Trail of Tears
Emily Newcomb
The Torture Begins
 The
“Indian Problem” started with the
discovery of the New World.
 Columbus and his men felt as if they were
superior to the Indians.
 He began torturing them, murdering
them, and taking their land.
The Five Civilized Tribes
 Early
officials, such as George
Washington, believed that the Indians
needed to be civilized.
 They wanted to make the Indians as
much like Americans as possible.
 The Five Civilized Tribes included: the
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole,
Creek, and Cherokee.
Five Civilized Tribes
1802
 Georgia
finally ceded its land to the
government and expected all land titles
held by the Indians to be given to the
government.
 However, the Cherokee stayed on the
land that was granted to them.
 This caused even more resentment from
the residents of Georgia towards the
Indians.
1828 and 1829
 “In
1828 Georgia passed a law pronouncing all
laws of the Cherokee Nation to be null and void
after June 1, 1830, forcing the issue of states'
rights with the federal government.”
 In
1829, a large amount of gold was discovered
on Georgia on Cherokee lands.
 This just added to the list of reasons to get rid of
the Indians.
Andrew Jackson Takes Office
 Andrew
Jackson had always been a strong
advocate of “Indian removal.”
 The Native Americans were not part of Jackson
vision of America.
 His campaigns against the Creeks and Seminoles
led to hundreds of thousands of acres of land
being taken from the Indians
Indian Removal Act
 Passed
 This
by Congress in 1830
act gave President Jackson
permission to grant the Indians unsettled
lands west of the Mississippi in exchange
for the lands that they were currently
living in.
Court Cases
 “In
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) Chief
Justice John Marshall, writing for the majority, held
that the Cherokee Nation was a "domestic
dependent nation," and therefore Georgia state
law applied to them.”
 “In Worcester v. Georgia (1832) the court found
that Indian nations are capable of making
treaties, that under the Constitution treaties are
the supreme law of the land, that the federal
government had exclusive jurisdiction within the
boundaries of the Cherokee Nation, and that
state law had no force within the Cherokee
boundaries.”
Chief Justice John Marshall
Samuel Worcester
Treaty of New Echota
 The
Cherokee gave up all of their
land east of the Mississippi in
exchange for $5 million,
compensation for all lost property,
and relocation assistance.
 Chief John Ross protested this
agreement.
 “Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed
Ross’s petition, but Congress
approved the treaty anyway.”
 Therefore, the Indians were forced
to move west
President Van Buren
 In
1838, he sent 7,000 soldiers to
force the Cherokee out of
Georgia.
 They marched the Indians 1,200
miles into Indian Territory.
 More than five thousand Indians
died along the way from illnesses
such as: cholera, whooping
cough, starvation, typhus, and
dysentery.
 By
the 1840s, thousands and thousands of
Indians had been pushed out of the
southeastern states of the United States.
 The federal government promised them
that land. However, they just kept
pushing the Indian further and further
west. They called the horrible journey the
Trail of Tears
 Eventually, in 1907, Oklahoma became a
state leaving the Indians nowhere to live.
Works Cited
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Five Civilized Tribes. Digital image. Five Civilized Tribes. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Ableton Forum • Information. Digital image. Ableton Forum •
Information. N.p., 2007. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Mobley, Mark. Sing Out, Mr President: Andrew Jackson's OneMan Majority. Digital image. NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 19 Nov.
2013.
Jackson, Ed. Samuel Worcester. Digital image. Samuel
Worcester. N.p., 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
"John Marshall." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Nov.
2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
John Ross. Digital image. John Ross. N.p., 1994-2013. Web. 24
Nov. 2013.
http://www.prairierootsresearch.com/martin-van-buren/
"Route of the Trail of Tears." Route of the Trail of Tears. Learn
NC, n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Elzey, Robert. Trail of Tears Historical Marker. Digital image.
Trail of Tears Historical Marker. Digital Library of Georgia, 2013.
Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Works Cited Cont…
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DeWitt, Whitney. Christopher Columbus: Hero or
Murderer? n.d.
http://campuspages.cvcc.vccs.edu/polis/2003/nonfictio
n/whitney%20dewitt.amlit.htm (accessed November 22,
2013).
The Story. n.d. http://www.nationaltota.org/the-story/
(accessed November 22, 2013).
The Trail of Tears-The Indian Removals. 2008-2013.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/24f.asp (accessed
November 22, 2013).
Trail of Tears. 1996-2013.
http://www.history.com/topics/trail-of-tears (accessed
November 22, 2013).