Jessica Perry

HIST 4070

March 28, 2003

Government Dishonor and the Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia

One of the topics of United States History that would probably bring about the most mixed feelings towards the actions of our government and sadness about the past is that of the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia. Soon after the Revolutionary War the United States government made the Treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokee declaring them responsible for their own Cherokee Nation with no other government sovereign over the lands ceded to them in their first treaty with the new United States government. The U.S. government claimed the Cherokee would be protected under their government and that no state government had any rule over them, as well as that no one would be able to invade or trespass upon their land without the permission of the Cherokee. Throughout the years the government made more treaties with the Cherokee ceding more of their land away and the state of Georgia invaded and trespassed in the Cherokee Nation, interfering in legal affairs and harassing the Cherokee when they had no right whatsoever to do so. When the time came that the Cherokee Nation desperately needed the help and protection of the U.S. government that it had been promised, the Supreme Court could not take cases from the Cherokee because they were not citizens of the United States or of a foreign nation, and the high ranking officials of the federal government would not take action to protect them. In the end the final treaty, the Treaty of New Echota, was signed March 1, 1936 that would force the majority of the Cherokee west on what became known as the Trail of Tears. Some said after the removal of the Cherokee that for the first time in Georgia’s history she was the master of her own future. Others would say that the removal of the Cherokee was a sign of one of the most scandalous, fraudulent, and dishonorable governments in United States history. Was the removal of the Cherokee the divine destiny of the state of Georgia or one of the most tragic acts of government dishonor in United States history?

The Cherokee were known as one of the five civilized tribes of the Southeast. Out of the five civilized tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole) the Cherokee became known as the most progressive. After the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785 during the creation of the new United States government, federal officials sent missionaries to live amongst the Cherokee to better their conditions. These missionaries taught the Cherokee to read and write, Christianity, and how to better their farming and domestic lives. Before the Cherokee were removed to the west they had their own government within the Cherokee Nation, their own constitution based on that of the United States, and their own alphabet and printing press. The printing press led to the creation of the Cherokee Phoenix, which was the Cherokee newspaper. Many of the Cherokee attended church and schools that the missionaries set up throughout the Cherokee Nation. In the days before the settlers came to Georgia the Cherokees lived in long log houses with no floors or chimneys. By the time of the Cherokee removal most of the Cherokee lived in houses with floors and chimneys, comparable to that of most white settlers. The United States government sent the missionaries to better the lives of the Cherokee, which is exactly what they did, and with much more speed than they had expected the Cherokee slowly became more civilized and cultured in European ways. What little the white man could still complain about as far as the Cherokee still being savage or uncultured was the traditions and ways of life that they Cherokee did not want to give up as it defined their culture. After the Cherokees aided the government during their war with the Seminoles and Creeks, assimilated in many ways to European ideas and culture, and lived peacefully by the treaties agreed to with the government, the United States and the state of Georgia still insisted on removing the Cherokee to lands west of the Mississippi.

In 1829 gold was discovered in north Georgia in Cherokee territory. This spurred an increase in settlers wanting to invade the Cherokee territory and trespass on their land. In response to this the state of Georgia passed the Georgia Law of 1829 in the same year. The main point of this law was to declare "all laws, ordinances, orders, and regulations…made by the Cherokee Indians…null and void and of no effect, as if the same had never existed."¹ This law also declared that no Cherokee could witness against or use their laws as evidence against a white man. Two main cases brought against the state of Georgia during this time were Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worchester v. Georgia. After the passing of the Georgia Law of 1829 the state of Georgia went into the Cherokee territory and arrested eleven missionaries who did not have permission of the state of Georgia to be on Cherokee lands (also included in the new law was the declaration that Georgia had the right to remove anyone living in Cherokee territory who did not have a permit). The Cherokee Nation attempted to bring a case against Georgia in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. With this the Cherokees hoped that the Judicial Branch of the federal government would declare the laws of Georgia null and void within the Cherokee Nation according to their treaties with the United States government. Under their treaties the Cherokee Nation was considered an independent government under the protection of the United States on which the state of Georgia’s laws had no power. In the decision of Chief Justice John Marshall he sided with the Cherokee saying they "are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and, heretofore, unquestioned right to the lands they occupy, until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government."² However, the Supreme Court could not take the case because in order for the Cherokee to take their case before them they had to either be citizens of the U.S. or of a foreign country. The Cherokee were not citizens of the United States and Marshall held that living within the boundaries of what is the United States they could not be citizens of a foreign nation. The eleven missionaries who were arrested and found guilty of residence in the Cherokee Nation without permission from the state of Georgia were United States citizens. Two of the missionaries, Elizur Butler and Samuel Worcester, refused to take pardon from the state of Georgia and the case Worcester v. Georgia was brought before the Supreme Court. In Marshall’s Supreme Court decision he stated that the state of Georgia was repeatedly "in direct hostility with treaties…and with acts of congress for regulating this intercourse, and giving effect to the treaties…and the forcible seizure and abduction of the plaintiff…is a violation"³ and that the decision of the state of Georgia courts should be considered null and void. At the time of this victory for the Cherokee Indians Governor Lumpkin of Georgia informed Washington that due to the fact that Georgia had not sent anyone to represent them in court they would disregard the Supreme Court decision.

