Trail of Tears - Part 2


Back to Florida Indian Removal Act - 1830

Florida had been owned by the US Government for 11 years and wasn’t yet a state. The US wanted to settle the Florida lands and therefore, required the large removal of Native Americans who would not conform to European culture. Indians were encouraged to adopt European customs. First, they must convert to Christianity and abandon "pagan" practices. They should also learn to speak and read English, although there was a small-scale interest in creating a writing and printing system for a few Native languages, especially Cherokee. The Native Americans had to adopt the concept of individual ownership of land which was alien to many of them. Europeans saw themselves as better and more civilized and needed these backward people gone. The modern-day state of Oklahoma was established as “Indian Territory”, a far off place the US government would force all the native Americans to live.

 

Jackson viewed the demise of Indian tribal nations as inevitable, pointing to the advancement of settled life and the demise of tribal nations in the American northeast. He called his Northern critics hypocrites, given the North's history regarding tribes within their territory. On May 26, 1830, the House of Representatives passed the Act by a vote of 101 to 97. On May 28, 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. It was widely criticized by many at the time including Davy Crockett.

 

In the spring of 1832, the Seminoles on the reservation were called to a meeting at Payne's Landing on the Oklawaha River. The treaty negotiated there called for the Seminoles to move west, if the land were found to be suitable. They were to settle on the Creek reservation and become part of the Creek tribe. After touring the area for several months and conferring with the Creeks who had already been settled there, some of the chiefs signed a statement on March 28, 1833, that the new land was acceptable. The United States government used the statement by the few chiefs to speak for all the Native Americans and claimed that it gave them ownership of all native American lands in Florida.

 

Trail of Tears

An estimated 60,000 native Americans would be forced from their homes and their lands. An estimated 17,000 died on the journey.

General Winfield Scott

“Chiefs, head-men and warriors! Will you then, by resistance, compel us to resort to arms? God forbid! Or will you, by flight, seek to hid yourselves in mountains and forests, and thus oblige us to hunt you down? Remember that, in pursuit, it may be impossible to avoid conflicts. The blood of the white man or the blood of the red man may be spilt, and, if spilt, however accidentally, it may be impossible for the discreet and humane among you, or among us, to prevent a general war and carnage. Think of this, my Cherokee brethren! I am an old warrior, and have been present at many a scene of slaughter, but spare me, I beseech you, the horror of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees.”

Reverend Evan Jones

The Cherokees are nearly all prisoners. They have been dragged from their houses and camped at the forts and military posts all over the Nation. In Georgia, especially, the most unfeeling and insulting treatment has been experienced by them, in a general way. Multitudes were not allowed time to take anything with them but the clothes they had on. Well-furnished houses were left a prey to plunderers, who, like hungry wolves, follow the progress of the captors and in many cases accompany them. These wretches rifle the houses and strip the helpless, unoffending owners of all they have on earth. Females who have been habituated to comforts and comparative affluence are driven on foot before the bayonets of brutal men. Their feelings are mortified by the blasphemous vociferations of these heartless creatures.

It is a painful sight. The property of many has been taken and sold before their eyes for almost nothing; the sellers and buyers being in many cases combined to cheat the poor Indian. Private purchases, or at least the sham of purchases, have in many instances been made at the instant of arrest and consternation: the soldiers standing with guns and bayonets, impatient to go on with their work, could give but little time to transact business. The poor captive in a state of distressing agitation, his weeping wife almost frantic with terror, surrounded by one group of crying, terrified children, without a friend to speak one consoling word, is in a very unfavorable condition to make advantageous disposition of his property even were suitable and honest purchasers on the spot, but more especially so when the only purchasers present are harpies, not second in deeds of villainy to the wretches who plunder the shipwrecks of voyagers on the seacoast. The truth is the Cherokees are deprived of their liberty and stripped of their entire property in one blow. Many who a few days ago were in comfortable circumstances are now the victims of abject poverty. Many who have been allowed to return to their homes under passport to inquire after their property, have found their houses, cattle, hogs, ploughs, hoes, harness, tables, chairs, earthen ware, all gone. And this is not a description of extreme cases. It is altogether a faint and feeble representation of the work of barbarity which has been perpetrated on the unoffending, unarmed, and unresisting Cherokees. I say nothing yet of several cold-blooded murders and other personal cruelties, for I would most conscientiously avoid making the slightest erroneous impression on any persons, being not in possession of precise and authentic information concerning all the facts in these cases of barbarity.
…
It is due justice to say that at this station (and I learn the same is true of some others) the officer in command treats his prisoners with great respect and indulgence. But fault rests somewhere. They are prisoners and their families are prisoners without a crime to justify the fact.
…
The principal Cherokees have sent a petition to General Scott begging most earnestly that they may not be sent off to the West until the sickly season is over. They have not received any answer yet. The Agent is shipping them off by multitudes from Ross’s Landing. It will be a miracle of mercy if one-fourth escape the exposure to that sickly climate at this most unfavorable season. A most piteous petition was presented by the prisoners at Ross’s Landing to the Commanding officer at that place, but to no purpose. Nine hundred in one detachment and seven hundred in another were driven into the boats like culprits to the place of execution. They were exceedingly depressed, almost in the agonies of despair. Most of their faces, I fear, we shall not see again till the great day when the oppressor and the oppressed shall appear before the tribunal of the righteous judge. I have no language to express the emotions which rend our hearts to witness their season of cruel and unnecessary oppression. For if it be determined to take their land and reduce them to absolute poverty, it would seem to be mere wanton cruelty to take their lives also.

July 10, 1838: The overthrow of the Cherokee nation is complete. The whole population are made prisoners. The work of war in time of peace was commenced in the Georgia part of the Nation and was executed in most cases in unfeeling and brutal manner, no regard being paid to the orders of the commanding General in regard to humane treatment of the Indians and abstaining from insulting conduct. In that state, in many cases, the Indians were not allowed to gather up their clothes, not even to take away a little money they might have. All was left to the spoiler. I have only heard of one officer in Georgia (I hope there were more) who manifested anything like humanity in the treatment of the persecuted people. They were driven before the soldiers, through mud and water, with whooping and hallowing like drives of cattle. No regard was paid to the condition of helpless females. Several infants were born on the open road under the most revolting circumstances. This of course was in direct violation of the General’s orders, but was no less afflictive to the poor sufferers on this account.

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