Sequoyah developed a written alphabet for the Cherokee language.
The U.S. government continued its push westward. The goal was for the West to be settled by families who would turn the land into profitable farms, ranches, and towns. Government leaders wanted the western half of the United States to resemble the East.
The American Indians watched the changes that were happening around them in dismay. They knew their way of life would never be the same.
The Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Creek, the Choctaw, and the Seminole tribes lived in the southeastern United States. They were known as the Five Civilized Tribes because they had assimilated in many ways with their white neighbors, including becoming farmers, establishing towns, and learning to read and write. In general, they got along well with the settlers, but that began to change as the demand for land grew.
In 1830 President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which allowed the federal government to relocate American Indians who lived east of the Mississippi River, including the Five Civilized Tribes. Tribes that signed the government treaties would have to move west of the Mississippi River to an area called Indian Territory. Indian Territory was located in present-day Oklahoma, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the tribal homelands.
Under the terms of the Indian Removal Act, the tribes were supposed to be allowed to make their own decisions about relocating. The Choctaw and Chickasaw chose to sign treaties and move. The Creek signed a treaty that would allow them to stay in Alabama while giving up a large part of their land to settlers. The Creek soon lost their land to the settlers, and in 1836 they were forced to move west.
While a few members of the Seminole and Cherokee tribes had signed removal treaties, most tribe members wanted to stay and declared the treaties invalid. The Seminoles went to war three times in an effort to keep their land in Florida, but by the early 1840s most had left and moved west.
TRAIL OF TEARS
The Cherokee decided to use the legal system to try to keep their land. In 1831 the tribe sued the state of Georgia. The state had passed a law in 1830 outlawing whites from living on Indian land, which was aimed at white missionaries who were helping the Cherokee. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in the Cherokees’ favor. But President Andrew Jackson would not enforce the ruling. In 1836 the government gave the Cherokee two years to pack up and leave. Most refused.
In 1838 the government sent in 7,000 soldiers to force the Cherokee to leave. About 15,000 men, women, and children began walking 1,200 miles (1,931 km) from Georgia to Indian Territory. Along the way about 4,000 died of exposure, starvation, and disease. Cherokees still remember it as the Trail of Tears. Recalling the long The Trail of Tears September 20, 2006 walk many years later, former Army Private John G. Burnett wrote:
“Murder is murder and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in the summer of 1838. Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile. I wish I could forget it all, but the picture of six-hundred and forty-five wagons lumbering over the frozen ground with their Cargo of suffering humanity still lingers in my memory.”2
American Indians who were forced to move west of the Mississippi River likely hoped that they would be allowed to live in peace. But that wasn’t to be.
American Indians had good reason to fear the settlers, who brought deadly diseases with them as they moved west. Since they had never been exposed to the germs that caused measles, cholera, and smallpox, the Indians didn’t have any immunity. An outbreak of smallpox in 1837 almost wiped out the Mandan tribe of North Dakota. The Lakota and the Cheyenne tribes of the Great Plains suffered many deaths from an outbreak of cholera in the late 1840s.
Many Americans supported the idea of Manifest Destiny—the belief that white Americans were meant to own all of the land from coast to coast because that is what God wanted. They saw nothing wrong with taking any land they wanted, even land occupied by American Indians. As the white population slowly inched its way west, Indians had to either fight to hold onto their land or leave.
Fighting among Indian tribes over territory or other issues was not unusual. The lack of unity among the tribes weakened the Indians as they fought westward expansion. Another advantage for the Army and the settlers was that almost everyone spoke the same language—English—while the Indians didn’t. With various tribes living all over the country, gaps in communication made coming together as a united force against the settlers and the Army almost impossible.
Their fighting methods also hampered the American Indian tribes. Depending on the tribe, Indian warriors were skilled fighters with knives, lances, and bows and arrows. The Indians believed that the closer you were to your enemy, the greater and more honorable the victory. The soldiers and the settlers fought back with guns, which were deadly at long distances.
When Indians did choose to fight, they often fought alone or in small groups. They attacked settlers on their way west or single families on their homesteads, stealing horses and burning down houses, farms, and crops. Fear of Indian attacks—and of Indians—grew among the settlers.
