The Indian Removal Act: The First Settlers

When most people think of the history in the United States, many think of the first settlers, Christopher Columbus, Lewis and Clark, and the Pilgrims. Indians were visibly the first people to settle in the United States, and the many to be taken away from their sacred motherland. White Americans had said that they feared the Indians because they we’re aliens who took over land, more so savages, heathens and barbarians (Minges, 454). President Andrew Jackson was the one who stood out to people, trying his best to make executive decisions to help his nation and that led to the removal the Indians from their land. In 1830, Jackson had signed a very important document which enforced the Indian Removal Act. The Act had affected five “Civilized
The women and children were driven from their homes. The greedy white men, even went to the graves of the ancestors and dug up any jewelry or ornaments that were buried with the dead (Minges, 467). The twenty thousand Indians were divided into separate groups of equal size of about one thousand (Thorton, 293). Each detachment started at different times, usually one year apart and then the others would accordingly follow. The aged, sick and the young had rode in wagons, which consisted of some goods and bedding (Minges, 467). The others had traveled by foot and this trip was made during the dead of winter. Author Ethan Davis, claims that this particular winter was “one of the coldest periods ever known in the country” (Davis, 100) Many had died from the exposure from sleet or snow. Author Patrick Minges states, “Those who lived to make this trip, or had parents who made it, will long remember it, as a bitter memory” (Minges, 467). A Georgia volunteer was later to say about the cruelty of the Indians, “I fought through the civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew (Minges, 467)”. The U.S. troops gathered several Indians as well as some African slaves and put them in what is similar to a concentration camp, they were kept as what Minges says “pigs in a sty”
John Ross, the leader of the Removal Act strongly disagreed to the Cherokee’s giving up their lands. Ross knew that white men would keep a close eye on him or they would continue to return to their lands if he did not do something about it. Ross had gone “away” for a short period of time and during that time the government had signed a treaty at New Echota, which was the Cherokee Nation capital. This treaty agreed to sell the U.S. government all tribal lands in the east in exchange for five million dollars and land in the west. Ross had argued that this treaty was done illegally. Not to mention that there was more than one route to the Trail of Tears. The first group of Cherokees had actually departed in Tennessee in June of 1838 and headed to Indian Territory by boat that had taken them through four state rivers including Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, and Arkansas (Thorton,