Baldwin Wallace Letter

Shota M. Sisco

28 October 2017

Professor Tara Mielnik

History of the United States

The Cherokee Removal

The Removal of the Cherokee people is a complicated and dark part of the history of the United States. The Cherokee people originally had land residing over: Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Before the Removal Act was put into place the Federal government had acknowledged that the Cherokee were their own nation, although the state of Georgia did not see eye to eye with this claim. With the nation being swept by ignorant thoughts of racist stigma, the Cherokee had been brought to their knees with the help of the early conflicts with the state of Georgia and the nomination of Andrew Jackson as the seventh president of the United States. This ultimately lead to the genocide of the native people and later known as the “trail of tears”, or to the Cherokee themselves as the, “trail where they cried”.In any time of conflict or great change there is always those who advocate “for” and those who advocate “against” the topic of interest. For example not all white settlers supported the cherokee removal and not all Cherokee had been in opposition of it.In the preface of “The Cherokee Removal”, old conversation taken place in a mission schoolhouse amongst native children is documented. The documents show how the native children are aware of their impending doom. “Andrew Jackson an advocate of removal, had just been elected president of the United States, and the possibility of being forced west of the Mississippi dominated the children’s thoughts.” For the native americans, losing their homelands was a real and terrifying thought which would all but too soon become a reality.

    Within the Cherokee nation there was a political division breaking off into two seperate groups. The majority of Cherokee resided within the Ross party which wanted to keep their homelands and defend their rights to live there. On the other side rested the treaty party who wanted to leave behind their land east of the Mississippi in exchange for money and land further west of the Mississippi. The Ross party was lead by John Ross, a white man who had the longest serving time as a principal chief in Cherokee history, he had ideals of protecting these people and making sure they had fair rights and were able to fight off those who looked to eliminate the Cherokee presence in the east. The treaty party was composed by a small group of Cherokee leaders. The treaty party had those aligned with them,  justifying the terms of removal in their own eyes with ideas that seemed to only bring down the natives and make them seem as waste to the land in which they held. Lewis Cass, an American military officer and statesman had stated, “There is a principle of repulsion in ceaseless activity, operating through all their institutions, which prevents them from appreciating or adopting any other modes of life, or any other habits of thought or action but those which have descended to them from their ancestors.”. Cass also stated,”From an early period, their rapid declension and ultimate extinction were forseeen and lamented, and various plans for their preservation and improvement were projected and pursued. Many of them were carefully taught at our seminaries of education, in hope that principles of morality and habits of industry would be acquired, and that they might stimulate their countrymen by precept and example to a better course of life. Missionary stations were established among various tribes, where zealous and pious men devoted themselves with generous ador to the task of instruction, as well in agriculture and the mechanic arts, as in principles of morality and religion...unfortunately, they are monuments also of unsuccessful and unproductive efforts. What tribe has been civilized by all this expenditure of treasure, and labor, and care?” These statements made by Cass to me showed great prejudice in his thinking of the native people. It also made clear to me that Cass believed the natives were deemed unable to survive because of their inability to adopt american culture more so.

    When Georgia looked to remove the Cherokee and start