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 Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830's was more a reformulation of the national policy that had been in effect since the 1790's than a change in that policy." The dictum above is firm and can be easily proved by examining the administration of Jackson and comparison to the traditional course which was carried out for about 40 years. After 1825 the federal government attempted to remove all eastern Indians to the Great Plains area of the Far West. The Cherokee Indians of northwestern Georgia, to protect themselves from removal, made up a constitution which said that the Cherokee Indians were sovereign and not subject to the laws of Georgia. When the Cherokee sought help from the Congress that body only allotted lands in the West and urged them to move. The Supreme Court, however, in Worcester vs. Georgia, ruled that they constituted a "domestic dependent nation" not subject to the laws of Georgia. Jackson, who sympathized with the frontiersman, was so outraged that he refused to enforce the decision. Instead he persuaded the tribe to give up it's Georgia lands for a reservation west of the Mississippi. According to Document A, the map shows eloquently, the relationship between time and policies which effected the Indians. From the Colonial and Confederation treaties, a significant amount of land had been acquired from the Cherokee Indians. Successively, during Washington's, Monroe's, and Jefferson's administration, more and more Indian land was being commandeered. The administrations during the 1790's to the 1830's had gradually acquired more and more land from the Cherokee Indians. Jackson followed 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 treaties of peace with them", "under the existing circumstances of affairs, the United States have a clear right, consistently with the principles of justice and the laws of nature, to proceed to the destruction or expulsion of the savages." The use of the word savages, shows that the American had irreverence toward other ethnic backgrounds. Henry Knox wanted to destroy the cherokee tribes inorder to gain land for the United States, although he questions the morality of whether to acquire the cherokee land, his conclusion forbode's the appropriation. According to Document C, "That the Cherokee Nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to