Indian Removal
Acts
Presentation created by Robert Martinez
Primary Content Source: The Story of US by Joy Hakim
Images as cited.
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/trailtr5.jpg
Between 1830 and 1850 an estimated 100,000
Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and
Seminoles were forced from their homelands to
the new “Indian Territory” beyond the
Mississippi.
http://www.sip.armstrong.edu/Indians/jpeg/ChoctawsandShawnees.JPG
Their massive eviction is one of the sadder
chapters in American history, the price exacted
by a seemingly endless stream of land-hungry
white settlers.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jstephenconn/3050539880/
President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal
Act of 1830 ultimately added 100 million acres
of land to the public domain.
http://www.uni.edu/schneidj/webquests/standard9/BRENDA/jackson-andrew.jpg
While most Indians went peacefully, the
Seminoles fought back.
http://www.christopherstill.com/images/mural_patriot_and_warrior_sample.jpg
In 1835 U.S. troops arrived in Florida after a 3
year grace period had run out. No Seminoles
had left during that period.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67219958@N00/3165030284/
Led by Chief Osceola, the Seminoles ambushed
an Army unit north of present-day Tampa.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67219958@N00/3164201445/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67219958@N00/3165036268/
In late 1837 the Army used a truce flag to lure
Osceola into a camp near St. Augustine. He was
captured and sent in Charleston, SC, where he
died the following year.
Chief Osceola
http://www.kislakfoundation.org/millennium-exhibit/profiles/Image6.jpg
Four years later, the Seminole quit fighting,
about 3,000 Indians and blacks were sent to
Oklahoma, while a few hundred disappeared
into the Everglades.
http://mle.matsuk12.us/american-natives/se/seminole-canoe.jpg
The Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws
migrated voluntarily. Between 1831 and 1833,
about 15,000 Choctaws made the long trek from
Mississippi and western Alabama to the Indian
territory.
http://www.tjhsst.edu/~sgoswami/images/mapofindianremoval.jpg
But the Cherokees were a different story. They
held out until the deadline for leaving had come
and gone, trying to prove that they could adapt
to white culture.
http://www.snowwowl.com/images/cherokee/image006.jpg
Their 800-mile journey in the fall and winter of
1838-39 has become known as the Trail of Tears.
http://richheape.com/media/8-town.jpg
By 1820, after dozens of treaties, Cherokee land
was down to 10 percent of its original size.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fallenangil/178087325/
The Cherokee at first tried to resist moving off
their lands. By 1830, they had their own
newspaper, printed in both English and a
written form of Cherokee developed by
Sequoyah.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/themosleyvault/2259550440/
Many of them were partially white and lived in
small houses with white picket fences, some
operated plantations and even owned slaves.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/images/060123_cherokee_dig_big.jpg
Delivering a speech in New York, Cherokee spokesman
John Ridge said, “You asked us to throw off the hunter
and warrior state – we did so. You asked us to form a
republican government – we did so. You asked us to
cultivate the earth and learn the mechanical arts – we
did so. You asked us to cast away our idols and worship
your God – we did so.”
Cherokee John Ridge
http://www.wpclipart.com/American_History/Native_Americans/Cherokee/John_Ridge__Cherokee.png
That same year, the Supreme Court rules that
the Indian Removal Act’s against the Cherokee
were unconstitutional. Yet Jackson refused to
enforce the ruling of the highest court in the
land.
Supreme Court
Chief Justice
John Marshall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall
In 1835, 20 Cherokees singed a treaty, agreeing
their nation would move in exchange for 5
million dollars. But the vast majority of
Cherokees stayed put.
http://www.sitemason.com/files/jxuRUY/cherokee10.JPG
Finally in 1838, soldiers began going door to
door. Individuals were given no time to collect
possessions or locate family members.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monazimba/3329677693/
Those who resisted were beaten or put in chains,
the old and ill were pushed out of their homes at
bayonet point, women were molested.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/american-indians/pictures/cherokee-indian.jpg
“I fought through the Civil War and have seen
men…slaughtered by the thousands, but the
Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever
knew,” wrote one soldier.
http://www.indianahumanities.org/wethepeople/200/the_trail_of_tears.jpg
Some were moved west in the summer, but
drought and sickness took a toll. Most were
allowed to wait until fall.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjelle/2870750415/
Heavy rains slowed their progress, and then
came a bitter winter. Ice floes on the Mississippi
River bogged down some groups for weeks.
http://www.tjhsst.edu/~sgoswami/images/4tear44b.jpg
Women tried to gather edible plants from the
forest to supplement rations of white flour and
old salt pork, yet many plants were unfamiliar.
http://www.americaremembers.com/Products/CTOTTRI/CTOTTRI_pic_small.jpg
Deaths from malnutrition and exposure were
common. Most families lost at least one member.
In all, some 4,000 Cherokees died, nearly a fifth
of their entire population.
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w142/nzkiwi1957/NATIVE%20INDIANS%20AND%20WOLVES/CherokeeTrailOfTearsShadowOfTheOwl.jpg