by boat following the winding paths of the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers.
The journey for these voluntary exiles was as short as 25 days, and deaths numbered less than two dozen. Conditions proved far worse for the Cherokee evicted from their homes at gunpoint by 7, federal troops dispatched by President Martin Van Buren. Beginning on May 26, , soldiers under the command of General Winfield Scott rounded up the majority of the Cherokee along with 1, slaves and free blacks, forced them to leave behind most of their possessions and herded them into wooden stockades and internment camps.
Children were often separated from their parents and driven into the stockades with the sky for a blanket and the earth for a pillow. And often the old and infirm were prodded with bayonets to hasten them to the stockades. Some Cherokee embraced this plan in order to maintain control over their economy and political sovereignty. These changes altered gender roles significantly, as men took on traditionally female tasks of farming and adopted patrilineal practices of private property ownership.
A few Cherokees acquired large tracts of land, became planters, and purchased slaves. Eventually the Cherokee nation modeled its own Constitution after the U. Despite these signs that the Cherokee were assimilating, whites in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee insisted that their state governments remove them. In the Georgia legislature annexed Cherokee territory.
The Cherokee resisted, using American courts to argue that they were a sovereign nation. The U. Supreme Court agreed in Worcester v. Army against those resisting. Many were treated brutally. An estimated 3, Creeks died in Alabama and on their westward journey. Some were transported in chains. Historically, Cherokees occupied lands in several southeastern states.
As European settlers arrived, Cherokees traded and intermarried with them. They began to adopt European customs and gradually turned to an agricultural economy, while being pressured to give up traditional home-lands. Between and , over 90 percent of their lands were ceded to others. By the s, Sequoyah's syllabary brought literacy and a formal governing system with a written constitution. In the same year the Indian Removal Act was passed - gold was found on Cherokee lands.
Georgia held lotteries to give Cherokee land and gold rights to whites. Cherokees were not allowed to conduct tribal business, contract, testify in courts against whites, or mine for gold.
The Cherokees successfully challenged Georgia in the U. Supreme Court. President Jackson, when hearing of the Court's decision, reportedly said, "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can. Most Cherokees opposed removal.
Yet a minority felt that it was futile to continue to fight. At the time, millions of indigenous people were scattered across North America The Indian reservation system established tracts of land called reservations for Native Americans to live on as white settlers took over their land. The main goals of Indian reservations were to bring Native Americans under U. Concluded during the nearly year period from the Revolutionary War to the aftermath of the Civil War, some treaties would define the relationship between the United States and Native Americans for centuries to come.
The treaties were based on the fundamental idea that Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. The 'Indian Problem' White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted and believed they deserved.
Migrants Travel West on the Oregon Trail. Eating On The Campaign Trail. Woodrow Wilson Addresses Native Americans. Native American History Timeline Long before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans.
Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, which was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mids to emigrate west. American-Indian Wars From the moment English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in , they shared an uneasy relationship with the Native Americans or Indians who had thrived on the land for thousands of years.
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