The Cherokee Nation Nancy Taylor

AIHE Colloquia2010

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html

sonofthesouth.net

Florida Benchmarks• SS.8.A.1.• Use research and inquiry skills to analyze American History

using primary and secondary sources.• SS.8.A.1.2• Analyze charts, graphs, maps, photographs and timelines;

analyze political cartoons; determine cause and effect.• SS.8.A.1.5• Identify, within both primary and secondary sources, the

author, audience, format, and purpose of significant historical documents.

• .8.A.4.4• Discuss the impact of westward expansion on cultural

practices and migration patterns of Native American and African slave populations.

• SS.8.A.4.13• Explain the consequences of landmark Supreme Court

decisions (McCulloch v. Maryland [1819], Gibbons v. Odgen [1824], Cherokee Nation v. Georgia [1831], and Worcester v. Georgia [1832]) significant to this era of American history.

In the early days of our Nation:

Cherokee people struggled -to remain on their ancestral homeland

United States leaders struggled - to understand Constitution, the checks and balances of the three branches

states rights a federal government the question of Indian lands

In 1700 when the Cherokee people made contact with the British for the most part they were still living in the traditional ways of past generations.

They were divided into seven clans.

Ah-ni-ga-to-ge-wi or Wild Potato Clan – keepers and protectors of the earthAh-ni-gi-lo(la)-hi or Long Hair Clan – teachers and keepers of traditionAh-ni-(k)a-wi or Deer Clan - keepers ofthe deer, deer hunters and trackers, tanners and seamers, as well as keepers of the deer medicinesAh-ni-tsi-sk-wa or Red Tailed Hawk Clan – keepers of the birds, sacred feathers and bird medicines.Ah-ni-sa-ho-ni or Blue Holly Clan –keepers of all children's medicines and caretakers of medicinal herb gardensAh-ni-wo-di or Paint Clan – the tribe's medicine men, Dida:hnvwi:sgi (healers) and Adawehi (wise men)traditionally came from this clan.Ani'-Wah' Ya or Wolf Clan –( largest clan today) the protectors of the people most prominent clan, providing most of the war chiefs, and warriors

http://www.aaanativearts.com/cherokee/cherokee-clans.htm

Traditional Ways Before 1700

*women farmed and ran the family (Matrilineal Society)

*a husband moved into his wife’s dwelling

*women owned the household goods and the children *land was held in common by all of he people

*men hunted, traded, made warfare and sat on councils

*women spoke at councils too

*no major chief

*no formal central government

*political questions and problems were solved by council meetings

CHANGE 1700s -1800s

*white man’s way of life would interweave with theirs

*women would loose there place as head of household

*they would become a patriarchal society where sons could inherit land from their fathers

*whites would surrounded their national territory

*large portions of their land would be given up to the whites

*some would take up white ways to survive:homes, farms, and plantations would begin to look like those of their white neighbors - cleared land, planted crops, livestock and orchards

*they would establish a government with a written constitution that resembled the United States - complete with legislative, executive and judicial branches.

A commander of Fort Patrick Henry sent Henry Timberlake as a token of friendship after the Anglo-Cherokee War. Timberlake later takes three Cherokee to

London, 1763.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickamauga_Wars_(1776%E2%80%931794)

Ostenaco, Standing Turkey, and Wood Pigeon

In 1791 during George Washington’s Presidency, theUnited States Senate ratified -

The Treaty of Holston.

- recognized the Cherokee people as a nation with the right to self-govern

- guaranteed their land and established boundaries that they both agreed upon

- set the United States up in the role as their protector

Statue representing the signing of the Treaty of the Holston in Downtown Knoxville

“Civilization” Program(Initiated by George Washington in 1796)

Benjamin Hawkins, a Principal Agent for the Southern Indians appointed by President Washington, was sent to help the Cherokee build model farms.

He wrote the President in 1796: The Cherokee said they would follow the advice of their great father George Washington, they would plant cotton and be prepared for spinning as soon as they could make it, and they hoped they might get some wheels and carts as soon as they should be ready for them, they promised also to take care of their pigs and cattle…That they were willing to labour if they could be directed how to profit by it.

