Trail of Tears and American Cruelty
By: Kevin Tenkku
Tags: American History, Native, Human Rights, United States, America

The Event

The Trail of Tears was more than the event itself. The act was an accumulation of all that transpired previously and it was the precursor of all yet to come to date. The Trail of Tears as well as the Indian Removal Act, was an unjustified act of cruelty and an immoral policy of commerce over human lives. It was not justified despite the excuse of economic expansion and attempted assimilation. Following the 1830 Indian Removal Act, there was a series of government forced relocations of approximately 60,000–100,000 Native Americans. The tribes that were forced to participate were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole and the Creek. A Georgia volunteer remembered, “I fought through the civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by the thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew” (Ortiz, 2014, p.113). The natives were forced marched to government directed locations of barren land, more than 1,200 miles away, which is now Oklahoma. They were sent to what would be called Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory. The men, woman and children were forced from their native lands, to a land far away. The Natives were tortured and put in stockades if they resisted, and some were killed on the spot. The Cherokees alone lost up to a quarter of the overall Cherokee Nation population, in route to this new land, through torture, murder and disease. This event was dubbed The Trail of Tears due to the death and misery created from this forced march. The number of people that died during relocation is disputed, due to intentionally inept governmental record keeping. The numbers that the U.S. Government have on record are sparse. The records reflect lower numbers of deaths, in order to cloud the view of how extremely horrific it really was. The Trail of Tears reveals the deep prejudice and disrespect that was shown toward the native people by the United States, all in the name of white settlement and commerce. After the event, the Native people resolved to settle in their new barren land. It was a harsh environment compared to the lush environment that they originally lived for previous centuries (Zinn, 1980, p.125–148).

Buildup

The causes of the Indian Removal Act and the horrific implementation of the policy go back to the original colonies. The original push west started at the edge of Atlantic Ocean and pushed west, a little bit every year, step by step. There were many treaties setup between the States and the Natives as well as the U.S. Government and the Natives. During the Revolutionary War, the Natives fought on both sides of the war. The fact that some Natives fought for the British was never forgotten by the American Colonist. This created mistrust, hatred and an easy excuse for less than honorable actions by some.

In 1790 there was a Treaty with the Creek to establish the Creek Nations right to their land. In addition, it guaranteed the US Governments role as the singular party to make agreements with the Indian Nation for property. “Washington’s Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson said in 1791 that where Indians lived within state boundaries they should not be interfered with, and that the government should remove the white settlers who tried to encroach on them” (Zinn,1980, p.126). A Treaty with the Chickasaw in 1801 agreed to an expansion and mutual use agreement for the Natchez Trace, which was an early trading route. These agreements were all attempts to quiet the Native population, while allowing white settlers to continue to expand land and property at the same time (Zinn,1980).

President Thomas Jefferson originally committed to a policy of Indian cooperation and set up trade with the Indians east of the Mississippi. Jefferson wanted to encourage an agricultural society for the natives, verses their original hunter-gatherer origins. Jefferson was a proponent of an Agricultural Society, and this was in direct conflict with the Industrial Society that Alexander Hamilton promoted. Jefferson was motivated to sign treaties and trading agreements with the natives because he felt that it was positive policy for the long run for the country.

After the Jefferson Presidency, the James Monroe administration gave the first glimpse of Indian removal policies. This proposal started to show some movement under Secretary of War John C. Calhoun’s plans for Indian removal. By late 1824, the President approved Calhoun’s plans for the creation of Arkansas and Indian Territory in the west. The Indians were to exchange their current land for the new land. It was passed in the Senate and voted down in Congress. Following the bill’s failure, the Cherokee Nation created a constitution similar to the United States Constitution. The State of Georgia fought against a sovereign state being formed inside its boundaries, and Georgia would soon assert its power within the Cherokee Nation. This action by Georgia created a great deal of friction between the Cherokees and the state. The Cherokees tried to protect their sovereign rights to no avail (History.com Editors, 2009).

Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in a landslide victory and was elected President in 1829. He was a former Indian fighter, land and slave owner who had a vested interest financially to remove the Indians. He was also motivated through a deep seeded dislike for the Natives and the motivation of profit. He wanted to develop and sell land that he inherited from his landholding father-in-law, John Donelson who died in 1785. Donaldson was a politician, city planner, landholder and adventurer who owned large tracks of land in what is now the Nashville, Tennessee region. In 1831 a landmark court case, Worchester v. Georgia, was litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was decided on, and Chef Justice John Marshall laid out his opinion in favor of the Indian Nations. It was decided that the Indian Nations and the United States had a relationship with each other as nations, and all the inherited rights of Nations. Jackson decided to continue with Indian removal since he believed the court would have no method of stopping the action. While ignoring the ruling, Jackson continued to push the Indian Removal Act that was signed into law in 1830 in contradiction of the Supreme Court decision (Ortiz, 2014, p. 110–116).

