Indian Removal
• Before the DST:
– two strategies in response to American expansion
• nativists vs. accommodationists
– neither approach could guarantee a place in
American society
– shift in American policy
• from civilization to removal
• New kind of treaty: exchange of land rather than
cession of land
– division within Native American nations:
• Opponents of removal
• Those who saw relocation as inevitable
Acculturation
• By 1815 many NA in the southeast were
raising cattle and pigs and planting crops.
– Most as individual families
– Some had African slaves
• A planter elite of mixed ancestry developed.
• Christian missionaries operated schools.
The signs of ‘civilization’
• Farming: corn, cotton, and livestock
• Infrastructure: roads, bridges, ferries
• Government: National Council, written laws,
police force, law courts
• Change in values:
– Private property
– Paternal authority
Sequoyah’s syllabary (1821)
‘talking leaves’
Cherokee Phoenix (1828- present)
Library of Congress / Cherokee Phoenix
University of Georgia
5 new states in the Mississippi Valley: Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817),
Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Missouri (1821)
Andrew Jackson
1824 portrait by Thomas Sully.
Source: U.S. Senate
Indian Removal Act (1830)
• NA that cede land east of Mississippi will
receive land west of Mississippi ‘forever’
• U.S. will pay NA for improvements they made
to the land (houses, farms, etc.)
• U.S. will pay for cost of relocation plus first
year in new location
• U.S. agents will protect Indians in their new
homes
Elias Boudinot and John Ross
Oklahoma Historical Society
Library of Congress
• The Treaty Party (Boudinot) traveled west in
1837 to join the ‘Old Settlers’ already living
north of the Arkansas River
• The National Party (Ross) was forced to move
by the U.S. army in 1838
Trail of Tears
North Carolina Digital History
Nunna dual Tsuny –
The trail where they cried
1942 painting by Robert Lindneux PBS.org (The Granger Collection).
Continued tensions
• Old Settlers, National Party, Treaty Party
• Boudinot and two other leaders of Treaty
Party were killed for “treason” in 1839
• The 3 factions made peace in 1846
‘Indian Territory’