Georgia on the cutting edge of Indian Removal

Whenever the issue of racism in the United States is discussed most people tend to argue the age old battle between African Americans and European Americans. However, the American Indians were the first to be persecuted by whites and the negative impact of what was done to their people is still echoing today. Europeans, with their evil ambitions and quest for wealth and power took advantage of the American Indians and destroyed their culture before the Native Americans knew what hit them. To say that Indian removal was an important political issue in the 1830s would be a massive understatement. The United States government was looking to expand and build the country and viewed Native Americans as an obstacle standing in the way of their goals of wealth and power. Our great state of Georgia was on the forefront of the Indian Removal policy and is responsible for many of the crimes against the American Indians.

The state of Georgia was one of the major players in the conspiracy to take advantage of the Native Americans. The Proclamation of 1763 limited the state to a small strip of land along the east coast of the Atlantic. Georgians then looked west of the state and recognized they had an opportunity to grow. From 1783 to 1838 Georgia expanded at the expense of the American Indians that surrounded the state. As more and more Europeans settled in Georgia, the more valuable the land the Cherokee Indians occupied became. Driven by a strong need to own land and build wealth, whites began to conspire against the Native Americans in plans to snatch their land right from under their feet. In 1783 Georgia Governors began to distribute land west of their proclaimed territory through a series of grants. These grants fueled a land speculation known as Pine Barrens Scandal. ¹

In 1795 the Pine Barrens Scandal was overshadowed by a much more sinister plot known as the Yazoo Land Fraud. During the 1780s, Georgia claimed 35 million acres of land (much of present day Alabama and Mississippi). This land was known as the Yazoo because of the presence of a river by that name in the area. In 1789, Georgia sold much of this land to speculators, but the attempt to settle this land failed due in part to the presence of several Native American tribes, the Cherokee, the Creek, the Choctaw, and the Chickasaw. Public outcry at the bill resulted in a major upheaval in Georgia Politics. While the Pine Barren Scandal was created by speculators, the Yazoo Land Fraud compromised a large number of public officials, including both the present and some former governors. All officials who were still in office were forced from the government by reformer James Jackson. All records of the bill and resulting sales except the one sent to President Washington were collected in front of the State Capital on February 21, 1796 and burned.2

As a result of the Yazoo land fraud scandal, the land distribution laws were changed to a lottery system. This new lottery system would prove to be good for Georgia politics and cleaning up the dirt behind the then just recent scandals but it would prove to be detrimental to the Native Americans located in Georgia. Seven times between 1807 and 1832 Georgia distributed millions of acres of land that actually belonged to the Creek and Cherokee Indians. 3

The period of forcible Indian removal first started with the Cherokee Indians in the state of Georgia in 1802. The reasons for Georgia ultimately passing these laws derived not from an isolated incident, but from a long history of economical and racial motives. The Georgia legislature signed a compact giving the federal government all claims to its western lands in exchange for the governments pledge to extinguish all Indian titles to land within the state. As time passed Georgia citizens grew impatient with the federal government and pressed for the removal of the Indians. As Georgia increased the pressure, the government began to try relocating the Indians by bribery, and threats, with only minimal results. 4

Native American, European American relations were never meant to succeed so the Indians and Europeans could live peacefully together. Foreseeing what was to come and trying to head off the inevitable, the Cherokee Nation actually started to assimilate into western culture. They built massive farms, owned slaves, raised and domesticated farm animals. These efforts which were intended to blend into European culture and prevent the stealing of their land were futile and actually caused some resentment in some whites. Also, years of war severely affected the relations between the Native Americans and the Europeans. Tension between the English and Native Americans rose significantly during the French and Indian War when nearly all of the North American tribes sided and fought with the French against the English. Just as things were settling down in the years that followed, the American Revolution started and this time the natives allied themselves with the British and once again were at war against the Americans. After the Revolutionary War it didn’t take long for Americans and the British to go to war once again. However, in the War of 1812 the Cherokee Nation refused to join with Tecumseh and the Creek dominated southern confederacy of tribes and chose instead to come to the aid of the European-Americans. The Cherokee natives were instrumental in assisting Andrew Jackson's forces against the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in Georgia. However, their loyalty to the Union brought no benefit or protection once the conflict ended. During the war the Creeks attacked in the south. In response Andrew Jackson led an army seeking revenge against the Creeks and slaughtered the Creek warriors, including women and children. This savage act of revenge got Jackson promoted to Major General in the United States Army in addition to helping him build him a reputation as an Indian hater. 5