Lyman Vincent, A Solitary Tree and a Tornado – The How and Whys of Cherokee Assimilation and Removal 1796-1838, Janus university Maryland Undergraduate History Journal. http://janus.und.edu/

Some of the Cherokee leaders began to encourage American missionaries to start schools.

- First mission school opened in 1801

- Missionaries taught the boys the skills of reading, writing, arithmetic, agriculture, and carpentry

- Girls were taught cooking, spinning, weaving, and sewing. All were taught to read and write

- Cherokee parents who sent their children to the mission schools believed it was important for their children, the future Cherokee leaders, to be able to speak both the language of the whites and the language of the Cherokee.

The Cherokee began writing down their laws in the early 1800s and by 1828 their government mirrored the federal government of the United States with a written constitution:

written laws

elected headsman

a legislative assembly

a court

a system of circuit riding judges

a marshal

They were committed to preserving their nation and their territory. It was a crime punishable by death to sell land to the whites. www.americanantiquarian.org/

nativeamerican.htm

By 1828 the Cherokee Nation had their own newspaper called the Phoenix.

- published laws and public documents, articles about manners, customs, education, religion, art, and the news.

- place where they could share new ideas

- place where they could protest against anyone who wanted to remove them from their lands.

- published in both the Cherokee language and the English language

- Newspaper articles from the Phoenix were also carried in some white newspapers especially in the New England states.

http://chieftainstrail.com/images/cherokee_phoenix.jpg

Georgia began to ask what the United States government was going to do about these beginnings of a separate government within the limits of their state.

In 1828 the Cherokee constitution now written and printed showed the Cherokees thought themselves a sovereign and independent nation.

Georgia CompactIn 1802 the Jefferson administration had made an agreement with the State of Georgia. This agreement, the Georgia Compact, involved the selling of Georgia’s western lands to the United States for $1,250,000 and ----------

a promise that Georgia would receive legal title to the Cherokee lands through peaceful treaties

President JeffersonNovember 22, 1803

Wrote to Georgia Governor Milledge

“the acquisition of Louisiana will it is hoped put in our power the means of inducing all the Indians on this side to transplant themselves to the other side of the Mississippi, before many years get about.”

January 10, 1809

Spoke to Cherokee Chiefs

…Tell all your Chiefs, your men, women and children, that I take them by the hand and hold it fast. That I am their father, wish their happiness and well-being, and am always ready to promote their good.

Andrew Jackson elected to the Presidency 1828

www.uni.edu/.../BRENDA/jackson-andrew.jpg

University of Northern Iowa

. . . all Indians must now be removed west of the Mississippi. First address to Congress

. . . the Government kindly offers these people a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of their removal and settling on new land. Second annual message to Congress

In 1828 gold was discovered on Cherokeeland at Dahlonega, Georgia.

Miners came. Theft and violence followed.

The Cherokee vowed not to fight instead took their grievances to the courts of Georgia.

They believed that the treaties they had signed had guaranteed them their land and protection.

The Georgia courts refused to help.

Georgia Governor Gilmer shared that he believed treaties were made with ignorant and savage people to persuade them to give up without bloodshed what civilized white people had the right to own.

Gold-Mining in Georgia." Harper's New Monthly Magazine (June to November 1879): 519.

The State of Georgia created laws for the Cherokee people in 1829 - 1830.

These laws took away Cherokee rights.

They were designed to force the Cherokee to move away.

The laws said all Cherokee law was nullified (the Cherokee laws in the eyes of Georgia no longer existed)and the Cherokee must follow Georgia law.

The Cherokee shall not hold courts.

No Indian or descendant of any Indian shall be allowed to stand as a witness in any court of Georgia to which a white person might be a party.

The Cherokee people can no longer meet as a council for the purpose of making laws for their tribe.

The Georgia guard are authorized and empowered to arrest any person legally charged with or detected in violation of the laws of Georgia on Cherokee land.

***All white persons living within the Cherokee Nation without a license from the Governor and who have not taken an oath of allegiance to the Governor of Georgia shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor and upon conviction be punished by confinement in the penitentiary at hard labor for not less than four years. ***

1830 the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act.

It provided for the removal of Indians from their homelands inthe east to the territory west of the Mississippi River.

During Andrew Jackson’s presidential years the United States Congress negotiated 94 treaties ending Indian titles to land in the existing states.