After the Jackson Presidency, Martin Van Buren sent troops to quicken the removal process and by 1840 the process was almost completed. The promised territory west of the

Mississippi would shrink over the years as more land was taken from the natives for white settlement and development. In 1907 Oklahoma was officially a state and the Indian Territory disappeared. The long-term consequences are apparent on both sides of the issues. There is an ingrained distrust of the U.S. Government by all the Native Nations throughout the United States as of today. The Trail of Tears is an example of the plight that all the different tribes have gone through. Broken treaties, forced relocation, abuse and the murder of the Native people. The U.S. Government continues to inflict policies at will. The racism is so deep in American culture that it is an accepted thought. Few basic history courses teach the true story of the American Indian and their plight. The honoring of Christopher Columbus and his trail of murder and Native subjugation is an example of the continued discrimination, and acceptance to wash history. It is an attempt with some success to fit the public’s perception of itself and its national history despite the facts (Moulton, 1985, p. 458–461), (Ross, 1836).

Evidence of Tragedy

In the annual address to Congress in December of 1835, by President Andrew Jackson, was not interested in talking about the human toll or the atrocities that happened. President Jackson goes on to address and justify the removal and that all precautions and humanity was taken care of for the transfer of the Indians. He also went on to say that it was a fair exchange of land and that the United States will be better for the United States, as well as the Indians. He goes on to say that all efforts to cohabitate with the natives have failed and that the removal was the only solution available. In 1835 information could take months to double check the accuracy of what was said and what was done. His address to Congress was brimming with lies and it was deceptive in which his only goal was to quiet Congress, while the removal was being done. The truth was very different. Cherokee Chief John Ross writes, “We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defense. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is affected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty” (Ross, 1836). There was great suffering and death during the removal, and the reason and justification was that of commerce.

The challenge in finding the true number of the deaths of the Indians during the removal varies a great deal, due to the governments need to mute the real story of suffering. In an address by the newly elected President Martin Van Buren in 1838, the President said, “It affords sincere pleasure to apprise the Congress of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes in the west of the Mississippi. The measures authorized by Congress at its last session have had the happiest effects” (Zinn, 1980, p.148).

There is a large amount of evidence to the buildup of the removal and well documented timeline up until removal. The event itself is documented in troop movements and some firsthand accounts. The true numbers of deaths are truly a mystery, but the human toll is obvious as well as the long-term devastating effect on the Indian Nations, their culture and the damage done to the generations that followed.

The papers of John Ross, the Chief of the Cherokee Tribe during the tumultuous time, gives a firsthand account of events that occurred during the relocation of the Cherokee people. This account acknowledges the tragic event that is glossed over in most history books. Treaties were agreed upon, treaties were broken by the United States and the cycle continued until the powers in the United States received what was ultimately their goal. The goal was to assume all the land and all the resources the Indians had. This is an example why studying and understanding history is important. For the country and people to be better, we must acknowledge and understand what has really happened in the past, the bad, good and the truth in order to improve our future. (Ross, 1836)

The Larger Story

The Trail of Tears as well as the Indian Removal Act was never justified for its act of cruelty and death. The event only happened because the U.S. Government, as well as powerful individuals, felt that minerals, land and commerce were more important than native lives and human rights. It attempted to eradicate the Natives from east of the Mississippi for profit. The event paints a grim picture of the overall view of the United States Government history and its cruelty toward the Native population. It shows a complete lack of humanitarian policies for the Natives. During the same time as the Trail of Tears slavery was still legal too, human value was at a low bar by policy. Over time the western land, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory slowly ebbed away as white settlement continued west of the Mississippi. The broken treaties of the Trail of Tears event and the disappearance of the land was complete when Oklahoma became a state November 16, 1907. The Native culture has survived today, but it was not without losing a large amount of their population, culture, dignity and rights as human beings. The history of the American Indian and its challenges and its horrific history is important. The truth in history and not just the idealistic view is important to know what human beings are capable to inflict on others. Today, Native American households are nineteen more times likely to not have something as basic as running water, compared to whites. My Navajo wife recalls as a young girl being ill while staying with her grandmother, in a dirt floor Hogan. She was very sick with no access to medical care and she was attended to by a Navajo Medicine Man. Why do these issues still exist today? It is due to the continued racism and deep prejudices that go back to the days of Kit Carson and the eradication policies of the U.S. Army of the Native people. The Natives have very limited access to health care today, and only have small and inadequate facilities in current reservations. The lack of representatives in the U.S. Government until recently, has created little governmental help. The limited infrastructure, lack of running water, paved roads, reliable electricity is just some of the basics that need to be addressed today. (Stellers, 2019)