The Constitution of 1789 empowered Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations, several states, and Indian tribes. At the time the United States government viewed each tribe as a sovereign state which was capable of signing binding treaties. This opened the door to “negotiating” with Native Americans, and setting up trade in order to acquire their land. Treaties with the Indians usually involved the tribe moving to a designated reservation area and in return the government would provide them with necessities such as food, and supplies. However, later in 1830, Congress would pass the Indian Removal Act, the brainchild of President Andrew Jackson which nullified any treaties between the United States and Native Americans. 6

Georgia’s legislator’s mission of removing the Native Americans from Georgia lands gained a very powerful ally with the election of Andrew Jackson to the office of the Presidency in 1828. Jackson was popular in Georgia because of his anti-Indian stance and this fit right in with Georgia’s plans for expansion. When Jackson took office he immediately began to debate the issue of Indian removal from the southern states. Jackson’s plan of removal for the tribes consisted of trading their present land for land “set aside” in present day Oklahoma. The Cherokee, worried about losing their land, adopted a written Constitution which proclaimed that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation which had complete jurisdiction over its own territory. 7

Although the Cherokee Constitution was a brilliant idea it didn’t do any good. Unfortunately for the Cherokee, gold was discovered on their land in 1829. Rumors spread of huge deposits, and men from several states illegally invaded Cherokee borders to claim their fortune. After it was confirmed that the land in Cherokee territory actually did contain large deposits of gold legislators immediately started planning for their removal. By 1830 more than 300oz of gold a day was being minded in Cherokee territory. Georgia, now craving this wealthy land, chided both Cherokees and whites from other states as they passed laws that declared mining for gold in these deposits illegal. Interestingly, this law was challenged in a Georgia court and the law was struck down, “but executive ignored the ruling of the court of his own state.”8

The possibility of using Cherokee land as a port on the Tennessee River added to the economic motives of Georgia citizens. The desire for wealthy land remained so intense that even the different branches of Georgia’s government quarreled. Equally important, the Cherokee Indians occupied land that bordered the Tennessee River, which connected to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Georgia wanted this land to build a port in order to increase its domestic trade with the other states. Economic theorists of the time “argued that Georgia’s full potential could never be reached until it could tap that vast inland market.” Politicians of the state wanted to build railroads that connected the agricultural inland of the state to a proposed port on the Tennessee, “But nothing could be done as long as the Cherokees remained in place.” These valuable discoveries sparked a sense of urgency in the whites and caused them to pressure legislators further to get the land away from the Indians immediately. 9

After only four months of debate, on May 26, 1830, President Andrew Jackson’s brain child, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed by the Twenty-First Congress of the United States of America. Although many Americans were against the act, most notably Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway and President Jackson quickly signed the bill into law. Despite its seemingly fair and innocent appearance, the language of Indian Removal Act actually opened the door for local militias to remove the Native Americans from their land by force. The Indians were to be removed and pushed to designated “Indian Territory” which was set aside in the western United States. 10

The Cherokee nation resisted the Indian Removal Act by challenging the Georgia laws that restricted their freedoms on tribal lands. In an effort to curb this aggression by Georgia, the Cherokees brought two cases before the United States Supreme Court in a clash that is today called the Cherokee Cases. Specifically, the Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia denied an injunction by the Cherokees due to the Cherokee Nation not being a sovereign and independent nation. A year later, the Court sided with the Cherokees in Worcester v. Georgia, claiming the laws against the Cherokees were unconstitutional. In deciding these cases, the justices of the Supreme Court struggled not with only the mere legal questions of the cases, but also with difficult moral ideologies surrounding the issue. Tragically, the Supreme Court could only declare Georgia’s laws void; they could not, however, enforce the decision. Knowing that the Court had made the right decision, Justice Story wrote, “The Court has done its duty, now let the nation do theirs. If we have a government, let its command be obeyed; if we have not, it is as well to know it at once, and to look at the consequences.” These fears were not unfounded as Georgia refused to change its policy toward the Cherokee and President Andrew Jackson would not interfere in the matter to help the Indians. 11

