Indian Removal

• Before the DST:– two strategies in response to American expansion• nativists vs. accommodationists

– neither approach could guarantee a place in American society

– shift in American policy• from civilization to removal• New kind of treaty: exchange of land rather than

cession of land

– division within Native American nations:• Opponents of removal• Those who saw relocation as inevitable

Acculturation

• By 1815 many NA in the southeast were raising cattle and pigs and planting crops.– Most as individual families – Some had African slaves

• A planter elite of mixed ancestry developed.• Christian missionaries operated schools.

The signs of ‘civilization’

• Farming: corn, cotton, and livestock• Infrastructure: roads, bridges, ferries• Government: National Council, written laws,

police force, law courts• Change in values: – Private property– Paternal authority

Sequoyah’s syllabary (1821)

‘talking leaves’

Cherokee Phoenix (1828- present)

Library of Congress / Cherokee Phoenix

University of Georgia

5 new states in the Mississippi Valley: Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Missouri (1821)

Andrew Jackson

1824 portrait by Thomas Sully. Source: U.S. Senate

Indian Removal Act (1830)

• NA that cede land east of Mississippi will receive land west of Mississippi ‘forever’

• U.S. will pay NA for improvements they made to the land (houses, farms, etc.)

• U.S. will pay for cost of relocation plus first year in new location

• U.S. agents will protect Indians in their new homes

Elias Boudinot and John Ross

Library of CongressOklahoma Historical Society

• The Treaty Party (Boudinot) traveled west in 1837 to join the ‘Old Settlers’ already living north of the Arkansas River

• The National Party (Ross) was forced to move by the U.S. army in 1838

Trail of Tears

North Carolina Digital History

Nunna dual Tsuny – The trail where they cried

1942 painting by Robert Lindneux PBS.org (The Granger Collection).

Continued tensions

• Old Settlers, National Party, Treaty Party

• Boudinot and two other leaders of Treaty Party were killed for “treason” in 1839

• The 3 factions made peace in 1846

‘Indian Territory’