We need to understand the continued ripple of the Trail of Tears and its tragedy on the Native Nations. How the people carried on with the lingering burden of abuse under horrible inhuman conditions is overwhelming to ponder. Further investigation needs be done into what would have happened if the Trail of Tears did not happen at all. What if the Native Nations had Sovereign rights in the 1800s and were free to continue to have religious and human rights? America acting in honorable confidence at the time, would really be acting as America the free. The results would have been positive, and our world would not be as heavy with the sins of the past. Commerce would have not been held up and we would all still have our Apple cell phones and Starbucks coffee today. Today the American Native has rights, but at a horrible cost and burden that is still present in the Native families, and cultural structure of the different Native Tribes. The past generations were forced to attend Indian schools designed to rid the Natives of their culture and force them to assimilate white culture, in a mass program of cultural sterilization. These boarding schools closed in 1973, the same year the Vietnam Peace Accords began. Another displacement, murder and disenfranchisement of more people. There is still a pervasive feeling of hopelessness on the Native reservations today, high rates of alcoholism and drug use are prevalent. The dirt roads of the reservations, with numbers for street names, meandering along for miles to nowhere good. The U.S. Government carries this blame for what has happened to the Native people, the torture, murder, abuse, and the dislocation. America the free, needs to learn from the past, so it can be what it says it is. The Trail of Tears is an event that encapsulates the U.S. Government’s role in the genocide, and the disenfranchisement of a people and their culture. America the free, needs to remember events such as this to learn, grow and to evolve into a country of positive change and humanity.

Citations

Calloway, C. (1995). Stories From the Revolution. National Park Services; Retrieved on 12/18/2020, Retrieved from https://www.nps.com

Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous People: History of the United States. P. 113.

Ross, J. Red Clay Council Ground, Cherokee Nation, September 28, 1836, Retrieved 12/18/2020, Retrieved from https:// www.historymatters.gmu.edu

Zinn H. (1980). A Peoples History of the United States p. 126, 148

References

Constitutional Rights Foundation Editors, Indian Removal: The Cherokees, Jackson, and the Effect and Justification, Retrieved on 12/18/2020, Retrieved from http://Crf-usa.org

Editors of Library of Congress- Indian Removal Act and Documents, Trail of Tears Powwow A Chief Little John and the “Trail of Tears” October 3, 1790 — Jump Back in Time | America’s Library — Library of Congress. Local Legacy, Chief Little John and the “Trail of Tears” October 3, Retrieved on December 18, 2020, Retrieved from http:///www.America's Library.gov

Editors of History.com, Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States (1829–1837), Retrieved on 12/18/2020, Retrieved from History.com Editors, 11/9/2009, Retrieved on December 18 ,2020 Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears

Library of Congress, Worchester v. Georgia[KT1] , Constitutional Rights Foundation, retrieved 12/20/2020, Retrieved from: http://www.Crf-usa.org

Lifetime Learning Systems, 1996, PBS — THE WEST — Events from 1830 to 1840, Indian Removal Extract from Andrew Jackson’s Seventh Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1835.

Moulton, G. (1985). The Papers of Chief John Ross. Norman, OK; University of Oklahoma Press.

National Archives, Cherokee Removal. Retrieved on 12/18/2020, Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/cherokee-removal.html

National Archives, Indian Treaties, Record of Rights, General Records of the US Government, Retrieved on 12/19/2020, Retrieved from https://www.recordsofrights.org

Ortiz, R. (2014) An Indigenous People, History of the United States. p. 110–116

Sellers, F. (2019, Dec 11). Its Almost 2020 and Two Million Americans still don’t have running water, according to a report. The Washington Post. retrieved 2/18/2020 and Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com

Zinn, H. (1980) A Peoples History of the United States. p.125–148.