Transcript Indian Removal - University of Hawaii

Indian Removal
Questions to consider
 How/Why did American Indians
become dependant nations?
 How did Indian Removal change the
social, economic and political lives of
American Indian nations
 What role did enslaved Africans play
in Removal and later in Oklahoma?
Previous Information
 Indians during Colonial period
 African resistance strategies
 American Revolution
 Pan Indian movement led by
Tecumseh
Thomas Jefferson 1801-09
 Agrarian Tradition
 Louisiana Purchase 1803
 Lewis & Clark Expedition 18041806
 American Expansion
 First Treaties with the Osage

James Madison, 1809-17
 James Monroe, 1817-25
 John Quincy Adams, 1825-29
 Andrew Jackson, 1829-37
 American Hero of 1812 war and
considered an enemy by many
SE Indian nations
Supreme Court
 In 1823 the Supreme Court handed down the
Domestic Dependent Nations ruling that
Indians could occupy lands within the United
States, but could not hold title to those lands.
This was because their "right of occupancy"
was subordinate to the United States' "right of
discovery."
 In 1827 the Cherokee adopted a written
constitution declaring themselves to be a
sovereign nation.
 The state of Georgia, however, did not
recognize their sovereign status, but saw them
as tenants living on state land.
 1831 The Cherokee went to the Supreme Court
to appeal the 1830 Georgia law which
prohibited whites from living in Indian territory
after March 31, 1831, without a license from the
state.
 The court this time decided in favor of the
Cherokee in Worchester v. Georgia claiming
that the Cherokee had the right to selfgovernment, and declared Georgia's extension
of state law over them to be unconstitutional.
 The state of Georgia refused to abide by the
Court decision, however, and President
Jackson openly defied the court “let them
gather troops to enforce this law”.
Indian Removal Act May 28,
1830
 Senate vote of 28 to 19 and the House 102 to 97
 The bill stemmed from Jackson's first State of
the Union address (December 8, 1829), where
Jackson set his priorities-to emphasize the
sovereignty of states over the sovereignty of
Indian nations, and removal of Indian nations to
lands west of the Mississippi River.
SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That for the
purposes of giving effect to the provisions of
this act, the sum of five hundred thousand
dollars is hereby appropriated, to be paid out of
any money in the treasury, not otherwise
appropriated.
Although the five Indian
nations had made earlier
attempts at resistance, many
of their strategies were nonviolent.
One method was to adopt
American practices such as
large-scale farming, Western
education, and slave-holding.
This earned the nations the
designation of the "Five
Civilized Tribes." They
adopted this policy of
assimilation in an attempt to
coexist with settlers and
ward off hostility.
John
Ross
The 5 Southeastern Nations
First Seminole War 18171818
 Southern planters wanted to recapture slaves
who had run away and joined the Seminoles.
 US troops led by Andrew Jackson moved into
Florida attacking Seminole villages and
captured several Spanish settlements.
 The war convinced Spain to abandon Florida,
which was sold to the United States in 1819.
 Continued conflict between American settlers
and Seminoles 1819-1830
Seminole Removal
 Payne's Landing Treaty
 Colonel James Gadsden pushed for Seminole
removal in 1832 in negotiations at Payne's
Landing.
 The tribe was not interested and anxious that
former enslaved Africans who had runaway
and joined their nation would be captured
fearing if they left the security of Florida.
 However, the increasing number of slave raids
onto Seminole land made many seriously
consider a voluntary move in exchange for
lands far from American settlers
 The Seminole toured the proposed lands on
the Canadian River, in present-day
Oklahoma. The group included six chiefs and
Abraham, representing both head chief
Micanopy and the “African” Seminoles.
They found the proposed lands colder than
expected, in the heart of proposed Creek
Country (history of conflict).
A tornado cut a path of destruction through the
area during the visit which shocked them.
President Jackson was following through on
his order to incorporate the Seminoles with
the Creeks.
 After returning to Florida the Seminole refuse to
relocate.
 The military moves into to use force, but on 28
December 1835 a detachment led by Bvt. Maj.
Francis L. Dade was ambushed. Only 3 of this 110man detachment
 The US Army's response was a full-scale military
campaign to force the Seminoles into removal.
 For the first five years of a struggle described by one
surgeon as an "inglorious, unthankful and hopeless
war," the high incidence of fevers and diarrhea-like
diseases necessitated an end to active campaigning
during the summer months.
 The Seminoles were thus able to devote the hottest
months to planting and harvesting the crops that
sustained them and their families through the
balance of the year.
• At the outset of war, the
Indians numbered
approximately 4,000.
