History Of The Trail Of Tears

The Trial of Tears was when the Native Americans in the Southast were forcibly removed from Georgia. They were made to march from Georgia to present-day Oklahoma. It was caused by multiple people and events, but there were also people who tried to stop this tragic event. Gold was discovered near Cherokee territory in 1828. Thousands of white miners wanted this land for the gold and began to settle there without permission. Whites started to demand the government to remove the Native Americans, so later on they were taken out by the United States Army. This was the beginning of the removal of the Cherokee. In 1832, Mr. Worcester, a man living with the Cherokee, stated that his family’s mandatory removal was denying his constitutional rights, and believed that Georgia
had gone past its boundaries. He brought this to court, and it was deemed the Worcester versus Georgia case. John Marshall, the judge who lead the case, ruled in favor of Worcester’s family. The Supreme Court also said that the interactions between the Cherokee tribe and Georgia had to be approaches as international communication. However, Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States at the time, did not agree with this ruling and did not enforce this. Multiple missionaries were arrested for living with the tribe without the country's consent. The state sentenced them to four years of toil in a Milledgeville prison. Cherokees were against this ruling and brought this matter to court. The Supreme Court once again voted in their favor, and Andrew Jackson once again ignored them. Georgia kept the missionaries in prison while pressuring the federal government to remove the Cherokees. In 1833, the missionaries were pardoned because the rest of the nation was criticizing Georgia for this decision. Finally, in 1835, the whole tribe was forced out of Georgia. Worcester moved to Oklahoma with them and continued his missionary work there. The Treaty of New Echota was signed in 1835.
A small group of Cherokees signed it without the permission of the rest of the tribe, giving away a bit of their land in exchange for compensation. When Andrew Jackson received this, he immediately signed it, and Congress approved this Treaty. Three years later, in 1838, the Trail of Tears began. Andrew Jackson played a big role in the Trail of Tears. As stated above, he ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling twice, choosing to persecute anybody involved with the Cherokee tribe. Additionally, he signed the Treaty of New Echota, which gave away some Native American land. President Jackson also had the United States army force natives to march all the way from Georgia to Oklahoma just so the white population would be satisfied. In the end, he did not fulfill his role as President. The Trail of Tears also included the removal of the Creeks. They had the most land in Georgia because they were the largest Indian tribe in the state. During the colonial period, the Creek were a major trading partner with Georgia. However, they sided with the British during the American Revolution, which made their relationship with Georgia an unstable one, at
best. Many white settlers did not like having the Creek in Georgia, so they started pushing the federal government for the tribe’s removal. Because of this pressure, the Creek felt as if they had to give away some land to please the white people. This resulted in the Treaty of New York, written in 1790, which stated that the Creek had to give up plans east of the Ocmulgee River to the United States of America. This treaty was only one of multiple surrenders of their land. William McIntosh was a Creek Chief with a Scottish father and a Creek mother. On multiple occasions, he had sided with the United States, which made many Creeks angry. McIntosh also wanted more agriculture and slaves in the Creek tribes. This, too, was frowned upon. In 1825, he signed the Second Treaty of Indian Springs, which sold the rest of Creek land for $200,000. Only seven Creek chiefs agreed to this treaty, leaving the rest of the tribe in fury. The Creek Nation believed that this interaction was a bribe, so, on April thirtieth, 1825, they shot and stabbed McIntosh multiple times. Regardless, the Second Treaty of Indian Springs was carried out, and the Creek were removed from Georgia borders. Multiple other tribes such as the Choctaw and Seminole were also forced onto the Trail of Tears. These are just a few events and people who made this happen, as almost every white settler wanted the Natives’ land. In the end, the Native Americans’ attempts were futile, and almost every single one of them was removed from the South-East.