Trail of Tears source—PBS
"Early in
the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded
into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an
obstacle.
This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and
Seminole nations. These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers
and many other
white Americans, were standing in the way of progress. Eager for
land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government
to acquire
Indian territory.
"Andrew Jackson, from Tennessee, was a forceful proponent
of Indian removal. In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces
that defeated
a faction of the Creek nation. In their defeat, the Creeks
lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. The
U.S. acquired more land in 1818 when, spurred in part by the motivation
to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive
slaves, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida.
"From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating
nine out of eleven treaties which divested the southern
tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west.
The tribes agreed to the treaties
for strategic reasons. They wanted to appease the government in the
hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect
themselves from white harassment. As a result of the treaties, the
United States
gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well
as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina.
This was a period of voluntary Indian migration, however, and only
a small number of Creeks, Cherokee and Choctaws actually moved to
the new lands.
"In 1823 the Supreme
Court handed down a decision
which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States,
but could not hold title to those lands. This was because their "right of
occupancy" was
subordinate to the United States' "right of discovery." In
response to the great threat this posed, the Creeks, Cherokee, and
Chicasaw instituted policies of restricting land sales to the government.
They wanted to protect what remained of their land before it was
too late.
Continue—Tears
