OPPapers.com

Trail Of Tears

Trail of Tears
The white settlers were already emigrating to the Union, or America. The East Coast was burdened with new settlers and becoming vastly populated. President Andrew Jackson and the government had to find a way to move people to the West to make room. President Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Policy in the year 1830. The Indian Removal Policy which called for the removal of Native Americans from the Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia area, also moved their capital Echota in Tennessee to the new capital call New Echota, Georgia and then eventually to the Indian Territory. The Indian Territory was declared in the Act of Congress in 1830 with the Indian Removal Policy.
Elias Boudinot, Major Ridge, and John Ridge and their corps accepted the responsibility for the removal of one of the largest tribes in the Southeast that were the earliest to adapt to European ways.
There was a war involving the Cherokee and the Chickasaw before the Indian Removal Policy was passed. The Cherokee were defeated by the Chickasaw, which caused Chief Dragging Canoe to sign a treaty in 1777 to split up their tribe and have the portion of the tribe in Chattanooga, Tennessee called the Chickamauga.
Chief Doublehead of the Chickamauga, a branch of the Cherokee, signed a treaty to give away their lands. Tribal law says "Death to any Cherokee who proposed to sell or exchange tribal land." Major Ridge later executed Chief Doublehead. The Cherokee tried to bend their ways to the United States. They adopted a form of our government and also gave up plenty of there land. The Cherokees' were big on farming and also owned some slaves that they got from Americans.
Again there was another treaty signed in December 29, 1835 which is called The Treaty of New Echota. A party of 500 Cherokee out of about 17,000 signed it. Between 1785 and 1902 twenty-five treaties were signed with white men to give up their tribal lands.
The Cherokee would find...