Cherokee Nation Vs Georgia example essay topic

O'siyo (which means hello). The Cherokee were very interesting people. They may not always be referred to as The Cherokee, they may be referred to as The Talagi. But the proper name is Aniyunwiya (which means The People).

The first know contact with the Europeans was some time around the 1500's. It was estimated that the Desoto expedition in the mid 1500's introduced illnesses and other diseases to the Indians. Which wiped out around seventy five percent of their total population. Previous to the contact with the Europeans, Cherokee culture had been rapidly growing and going strong for close to one thousand years.

But that would all change in the not so distant future. Around 1710 was the first know trading with the Europeans. Population has varied over the years. Their population was estimated at over 50,000 in the 1670's. But a series of Smallpox and illness in the early 1700's cut that down fifty percent. But then came the Civil War which cut their number down even more.

They then lost another twenty five percent of their population. No other groups, white or red, suffered as much from this then them. They lived in small communities, mostly located near river bottoms. Their homes were made of wooden frames covered in woven vines and saplings plastered in mud. Although these were later replaced with wooden log homes. There were seven clans in the Cherokee society.

They were: Bird, Paint, Deer, Wolf, Blue, Long Hair, and Wild Potato. Their decision making process most closely resembled Democracy. Women had an equal voice throughout the tribe that they resided in. they mostly resided in Southern Appalachian Mountains including North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. But then the Cherokee met their worst enemy ever. Although they had been allies with Andrew Jackson in the battle of Horseshoe Bend, his victory would not have been possible against the Creek without the Cherokee.

Gold was discovered on their lands in Georgia. Jackson made it his duty to confiscate their land and relocate the Cherokees farther West. In Andrew Jackson's address to congress in 1830, he simply stated, "It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way under their own rude institutions; will retard the process of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community". Although they did not see the Indian Removal Act to be the best for their people as Jackson claimed it to be. So they took it to the Supreme Court, the case was called Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1831). But they refused to hear their case on the basis that the Cherokee Nation did not represent a sovereign nation.

However, in the court case of Worcester vs. Georgia (1832), they this time ruled in favor of the Cherokees. Justice John Marshall declared the forced removal of the Cherokees to be illegal, unconstitutional, and against all treaties made, the Treaty Of New Echota in 1835. In response to Justice John Marshall, Jackson stated, "John Marshall has made his decision: let him enforce them if he can". . Jackson was obviously disapproved with the ruling so in order for him to get his way he would need some sort of a treaty. In 1835 he got exactly what he wanted, the Treaty Party.

Which was a small minority of the Cherokee population led by Major Ridge, his son John, and Elias B oudinot, these are the people who signed the Treaty of New Echota. The Treaty violated many Cherokee laws. Chief John Ross gathered sixteen thousand signatures of Cherokees who opposed the removal. But by that time it was already too late. The treaty ahd been ratified and went into effect.

When the deadline for the removal arrived so did seven thousand soldiers onto their homeland. So, they were wrongfully taken from their land and forced to move to Oklahoma and Arkansas. An accumulated total of around fourteen thousand began on this infamous quest westward in October of 1838. You have heard of this trip but you might not know it, it was called "The Trail Of Tears". More than four thousand of them died from the cold, hunger and disease. As for Major Ridge, his son John, and Elias Boundinot for their acts of betrayal against the Cherokee Nation, they faced a not so happy ending, their ending was death, according to the Cherokee law.

In 1839 they were all assassinated. Although it is now important that we do not only blame Andrew Jackson, but blame the American citizens for their contribution to these acts of violence. They may not have been directly involved with it but they did play a small part. Without voters to vote for Andrew Jackson who knows if they had voted for someone else then maybe this would never have happened.

This next paragraph will be from quotes from Corporate Avenger. "Even in the initial stages of contact between European Christians and Native people the stage was set for ethnocentrism, and the attitude towards the Indians was that of Christian Superiority. The Indians were read a proclamation in Spanish which they had no hope of understanding. They had no hope of understanding the death sentence they were being read, and it went something like this... We ask and require you to acknowledge the church as the ruler and superior of the whole world and the high priest called pope and in his name the king of Spain as lords of this land. If you submit we shall receive you with all love and charity and shall leave you, your wives and your children free without servitude, but if you do not submit we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you, we shall take you and your wives and your children and shall make slaves of them and we shall take away your goods and do you all the harm and damage we can".

I guess love thy neighbor somehow turned into murder the children. And that doesn't seem very Christian like to me. "Yeah with Christian love and a moral authority, they killed our medicine men and stole our country."Columbus murdered children now we have a holiday. Still you want to deny your history?"Andrew Jackson made his plea, removal of the Cherokee. The blood is on the Christian's hands, with crosses they possessed this land. A stolen land for you and me, the lie Manifest Destiny, the evidence of our history.

The greatest country in the history of man, was long before the colonies began. Soldiers marched and children died, small pox blankets for their heads, Jackson killed the children dead". It is a solid fact that because of this whole ordeal the majority of Indians refuse to carry twenty dollar bills. They would much rather carry two tens, four fives, or twenty one dollar bills. To put it into other terms how would the Jews feel if Hitler was on the Twenty dollar bill? December 8, 1829 - First Annual Message to Congress, "Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character.

Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for awhile their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity".

He was really wrong to put down all those tribes. If it had not been for the white man coming here they all might still be in existence. So if you learned anything from this, understand this, "If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it". Before we shake our finger at the mistakes of the past we need to take the time to learn about the issues of today and the mistakes we could make tomorrow.