10.4 - Indian Removal

What was the main purpose of the Indian Removal Act of 1830?

• To establish reservations in the southeastern United States

• To grant Native Americans citizenship

• To relocate Native American tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River

• To integrate Native Americans into American society

George Catlin seized upon the public fascination with the supposedly exotic and ​ (a)   Native American, seeing an opportunity to make money by painting them in a way that conformed to popular ​ (b)   stereotypes.

• savage
• white
• civilized
• mythical
• Black
• British

Answer explanation

Catlin routinely painted Native Americans in a supposedly aboriginal state. In Attacking the Grizzly Bear (1844), the hunters do not have rifles and instead rely on spears.

Such a portrayal stretches credibility as Native peoples had long been exposed to and adopted European weapons.

Indeed, the painting’s depiction of Native people riding horses, which were introduced by the Spanish, makes clear that, as much as Catlin and White viewers wanted to believe in the primitive and savage Native, the reality was otherwise.

This became the historical term for the forced relocation and resultant deaths through conflict, illness, and starvation of indigenous peoples due to the removal treaties under the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

• The Trail of Tears

• The Mississippi Genocide

• The Indian Removal Treaty

• The Old Oklahoma Trail

Answer explanation

This forced migration, known as the Trail of Tears, caused the deaths of as many as four thousand Cherokee.

The Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole peoples were also compelled to go. The removal of the Five Civilized Tribes provides an example of the power of majority opinion in a democracy.

What was the outcome of the Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia in 1832?

• The Cherokee were forced to relocate

• The Cherokee were recognized as a sovereign nation

• The Cherokee were granted U.S. citizenship

• The Cherokee were declared a foreign nation

Answer explanation

By living among the Cherokee, Samuel Worcester had violated a Georgia law forbidding White people, unless they were agents of the federal government, to live in Native American territory.

Worcester was sentenced to four years of hard labor. When the case of Worcester v. Georgia came before the Supreme Court in 1832, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in favor of Worcester, finding that the Cherokee constituted “distinct political communities” with sovereign rights to their own territory.

Therefore, Georgia's laws had no power on Cherokee territory.

These groups were known as the Five ​ (a)   Tribes, because they had largely adopted ​ (b)   culture, speaking English and practicing ​ (c)   . Some held enslaved people like their white counterparts.

Ironically, while white people insisted that Native peoples could never be good citizens because of their savage ways, the ​ (d)   had arguably gone farther than any other indigenous group in adopting white culture.

• Christianity
• Anglo-American
• Civilized
• Cherokee
• Paganism
• Choctaw
• savage
• indigenous

Answer explanation

This image depicts the front page of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper from May 21, 1828. The paper was published in both English and the Cherokee language.

Jackson’s anti-Native stance struck a chord with a majority of white citizens, many of whom shared a hatred of non-white people that spurred Congress to pass the 1830 Indian Removal Act. The act called for the removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from their home in the southeastern United States to land in the West, in present-day Oklahoma.

What was a significant factor that increased the desire to remove the Cherokee from Georgia?

• The Cherokee's involvement in the fur trade

• The Cherokee's alliance with the British

• The Cherokee's refusal to adopt Christianity

• Discovery of gold on Cherokee land

The Supreme Court did have the power to enforce its ruling granting the Cherokee tribe sovereignty in Worcester v. Georgia (1832). However, Chief Justice John Marshall's majority emphasized removal by treaty in order to protect the tribes from further conflict with U.S. settlers.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

The Supreme Court did not have the power to enforce its ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, however, and it became clear that the Cherokee would be compelled to move.

Chief John Ross sought to negotiate a treaty where the Cherokee would remain on their lands, but a splinter group opposed to Ross got to Washington D.C. first, and a legal, but corrupt, treaty was signed that applied to the entire Cherokee nation.

In order to enforce this Treaty of New Echota, President Jackson had to rely on the U.S. military. In a series of forced marches, some fifteen thousand Cherokee were finally relocated to Oklahoma.

The Cherokee lost the case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia in 1831 because the Supreme Court was unconvinced that the Cherokee tribe had legal standing (ability) to sue as an independent, foreign nation.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

The Cherokee decided to fight the federal law known as the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

However, they could not fight the law directly without it impacting them. They were able to bring a lawsuit against the State of Georgia for its laws imposing on Cherokee territory.

In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, William Wirt argued that the Cherokee constituted an independent foreign nation, and that an injunction (a stop) should be placed on Georgia laws aimed at eradicating them.

In 1831, the Supreme Court found the Cherokee did not meet the criteria for being a foreign nation, and were instead a "dependent" of the United States federal government.

What was the significance of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper?

• Published in both English and Cherokee, it represented the Cherokee's attempt to adopt Anglo-American culture.

• It was exclusively published in Cherokee to reject Anglo-American influence.

• The newspaper focused primarily on promoting the relocation of the Cherokee people to the West.

• Its main purpose was to advocate for the immediate assimilation of all Native American tribes into the U.S. government system.

Answer explanation

The Ridge House is located in Rome, Georgia, near New Echota, the Cherokee national capitol.

Although the Cherokee followed the lead of their White neighbors by farming and owning property, as well as embracing Christianity and enslaving people, this proved of little consequence in an era when White people perceived all Native Americans as incapable of becoming full citizens of the republic.

What was the public perception of Native Americans during the Age of Jackson?

• They were seen as potential allies

• They were respected as sovereign nations

• They were considered obstacles to White settlement

• They were viewed as noble savages

Answer explanation

The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony, an 1832 painting by George Catlin, depicts a rite-of-passage ceremony that Catlin said he witnessed.

Scholars have long questioned the accuracy of this portrayal of a rite of passage among the Mandan people. Accuracy aside, the painting captured the imaginations of White viewers, reinforcing their disgust at the savagery of Native Americans.