U.S. Supreme Court Case Worcester v. Georgia 1832

The court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was independent from the state of Georgia and all dealings with the Cherokee fell under Federal, United States, jurisdiction.

www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/.../m-7259.jpg

Chief Justice Marshall wrote in his opinion: The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community, occupying its own territory … 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 Cherokee themselves … the acts of Georgia are repugnant to the constitution, laws and treaties of the United States.

The “Treaty of New Echota” ratified in 1836 gave the Cherokee people5 million dollars in return for their land and removal.

The treaty after a hot debate was ratified by the georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/tdgh-dec/dec29.htm

United States Senate in May1836 by one vote. Georgia Info

Although the majority of the Cherokee were opposed to removal, the policy did have some powerful proponents. Major Ridge, before signing, stated: I am one of the native sons of these wild woods…[but] they are strong and we are weak. We are few, they are many…I know we love the graves of our fathers…We can never forget our homes…I would willingly die to preserve them, but any forcible effort to keep them will cost our lands, our lives and the lives of our children…Make a treaty of cession. Major Ross John Ehle, The Trail of Tears The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation, New York 19

"We will make and sign this treaty. . . we can die, but the great Cherokee Nation will be saved." - Elias Boudinot  December 1835

Persons of great courage or traitors?Major Ross

http://www.georgiatrailoftears.com/images/majorridge.jpgGeorgia

In May 1838 the United States began rounding up Cherokee and placing them in stockades. In the fall thirteen to fifteen thousand Cherokee set out on the 800 mile journey in the winter.

It is believed that as many as four www.intimeandplace.org/cherokee/index.html

thousand died along the way. In Time & Place the Cherokee Removal

This forced march was known to the Cherokee as “Nunna-da-ul-tsun-vi” the place where they cried.

“The Trail of Tears.”http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/salinas/students/student_sites/Fall2008/4/

Painting “International Indian Council” by John Mix Stanley housed at the Smithsonian Art

For the next eight years there would be a bloody battle for control of the Cherokee Nation in the West. The three group: first, the Western Cherokee, who had come west years before and were already settled on the land with their own government – second, the new comers, the Old Nation Cherokee led by John Ross – and third, the Treaty Party made up of those who had signed the Treaty of New Echota giving away the eastern lands would all seek revenge against one another.

In the Treaty of 1846 the three groups came together. John Ross became the leader with little challenge.

The Cherokee Nation began to rebuild.

Bibliography

Benedict, Michael Les, The Blessings of Liberty A Concise History of the Constitiution of the United States, D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1996.

Ehle, John, Trail of Tears The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation, Anchor Books, New York, 1988.

Hakim, Joy, A History of Us The New Nation 1789-1850,Oxford University Press, New York, 1999.

Lyman, Vincent, “A Solitary Tree and a Tornado – The How and Whys of Cherokee Assimilation and Removal 1796-1838” Janus University of Maryland Undergraduate History Journal. http://janus.und.edu/

Perdue, Theda and Green Michael (editors), The Cherokee Removal A Brief History with Documents, Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, Boston, 1995.

Rozema, Vicki, Voices from the Trail of Tears, John F. Blair Publisher, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 2003.

Stein, Conrad R., Trail of Tears Cornerstones of Freedom, Childrens Press, Chicago, 1993.

Atlanta History Center www.atlantahistorycenter

PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html

In 1835, the United States government commissioned a census of all Cherokees east of the Mississippi. The Office of Indian Affairs was directed to take the census. .The government wanted to know about property, the Cherokees skills and how much the land farmed was producing. The census gave an accounting of “property…productivity…skills.” 2,635 Cherokees were identified by the census takers as head of households.

The Cherokee Removal A Brief History with Documents edited by Theda Perdue and Michael Green (Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1995.) p. 48.

The community of Long Savannah was located in what is today Hamilton, County, Tennessee. The editors, of The Cherokee Removal A Brief History with Documents Theda Purdue and Michael Green, selected Long Savannah because it “was typical of most of the Cherokee Nation.

Cherokee Census 1835

• 2635 heads of household• 16, 542 Cherokee• 77 % full blooded• 1,592 slaves• 201 intermarried with whites• 44,000 acres cultivated … over ½ million bushels of corn• Slightly more than ½ of the households had a least one reader

of Cherokee• 18% of households had a reader of English