Indian Removal
About 7 years ago, my parents took me to see the play “Unto these Hills”, about the Cherokee Indian Tribes removal from their homeland in the Smoky Mountains, to the Indian Reservation in Oklahoma. At the time, I thought it was a terrible, selfish thing of the white people to do to them, but I did not really think about how it affected the Indian people, and what their stand was and should have been at the time. We treated these people as they were less than we were. We took away their rights to their homes, their lands and their way of life. In Howard Zinn’s Voices of a people’s history of the United States, he also speaks of this injustice. He tells us that by “1844 fewer than 30,000 of the 120,000 Indians that lived east of the Mississippi at the time remained. They had been killed or pushed West by what the people of the time called “ethnic cleansing”.” These people had a right to be left to their homes. They were there before the white man came wanting the land and to be rid of the dirty, heathen Indians. They were dragged away forcibly from their homes, to stockades, sometimes separated from their families. They then had to travel, mostly on foot to their new Indian Territory home in Oklahoma. This new area was far away from the White Settlers who had selfishly wanted these lands for their own and the Indians out of mind. The Cherokee’s were not the only group of Indians to be removed from their homes, and none of the removals were justified or right in any way.
Annotated Bibliography
Brinkley, Alan, American History A Survey. (McGraw Hill Higher Education, Boston – New York – London, 2009): 458-464. Print
The material in the History book talks about White tribal policies and how the Whites tried to place a permanent area between the Indians and themselves. Then they were not satisfied with that barrier, and the whites wanted to cross the area and take over the new lands that they had forced the Indians to be moved to.
The information goes on to tell of the poorly run reservations. That these Indians were taken from their homes and culture, and placed on government run reservations, and yet they still went hungry and had no way to farm the land. The whites were killing the buffalo, and pushing farther west into their land.
The Gale Encyclopedia of Native Americans, Edited by Sharon Malinowski and Anna Sheets with Jeffrey Lehman and Melissa Doig. (Gale, Detroit – New York- London, Volume I 1998): 380-389. Print
This material explains the life of the Cherokee Indians. Non Indians continued their quest to acquire Indian land at whatever costs to the Indians. The battle heightened with the 1830 passage of the Federal Indian Removal Act, which required Indians to trade their homeland for property in Indian Territory. Most refused to leave voluntarily and were forcibly removed from their homes.
This information will be useful for me to show my audience what type of people the Cherokee were. That they had family lives, they worked, and they had hopes for their lands. It was theirs, and they had the right to stay on the land, and the whites and the government did not have the right to just come in and take the land away from them, just because they wanted the land for themselves, for selfish purposes. They felt they were better than the Indians, and so they could force them to do what they wanted.
Golden, Randy. Cherokee Removal Forts, exclusively for About North Georgia. NGeorgia.com, web, Accessed March 29, 2010.
This site tells about the forts that were built to house the Cherokee people, before their actual removal from their homeland to Indian Territory. This happened eight years before the Trail of Tears.
This is a story of the history before the real history. I have never heard this part of the story before and thought it was interesting to see what the Indians had to go through beforehand. It tells where the forts are, why and how they were built, and what the lives of the people on the forts were like.
Jahoda, Gloria, The Trail of Tears-The Story of the American Indian Removals 1813-1855. (Random House, New York – Toronto – London – Sydney – Auckland, 1975): 1-312. Print
In 1930 the U.S. Congress passed a bill allowing the removal of all Native Americans living east of the Mississippi. Chief John Ross argued successfully with the U. S. Supreme Court that this was unconstitutional, but President Andrew Jackson refused to accept the decision and proceeded to make them leave their homeland. 13,000 Cherokee were forced to leave and to walk to their new Indian Territory Homes in Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. The travel was hard and long, and over One fourth of the people died along the way.
The material from this book will be used to show the hardships that the Indians under went on their journey. First was the forced removal from their homes. Some of them were separated from their families. The journey to Oklahoma itself was a struggle. They travel, the weather, the lack of food and clothing, to the strange new land out west. The struggles did not stop there either. Once they got settled, there were new problems to deal with. This all goes back to what Zinn said in his book.
Parker, Matthew D. Indian Removal, Thomas Legion: The 69th North Carolina Regiment, Matthew Parker, thomaslegion.net, posted 08-27-2005, web, accessed March 31, 2010.
This site has the dates of all tribe removals, the years it took them to travel to their destinations. It also tells the number of deaths of the tribes during the removal. It tells the role of the government in the removals.
How much the government had to do with the removals will be an interesting turn to the story. What Presidents at the time did for or against the Indians, and ultimately in the removal of them from their sacred homelands.
Philip, Neil, The Great Circle A History of the First Nations. (Clarion Books, New York, 2006): 1-147. Print.
The author tells us of the first meetings with the Indians and the Whites. In 1705 the Cherokee complained to the governor that the whites were conspiring to assault, kill, destroy and take captive as many Indians as possible. Since these men were given commission from the governor himself, and the Indians that were caught were sold into slavery for his and private profit, the complaints went unheard. The Indians were told they must become civilized, and war broke out. The Indians lost more and more of their lands, and began to accept this.
The Indians had troubles with the whites, and they had been taken away from their homes and their culture. They were strong, and knew they would have to survive. So they formed their own governments again, knew that they would need to have an education. The audience needs to see that these were people, with minds, imaginations and culture. Even though they had been dealt a strong blow they were going to survive, and move forward.
Rutledge, Michael J., Samuels Memory. Forgiveness in the Age of Forgetfulness 1995. Copyright 1997 Ken Martin, Cherokeehistory.com, web, accessed March 30, 2010.
This site has a lot of different types of information. This is a recounting of the history of an Indian boy who turned 9 years old, while travelling on the Trail of Tears, told by his great grandson.
I thought the information from someone who had to travel on this horrific journey would add some introspect into the paper. To have an actual memory from someone who had been through this and had the insight into actual feelings and attitudes would be neat.
Seidman, David, Individual Rights and Civic Responsibility Civil Rights. (The Rosen Publishing Group Inc., New York, 2001) : 40-59. Print
The author tells about the lack of and struggle for Native American Civil Rights. The problem started back at the time that Columbus discovered America in 1492, when he called the inhabitants Indians, and he enslaved them and killed them if they resisted. Then for a time the government seemed to respect the Indians. In 1787, the Northwest Ordinance stated that “The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians: their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent, they shall never be invaded or disturbed.” In contrast, as stated in the Trail of Tears, above we see that this did not hold true.
In Zinn’s writings he gives us insight through a soldier’s story about what a white man did feel about these injustices. This soldier gives us a glimpse into the Indian’s lives and feelings, and what a terrible thing was happening to them, totally out of their control. This book will help us show the struggle for some rights for the Indians. That even though at the time, the thought was that these people were savages, they had a culture and way of life, and they did deserve rights, and they were taken away from them.