Cherokee Chief John Ross represented the vast majority of the Cherokee and had their complete support. With settlers moving into the Cherokee Nation Ross understood that making a deal for the land with the United States was his best option, since he was at risk of losing the entire nation to the state of Georgia. In early 1835 he and his group wanted to deed a portion of the land to the United States for an amount of money to be determined by Congress, with the rest of the property deeded to the Cherokee owners. The sticking point on the Ross deal was the requirement that the United States and the state of Georgia recognize Cherokee citizenship, including the right to vote and hold political office. Neither Georgia nor the United States would ever agree to this. To compensate the Cherokee for their loss without retaining some land and living a normal life among the settlers, Ross came up with the figure of 20 million dollars, or about 25% of the value of the land if sold separately to each settler. For this amount 17,000 men, women and children would leave voluntarily and relocate to the Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. This comes to a payment of just under $1200 per person. This is roughly $4.34 per acre (the going rate for similar, nearby land sold in the state of Georgia in 1835 was between $18.00 an acre and $25.00 an acre.) Ross enjoyed the backing of the Cherokee Nation, and both the original proposal (4.5 million dollars, land and citizenship) and the second proposal (20 million dollars) had been approved by the Cherokee council. A small group of radicals led by John Ridge and his cousin Elias Boudinot negotiated the corrupt Treaty of New Echota, giving up Cherokee lands for pennies on the dollar ($1.085 dollars per acre, or about 5% of the actual value of the land). This proposal had not been approved by the Cherokee council; in fact it was specifically declined. 12

Jackson went around the courts and obtained the signature of John Ridge agreeing to relocate to the relocation outlined in the Treaty of New Echota. In 1835 the Jackson administration got what it wanted with the Treaty of New Echota. Only 500 Cherokee out of an estimated 16,000 signed the treaty which was then ratified by Congress in spite of the protests of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay in 1835. In 1838 the federal roundup of the Cherokee began. This was the start of the Trail of Tears. 13

In 1838 followers of Principal Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Nation tried to desperately hold onto their land causing Jackson to order military action. The Cherokee refused to leave their land, and in response Jackson sent seven thousand troops to Georgia to enforce the Indian Removal Act and remove the Cherokee from their lands by force. At times Jackson’s army literally escorted the Indians at bayonet point to their new land. Unfortunately, of the fifteen thousand Cherokee members who made the harsh one hundred and sixteen day voyage, they suffered about four thousand casualties, most dying of small pox and starvation. Under the guns of federal troops and Georgia state militia, the Cherokee tribe made their trek to the dry plains across the Mississippi. 14

What is called the “Trail of Tears” is actually several trails which extended from the South to Oklahoma which the Native Americans were force to travel after they were driven off their land. This monstrous act caused thousands of Indians to lose their lives to famine, disease, and other harsh living conditions. According to John Burnett, a Private who participated in the removal of the Cherokee Indians,

I witnessed the execution of the most brutal order in the history of American warfare. I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and headed for the West. 15

When this country was founded on the premise that “...All men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...” The nations forefathers should have been more specific. These in fact were the very rights which the government was stripping from the Native Americans when they forced them off their land. The Cherokee Indians were a proud civilized people who had their lives ripped forcefully from their arms all in the name of greed. What makes this portion of our history even more tragic is the way this topic is often glossed over in grade school and undermined by educators wishing to paint a rosy picture of our forefathers. The embarrassment and shame that our government could ever do anything so horrid keeps us from facing the real truth about what happened to the Cherokee and other Native Americans. Georgia is a great state and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, however we do have a tainted past when it comes to civil rights. Georgia managed to not only to shame and bring dishonor to a proud race of people, but they also managed to nearly completely erase their existence in the state.