American History

It has been said that the United States was born on the backs of the immigrants from distant nations that came on boats, ships and other means of transport, ferrying people from their homelands looking for a better future in the United States. It is true that immigrants helped forge the great nation that is the United States, but sadly though for every story of triumph, many stories of tragedy also were told, some silently. The Cherokee nation, removed from their ancestral lands to make way for the white man, were victims of the greed of the white settlers and the government to relocate them. The review seeks to chronicle their plight as they were systematically removed from their lands.

Elias Boudinot, writing in 1837, stated that if a minority of fifty people would act in the stead of a majority of a hundred people by virtue of their ignorance and inaction, then in order to save the nation from the inaction of the majority, then that would be the right action to pursue. Boudinot, along with his fellow members of the  treaty party  reiterated this claim when they concluded the Treaty of Echota, the accord calling for the removal of the Cherokee nation from their lands in December of 1835. In Boudinots estimation, their sense of extreme patriotism would somehow exonerate them, justifying their actions in the judgment of history. But the Cherokees knew that the President at the time, Andrew Jackson, did not enjoy unanimous support, that some powerful individuals had opposed the position of Jackson and chose to support the Cherokee nations claims to self determination (Theda Purdue, Michael Green, 2007).

Among these individuals who supported the claims of the sovereignty of the Cherokee nation were men from the religious establishment, men like Jeremiah Evarts and the man they called the  Christian Senator , Theodore Frelinghuysen, basing their opposition of the removal law on the premise that the Cherokee nation is a sovereign entity. Their statements, along with those opposed to the act and to Jackson himself, nearly sank the law at the House of Representatives. But the opponents of the law, led by Chief Ross, took the matter to the United States Supreme Court, where they were represented by William Wirt. But Jackson, bent on the removal of the Cherokee nation from their lands, stated that though the High Bench acted on a similar case, the case of Worchester, Jackson would not implement the provisions and the order of the Supreme Court in the case (Purdue, Green, 2007).

Government officials, fearful of the eventuality that the action of  Jackson against the implementation of the decision of the Supreme Court in Worchester would create a constitutional emergency, took the delegation of the Native American delegation and advised them to cave in to the wishes of the President. Even some of the friends of the Cherokees on the High Bench, among them Associate Justice John McLean and Chief Justice Marshall, though McLean is closer to the cause of the Cherokees, advised them that there were no more legal remedies for them to exhaust to oppose their removal from their lands, even volunteering his services to be a United States commissioner and help in the crafting of the treaty to allow the Cherokees to get the best deal possible for them. In the middle of 1832, Secretary of War Lewis Cass, mindful of the plight of the Cherokees, called the delegates of the nation to his office to outline, not offer, the treaty that the nation was supposed to sign. Under the terms of the surprisingly generous terms of the Jackson treaty, as compared with the other removal treaties that the President and his men crafted for other Native American nations, the lands that would be given to them in the western United States, in exchange for all their lands in the  east, would be surveyed and given to the nation by means of a patent, recognizing them as the owners and not as occupants or users, as the latter would be subject to future charges in the agreement (Purdue, Green, 2007).

As the delegates listened to the treat being outlined, some had already given up the fight for their lands. John Ridge, one of the members of the delegation, was in a state of despair, John Martin and William Shorey Codey, were utterly defeated in their demeanor. But the group averred that they were not in Washington with the sanction of the General Council of the Nations, and informed Secretary Cass that they would not transmit the document when they returned home. Cass put the treaty in the hands of one of the lawyers of the Nation, Elisha Chester, and headed back to report. The new Cherokee capital, New Echota, lay within the state limits of the state of Georgia but since the state had made all political activity of Cherokees a crime, the council moved their deliberations to neighboring Alabama, but since that part was a way from the population center of the nation, the Council moved to Red Clay, on the Tennessee part of the Nations territories (Purdue, Green, 2007).

The Council decided to hear from Chester the provisions of the treaty, overruling John Ross in the Council meeting. Ross, in an effort to negate the possibility of confusing the people and for the sake of unity, sought to keep the treaty from being publicly discussed., which were opposed by Boudinot and John Ridge. Chief Ross invoked the justice and the righteousness of their cause and that the American nations and their institutions were on their side, citing the treaties and the Trade and Intercourse Acts, as well as the United States Supreme Court with their decision in Worchester. But Ross also knew the frailty of his message, and moved to suppress all other messages that ran contrary to his. But many, including Ridge, Boudinot, and a host of others that the message of Ross was leading the drive to generate sympathy for the Cherokees, owing to their oppression under Georgia law and Jackson himself, was leading them nowhere (Purdue, Green, 2007).

Ross went to Washington to present his own version of the treaty proposed earlier by Cass. Under Ross proposal, the United States would buy most of the nations land in Georgia if Jackson would move to protect the rights of the nation in the rest of territory for a period of time, by which the Cherokees would become American citizens under state laws. In short, the Cherokee nation would come to an end, and amalgamate themselves into American society. To Boudinot and Ridge, the eventuality that the Cherokees will become Americans by way of amalgamation was offensive and unacceptable. If they were to abdicate the nation to the racist tendencies in Georgia, that would lead to the destruction of the nation itself (Purdue, Green, 2007).

But that idea and the defense of the Ridge party ran afoul with the ambitions of Ross. The turmoil that the impasse had generated led to the correspondence of Wilson Lumpkin, the governor of Georgia, with Senator John Forsythe, stating that there exists the possibility that all Cherokees will need to removed from the state boundaries of Georgia, either without force, as was desired, but if need be, with the exercise of military force. Two delegations, one with Boudinot and Ridge, and the other led by Ross, went to Washington to reiterate their positions against their removal. Boudinot and Ridge lambasted the president for not respecting the sovereignty of the Cherokees Ross once again laid out his  amalgamation  plan. But Jackson flatly rebuffed the proposal, bent on nothing less than a complete removal of the nation to the western United States (Purdue, Green, 2007).

Jackson appointed John Schermerhorn to negotiate a treaty with the United States. Schermerhorn and the Ridge party arrived at a figure of  5 million. Ridge averred that the Cherokees would rather stay in the East rather than move out West. Lumpkin, disappointed that there was not removal treaty, entitled his autobiography as The Removal of the Cherokees from Georgia, referring to his self declared life mission.  In 1838,  Lumpkin got his wish, as a group of Cherokees moved out of their imprisonment to be relocated to their new  homes  west of the Mississippi. The removal of the Cherokees from their lands was part of a grander plan to remove any trace of Native Americans from the eastern part of the United States  (Purdue, Green, 2007).