• The various bands were
loosely organized under
Micanopy and Osceola.
• Other prominent
leaders included
Yaholoochee (Cloud),
Emathla (King Philip),
and Emathla's son
Coacoochee (Wildcat
Yaholoochee, or Cloud,
painted from life by
George Catlin, 1838.
Smithsonian American Art
Museum
• Six Indian chiefs from the
Second Seminole War.
Clockwise from top left:
Yaholoochee, or Cloud;
Micanopy; Coa Hadjo;
Holata Mico, or Billy
Bowlegs; Emathla, or King
Phillip; Thlocko
Tustenuggee, or Tiger Tail.
All color images by Catlin,
1838. Bowlegs photo circa
1852. Tiger Tail engraving,
by Sprague, published in
1848. Smithsonian
American Art Museum,
Library of Congress, Florida
Photographic Collection.
 From a combined population of 4800
Indians, former slaves and descendants
of runaway slaves, the Seminole forces
had one thousand a warriors.
 They faced 34,000 Floridians receiving
national support, a struggling Army and
reinforcements on the way.
 Fortunately for the Seminoles, Florida had
a problem: of its 34,000 residents, 16,000
were slaves. Many of whom began to
openly support the removal resistance
war.
• Eleven commanding
generals of the Second
Seminole War, clockwise
from top left, in
chronological order:
Duncan Clinch, Joseph
Hernandez, Winfield Scott,
Edmund Pendleton Gaines,
Abraham Eustis, Richard
Keith Call, Thomas Sydney
Jesup, Zachary Taylor,
William S. Harney, Walker
K. Armistead, and in the
center, William Jenkins
Worth, who ended the war
(below) and Andrew
Jackson, the president
who started it (above).
 The U.S. Army failed to win a single engagement
and faced ridicule from the English Press,
Parliament, Congress, Florida residents and
President Jackson who wrote that the conflict,
"humiliating to our military character."
General Scott and Gaines were called before a
court of inquiry in Washington. Though the
generals were cleared of wrongdoing, Scott was
relieved of the Florida command.
 The conflict with the Seminoles was responsible
for almost 1,200 of the 1,500 deaths occurring in
the Army between mid 1835 and the summer of
1842.
"A Seminole Woman,"
1838 oil painting by
George
Catlin. Smithsonian
American Art Museum
• Over the summer and fall
of 1836, while Congress
debated and ridiculed the
Army's failed tactics the
Seminoles regrouped.
• For six months, officers
failed almost entirely even
to find the enemy.
• The Seminoles safely
concealed deep in Florida
planted crops, hunted
game, and renewed family
life in temporary camps
and villages which gave
them the advantage.
 In 1836, Seminole allies destroyed sugar
mills and attacked the St. John's River
plantations and encouraged slaves to join
the growing violence against American
settlers targeting slave owners.
General Jesup
 Jesup was determined to correct the
errors of his predecessors. From the
start, he showed a clear understanding of
the conflict, warning colleagues:
 "This, you may be assured, is a negro,
not an Indian war; and if it be not
speedily put down, the south will feel the
effects of it on their slave population
before the end of the next season."
 Jesup estimated between 480 and 800 "Indian and
negro warriors -- the latter, perhaps, the more
numerous."
 The general took immediate aim at the blacks,
reasoning that splitting them from the Indians would
"weaken [the Indians]”
 Florida citizens want all runaway slaves returned and
pressure Jackson who in turn demands that the Army
make this a part of any surrender or peace agreements
 The Seminole reject a offer to cease fighting if all
runaways were returned to their owners
• The Seminole decide
to reject agreement
which leads to the
bloodiest part of the
war where the US
army results to using
bloodhounds, hanging
all captives and
calling for a war of
extermination
 The eight year war cost the US Army 2,000 men
and cost the US government approximately $40
million.
 Mainly Women, Children and elders were finally
captured and relocated to Oklahoma .
 The US Army committed atrocities including
rape, torture and murder resulting in the death of
over 50% of these captives
 The Second Seminole War was not only the
country's largest, most costly Indian war, it also
featured the largest and most successful slave
rebellion in U.S. history
 Black warriors were present in nearly all of the
major battles of the war
Choctaw
 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek
 The Choctaw were to move in three groups, beginning in
1831 as a test case.
 Fraud results in many deaths
 The 1832 group had a better start, but was struck by
cholera
 It is estimated that there were 19,554 Choctaw before
removal, of which 12,500 moved to Indian Territory,
2,500 died along the way, and 5000 to 6000 remained in
Mississippi.
 Most of those left in Mississippi were forced to move by
the Federal government later in the century, but enough
remained to form the Mississippi Band of Choctaw that
was officially recognized as a tribe in 1945.
