Westward Expansion and Native American Removal, 1803-49 » The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears

Why Native Americans stood in the way

As the USA grew, American settlers moved west. But the land was not empty. Many Native American nations lived there, and they opposed the spread of white settlement onto their homelands. In the South-East, five large nations lived on rich farmland: the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole.

Pressure on this land grew for three reasons. Farmers wanted it for cotton, which made money in the South. In 1829 gold was found on Cherokee land in Georgia. And state governments, especially Georgia's, wanted the Native Americans gone so that the state could control all the land inside its borders.

Key terms:

• Removal: the policy of forcing Native American nations to leave their homelands and move to land further west.
• Indian Removal Act: the law of 1830 that gave the President power to make deals moving Native Americans west of the Mississippi River.
• Treaty: a formal written agreement, here between the US government and a Native American nation.
• Supreme Court: the highest court in the USA, which decides what the Constitution and the law mean.
• Trail of Tears: the forced journey west of the Cherokee in 1838-39, in which thousands died.

The Indian Removal Act, 1830

Andrew Jackson became President in 1829. He believed Native Americans should move west of the Mississippi River and he supported the states' wish for their land. In May 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and Jackson signed it.

• It let the President offer Native American nations land west of the Mississippi in exchange for their homelands in the east.
• The wording spoke of agreements, but in practice nations were pressured and threatened into signing treaties.
• The land in the west, in what became known as Indian Territory (now mostly Oklahoma), lay west of the Mississippi, partly in land the USA had bought from France in 1803 (the Louisiana Purchase).

The Choctaw were the first to be moved, in 1831. The Chickasaw and Creek followed. Supporters called removal a way to keep the peace and let the nations live apart from settlers. For the Native Americans it meant losing their homes, farms and the graves of their families.

Resistance: the Cherokee and the courts

The Cherokee chose to fight removal by using American law. They had built a society that settlers could recognise: farms, schools, a written script, the Cherokee syllabary (made by Sequoyah), a newspaper, and in 1827 a written constitution for the Cherokee Nation. Georgia ignored this and passed laws taking over Cherokee land.

This was a legal victory for the Cherokee. But Georgia carried on and Jackson did not act to enforce the ruling. The case showed a clash between a state and the federal government, and the weakness of the Court when the President and a state would not back it.

Resistance: the Seminole and war

The Seminole lived in Florida. In 1832 some Seminole leaders signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, agreeing to move west. Many Seminole said those leaders had no right to sign for the nation and refused to go. War began in 1835. Under leaders such as Osceola, the Seminole fought a long war of surprise attacks (guerrilla war) from the swamps and forests of Florida. The Second Seminole War lasted until 1842 and was costly for the US Army. Most Seminole were eventually moved west, but some stayed in the Florida Everglades.

The Trail of Tears, 1838-39

In 1835 a small group of Cherokee leaders signed the Treaty of New Echota, giving up all Cherokee land in the east in return for money and land in the west. They did not represent the nation. John Ross, the Principal Chief (the Cherokee Nation's elected leader), and thousands of Cherokee protested, with a petition of around 16,000 names. The Senate still approved the treaty in 1836, by a single vote.

In 1838, under President Van Buren, the army under General Winfield Scott rounded up the Cherokee who had not left. They were held in camps and then forced to travel about 1,000 miles west, many on foot, with the cold of winter ahead. Hunger, cold and disease killed many. The usual estimate is that around 4,000 Cherokee died. The journey became known as the Trail of Tears.

Change and continuity

The big change was that by about 1840 most Native Americans of the South-East lived west of the Mississippi, and states and settlers controlled the land they left. It linked the themes of this study: the problems of an expanding nation, the role of government policy, and the relationship between the states and the federal government. What stayed the same was the pressure of settlers for land, which the Native Americans of the West would face again later in the century.

Exam-style question

This is a Paper 2 Section B (b) question. You need TWO causes. Each needs precise facts and an explanation of how it led to the outcome. One cause alone cannot score more than half marks.

Explain TWO causes of the Trail of Tears (1838-39). [8 marks]

Recap

• Settlers, state governments and the discovery of gold made Native American land in the South-East a target.
• The Indian Removal Act of 1830 let Jackson exchange eastern homelands for land west of the Mississippi.
• The Cherokee used the courts (Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 1831; Worcester v Georgia, 1832) and the Seminole fought a long war from 1835.
• After the Treaty of New Echota (1835), the Cherokee were forced west in the Trail of Tears, 1838-39, and around 4,000 died.