C
228 C
HAPTER 7
move west. About 90 treaties were signed. For Jackson, the removal policy was
“not only liberal, but generous,” but his arguments were mainly based on the
rights of states to govern within their own boundaries.
In 1830, Jackson pressured the Choctaw to sign a treaty that required them
to move from Mississippi. In 1831, he ordered U.S. troops to forcibly remove the
Sauk and Fox from their lands in Illinois and Missouri. In 1832, he forced the
Chickasaw to leave their lands in Alabama and Mississippi.
THE CHEROKEE FIGHT BACK
Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation tried to win
just treatment through the U.S. legal system. Chief Justice John Marshall refused
to rule on the first case the Cherokee brought against Georgia, though, because in
his view the Cherokee Nation had no federal standing; it was neither a foreign
nation nor a state, but rather a “domestic dependent nation.” Undaunted, the
Cherokee teamed up with Samuel Austin Worcester, a missionary who had been
jailed for teaching Indians without a state license. The Cherokee knew the Court
would have to recognize a citizen’s right to be heard.
In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Cherokee Nation finally won recognition as
a distinct political community. The Court ruled that Georgia was not entitled to
regulate the Cherokee nor to invade their lands. Jackson refused to abide by the
Supreme Court decision, saying: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let
him enforce it.”
Cherokee leader John Ross still tried to fight the state in the courts, but other
Cherokee began to promote relocation. In 1835, federal agents declared the
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
C
Analyzing
Issues
Why did
Jackson think that
Native Americans
should be moved
west of the
Mississippi?
C. Answer
He did not think
assimilation
would work; he
thought it would
take too many
white troops to
police Native
Americans in
the East among
white settlers.
“The Indian Removal Act of 1830
was unfortunate but necessary.”
Blame for the displacement of Native Americans was
sometimes placed on the states or on the law, which, it
was argued, all people must obey. As Secretary of War
John Eaton explained to the Creek of Alabama: “It is not
your Great Father who does this; but the laws of the
Country, which he and every one of his people is bound
to regard.”
President Andrew Jackson contended that the Indian
Removal Act would put an end to “all possible danger of
collision between the authorities of the General and State
Governments on account of the Indians.”
Jackson also claimed that the Indian Removal Act would
protect Native Americans
against further removal
from their lands. He found
support for his point of
view from Secretar y of War
Lewis Cass, who defended
“the progress of civiliza-
tion and improvement.”
Cass wished “that the abo-
riginal population had
accommodated them-
selves to the inevitable
change of their condition,”
but asserted that “such a
wish is vain.”
“The Indian Removal Act of 1830
was a terrible injustice.”
John Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Court,
believed that the Cherokee had “an unquestionable right”
to their territory “until title should be extinguished by volun-
tary cession to the United States.”
In their protest against the Indian Removal Act, the
Cherokee people referred to past treaties with the federal
government and stated, “We have a perfect and original
right to remain without interruption and molestation.”
Congressman Edward Everett of Massachusetts described
Indian removal as “inflicting the pains of banishment from
their native land on seventy or eighty thousand human
beings.” Rejecting claims that the removal was necessary
to protect the Indians
against white settlers,
Everett demanded, “What
other power has the
Executive over a treaty or
law, but to enforce it?”
In their 1832 protest
against the Act, the Creek
pointedly asked, “Can [our
white brethren] exempt us
from intrusion in our prom-
ised borders, if they are
incompetent to our protec-
tion where we are?”
