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Answer the following questions as you watch the videos.

Video 1: Indian Removal

1. According to both Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, what was the key to creating a self-reliant American people?

2. How did the Cherokees practice spirituality?

3. In what ways did the Cherokees take Jefferson's advice?

4. Why, despite following Jefferson's advice, were the Cherokees removed?

5. About how many died on the "Trail of Tears?”

6. While Jackson hoped to be called "Great Father" by the Cherokees, what name did they actually use?

Video 2: Cherokee Nation Appeals to the Supreme Court

1. What did the Cherokees do to resist removal?

2. How did Jackson respond to the Supreme Court's decision?

Primary Source - John Marshall’s Decision on Worcester v. GeorgiaWhen the state of Georgia began forcibly removing Cherokees from their lands, the tribe

appealed to the Supreme Court, asking it to enforce its treaty rights. In the 1832 case of

Worcester v. Georgia the Court ruled in the Cherokees’ favor, deciding that the tribe

constituted a sovereign nation. Unfortunately, this victory was a hollow one, as

President Jackson refused to enforce the verdict, arguing that the Cherokees were not an

ndependent nation but were merely inhabitants of the state of Georgia. The following

excerpt is taken from the Court’s majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John

Marshall.

From the commencement of our government, congress has passed acts to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indians; which treat them as nations, respect their rights, and manifest a firm purpose to afford that protection which treaties stipulate. All these acts, and especially that of 1802, which is still in force, manifestly consider the several Indian nations as distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries, within which their authority is exclusive, and having a right to all the lands within those boundaries, which is not only acknowledged, but guarantied by the United States. . . .The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community, occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.

Source: “Worcester v. The State of Georgia,” Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme

Court of the United States. January Term 1832. Vol. VI. Richard Peters, ed. (Philadelphia: T. Desilver, Jr., 1832), 556-567, 561.

What does the Supreme Court argue on behalf of the Cherokee?

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Primary Source - Jackson’s Message to Congress on Indian Removal

Like Thomas Jefferson before him, Andrew Jackson regarded the proliferation of independent, white farmers as the key to the continued prosperity of the United States. Americans, to be really free and self-reliant, needed to own their own land. But with population rising, this required each new generation to move farther west, onto landsthat in many cases were already occupied by Native Americans. In Jackson’s eyes, because whites grew crops and built settlements, while Indians mostly hunted, there was no doubt about who would make better use of the lands. Indians, Jackson predicted, would inevitably suffer from contact with these land-hungry whites, making it in theirown best interest to move west of the Mississippi River. The following excerpt is taken from Jackson’s second annual message to Congress, months after the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians

themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations. It

puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on

account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few

savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the

settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong

enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part

of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will

separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States;

enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of

decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government

and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting,

civilized, and Christian community.

Source: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), vol. 2, pp. 519-520.

After reading this document, what would you say is Jackson’s ideal vision of America?

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Primary Source - Letter from Chief John Ross

Despite two favorable Supreme Court decisions, the Cherokee Indians faced forced evictions from their ancestral

homelands. In 1835 two commissioners appointed by President Andrew Jackson convinced a small group of

Cherokees to sign the Treaty of New Echota, which ceded remaining Cherokee lands to the United States. The

Cherokees who signed the treaty clearly did not represent the wishes of the majority of the Cherokee people in

whose interest they claimed to act. Jackson nevertheless submitted the treaty to the Senate, which gave it its

approval in March 1836. Months later, on September 28, 1836, Cherokees meeting at the Red Clay Council

Ground appointed a delegation consisting of Chief John Ross and eight others to journey to

Washington and deliver their complaints to Congress in person. Ross brought with him a memorial signed by more

than two thousand Cherokees. The following excerpt, taken from that memorial, shows the Cherokees’ deep

sense of dismay and frustration at the ratification of the so-called “Treaty” of New Echota.

(continued on next slide…)

To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress

assembled . . . .After the departure of the delegation, a contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn and certain

individual Cherokees, purporting to be “A treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of Georgia, on the 29th day of

December, 1835, by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United States;

and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious delegation, in violation of a special

injunction of the general council of the nation, proceeded to Washington city with this pretended treaty, and, by false and

fraudulent representations, supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited delegation of the

Cherokee people, and obtained for this instrument, after making important alterations in its provisions, the recognition of

the United States Government; and now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the Senate and approved by the

President, and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of the displeasure of the United

States, and the threat of summary compulsion in case of refusal. It comes to us, not through our legitimate authorities,

the known and usual medium of communication between the Government of the United States and our nation; but

through the agency of a complication of powers, civil and military. By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled

of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and

eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our

persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are

disfranchised; we are deprived of membership in the human family; we have neither land, nor home, nor resting-place,

that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred

appellation of “treaty.” We are overwhelmed; our hearts are sickened; our utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the

condition in which we are placed by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems

with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and

reiterated protestations.

Source: “Memorial of a Delegation of the Cherokee Nation,” House of Representatives Document 99, 25thCongress, 2d Session (Serial 325), p. 12.

What is Ross saying about the views of the Cherokee people. and those who supposedly agreed to a treaty?

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