During the Jacksonian period of United States government the protection of the Cherokee was all but ignored on the federal level. With each new treaty that was presented to the Cherokee President Jackson urged the Cherokee to move to lands west of the Mississippi River. During this time the Cherokee made one last attempt to appeal to the United States Congress for their right to stay in North Georgia, sending a letter to Congress written on July 17, 1830. By the time of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 and 1836 the federal government was no longer taking into consideration their promise to protect the Cherokee. Each act of legislation with the purpose of removing the Cherokee from Georgia passed through Congress, even though many of them only barely passed through. Even if they had not passed through the power that President Andrew Jackson bestowed upon himself would have given him the ability to remove them even if legislation had not passed laws to remove them. Georgia’s Governor Wilson Lumpkin himself wrote in his memoirs that the United States government was "wanting in their good faith to Georgia."⁴ He accuses the federal government of taking lands from the Cherokee while encouraging them to stay on the their home lands and forming the Cherokee Nation. Lumpkin later became commissioner to the Cherokee Indians in carrying out the Treaty of New Echota in 1836. During this time Lumpkin spent his first month as commissioner in the Cherokee Nation with no co-commissioner as he was promised, writing on September 10, 1836 that he was "still in suspense, awaiting some information upon the subject of my associate commissioner," which he writes to several people during his first month in the Cherokee Nation.⁵ Lumpkin also writes later on the subject of the removal of the Cherokee from Georgia that he "could have executed this treaty, if I could have had the sole control, at one-third of the expense incurred, with more justice to all concerned, and much more benefit to the Cherokee people."⁶ Lumpkin never blamed the Cherokee for the injustice the federal government gave to them, and blames most of the problems with the Cherokee on the failure of the state of Georgia and the United States government to cooperate with one another. During this time President Andrew Jackson seemed to have other problems that he was more worried with besides the Cherokee Indians, he had the South Carolina tariff issue as well as the fact that he vetoed the new charter for the Second Bank of the United States.

A few congressmen strongly sided with the Cherokee, expressing their feelings that the Cherokee had their human rights to stay on the land that they had lived on for so long. The sentiments of the missionaries and several level-headed congressmen who had the nerve to speak out on the discredit the United States government was doing the Cherokee were that if the land within the Cherokee Nation rightfully belonged to anyone it was the Cherokee. The settlers seemed to believe that Georgia’s divine destiny was to be rid of the Cherokee, but the Cherokee had lived on this land for "many moons" and years before any Europeans knew America was even here. The attempts of the Cherokee to assimilate themselves in European ways and live peacefully as neighbors with the settlers also would arise doubts in anyone about the fairness of forcibly removing them from their home in North Georgia.

Instead of asking oneself what both the federal and state governments of the United States did wrong as far as the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, it may be easier to ask what the government did right. The Supreme Court made it’s decisions, supporting the Cherokee in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and declaring that Worcester be freed from everything brought against him in Worcester v. Georgia. In both cases the state of Georgia tried to get around doing what the Supreme Court had declared constitutional by creating loop holes. In each consecutive treaty given to the Cherokee by the federal government of the United States they had been promised the government would protect them from the states and from settlers, in the end the federal government went against what they had promised in these treaties. The federal government also claimed different things while dealing with the different groups of the Cherokee and the state of Georgia. In the end the federal government had to choose to either go against their word given to the Cherokee or to the state of Georgia, and they chose the state of Georgia after already repeatedly going against their word to both groups.

Some would say that one of the main reasons why we study history is because history repeats itself. However, once you let something as tragic as the removal of the Cherokee happen you can not go back and repeat this and undo the wrongs done to a group of people, such as the Cherokee Nation. Looking back today most people could not look back and not at least feel a sadness at the fate of the Cherokees, whether or not they agree that they should have been removed from Georgia. Does the removal of the Cherokee symbolize divine destiny or dishonor, fraud, and scandal in our government? Even at the time of the removal of the Cherokee government leaders knew that the government was making acts that were fraudulous and dishonorable. At the time of the Cherokee removal many settlers and government officials felt that they were doing the right thing in removing the Cherokee. Soon after the removal of the Cherokee many settlers and even people involved in their removal felt that they had done a terrible wrong. Putting the actions of the United States and Geogia governments under the light neither group acted with the honesty and responsibility that would be expected of the government of the United States. The actions of Andrew Jackson were not only lacking in honesty and responsibility in the Cherokee incidents, but in others as well. In the end the rights of the Cherokee to remain at their home in north Georgia clearly outweigh the rights of the government to take their home away. The rights of a government that acted with unclear motives and dishonesty can especially be outweighed by the rights of the Cherokee to keep their lands.