Cherokee
 The Treaty of New Echota, signed by Ridge and
members of the Treaty Party in 1835, gave Jackson the
legal document he needed for removal
 Among the few who spoke out against the ratification
were Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, but it passed by a
single vote.
 In 1838 the United States began the removal to
Oklahoma, fulfilling a promise the government made to
Georgia in 1802.
 Ordered to move on the Cherokee, General John Wool
resigned his command in protest, delaying the action.
His replacement, General Winfield Scott, arrived at New
Echota on May 17, 1838 with 7000 men.
 Early that summer General Scott and the United States
Army began the invasion of the Cherokee Nation.
• About 4000 Cherokee
died as a result of the
removal. The route they
traversed and the journey
itself became known as
"The Trail of Tears" or, as
a direct translation from
Cherokee, "The Trail
Where They Cried"
("Nunna daul Tsuny").
Muskogee Removal
 In 1832, Indian delegates signed a treaty giving up part of their
lands in Alabama.
 Each Indian family received 320 acres and each chief 640
acres. The families could stay on their allotments or sell them
and move west at government expense lands where they were
promised autonomy.
 Creek farms were burned and families physically forced from
their land. Homeless bands roamed the countryside, foraging
to keep from starving, but refused to leave the neighborhood of
their former homes. Some of the displaced Indians lashed back
by killing white settlers and destroying cabins, barns and
crops.
 July 1836 of that year when about 2,500 Creeks, including
several hundred warriors in chains, were marched on foot to
Montgomery.
 During the summer and winter of 1836-early 1837, over 14,000
Creeks made the three-month journey to Oklahoma, a trip of
over 800 land miles and another 400 by water. Most left with
only what they could carry. An observer was moved to write:
 "Thousands of them are entirely destitute of shoes and
many of them are almost naked, and but few of them have
anything more on their persons than a light dress
calculated only for the summer, or for a warm climate. In
this destitute condition, they are wading in cold mud or are
hurried on over the frozen ground... Many of them have in
this way had their feet frost-bitten; and being unable to
travel, fall in the rear of the main party... and are left on the
road to await the ability or convenience of the contractors
to assist them. Many... died on the road from exhaustion,
and the maladies engendered by their treatment; and their
relations and friends could do nothing more for them than
cover them with boughs and bushes to keep off the
vultures, which followed their route by thousands... for
their drivers would not give them time to dig a grave and
bury their dead. The wolves, which also followed at no
great distance, soon tore away so frail a covering, and
scattered the bones in all directions."
 Many Creeks had not emigrated.
 To escape capture, they fled to the forests
where officers found them "miserable and
impoverished."
 Others were hunted out of the Chickasaw
Nation in Mississippi.
 Some, mostly children, were held by
American Settlers in bondage as slaves
 More than 3,500 Creeks died along this "Trail
of Tears."
 Survivors arrived at their destination in
pitiful condition and many died soon after.
Chickasaw
 Approximately 4,000 Chickasaws and 1,000 of their
slaves were removed during the late 1830s and early
1840s.
 They were the last of the five southeastern tribes to be
removed and they settled within the boundaries of the
Choctaw Nation until 1855
 Friction grew between the two groups and the
Chickasaws established an independent government
and boundaries lines for their land immediately to the
west of the Choctaws in south central Oklahoma.
 Today, the Chickasaws have executive, legislative, and
judicial branches of government that provide various
social, economic, educational, and cultural services to
over 35,000 tribal members.
Removal Regions
 Indian Removal: Oklahoma
 5 Southeast Tribes: Cherokee, Choctaw,
Seminole, Chickasaw, Muskogee(Creek)
 Pacific Northwest: Nez Perce, Modoc
 Great Plains: Cheyenne, Pawnee,
 Great Lakes/East Coast: Delaware, Huron
Shawnee, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk/Fox
Southwest: Apache, Tonkawa, Kickapoo
Social/Cultural Changes
 Matrilineal Societies
 Tribal Council System
 Religious significance of
sacred sites
Economic Change
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



Subsistence Economy to Dependence
Emasculation of Men in Community
Focus on Agriculture difficult for many
Treaty commitments not realized
Starvation, illness
Political Change
 Loss of Sovereignty and
government appointed Chiefs
 Civil War in Oklahoma
 How/Why did American Indians become
dependant nations?
 How did Indian Removal change the social,
economic and political lives of American
Indian nations
 What role did enslaved Africans play in
Removal and later in Oklahoma?
 Can we link these ideas to
modern situations?
 Federal Policies?
 Military Strategies?