Eth_125_Week_4

Ethnic Groups and Discrimination- Cherokee Indians ETH/125 Ethnic Groups and Discrimination- Cherokee Indians The Cherokee tribes settled around the Southeastern part of the United States, which consists of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Eastern Tennessee. It has been recorded that the tribe migrated to the Appalachian region in ancient times from the region of the Great Lakes after facing defeat at the hands of the Iroquois and Delaware tribes (Sultzman, 1996). Although many argue that such a tribe as big and powerful as the Cherokee, could not simply be moved. The “Five Civilized Tribes,” was a term the White man used to describe tribes that were civilized enough to communicate with them. These tribes had assimilated to numerous technological and cultural methods of the early settlers; the Cherokees had built roads, churches, and schools. A Cherokee man by the name, “Sequoyah” would invent the Cherokee alphabet (derived from the English alphabet) so his people could read, and he would later on change his name to George Gist to show his self assimilation into modern society About North Georgia (2010). In the early 1800s Georgia legislature signed a compact that would give the federal government claims to western lands in exchange for the government’s pledge to extinguish all Indian titles to land within the state Studyworld (2010). The Cherokee tribes held a substantial chunk of land in Georgia, and they started to get worried that they would lose their lands, so they issued a written constitution claiming that the Cherokee had jurisdiction over their own lands. Unfortunately, though the Indian Removal Act of 1830 had already become entwined with the state of Georgia’s rights, making the Cherokees plea their claims in a court of law. The Cherokees tried to seek aid from a newly elected Andrew Jackson, but he informed the tribe that he would not interfere with the prerogatives of Georgian law. The solution to the problem, in the eyes of Jackson, was to remove the Indians to the west of the Mississippi river. He said that he was protecting them and allowing the Indian tribes time to adjust to the white man’s culture, which would kick off a series of events known as “The Trail of Tears.” Which is a term used for the 10-year tenure in which over 70,000 Indians were forced to leave their homes and move to a designated area in Oklahoma. The living conditions were horrible not only because they had to walk all day; starvation, exhaustion, and disease were key players in many Indian deaths along the trail because they had to walk for the majority of the trip with little to no rest Studyworld (2010). The Indians that remained in Georgia had lesser rights and could not have a tribal legislature. When gold was found in Georgia, it happened to be in Cherokee territory. With the surge of prospectors rushing in to dig up the newfound gold, much of Cherokee property was destroyed and their crops ruined in the process. Many citizens of Georgia were invited to rob and plunder Cherokee lands, because the courts found it illegal for an Indian to bring a case against a white man. Before the end of the 1830s, the Five Civilized Tribes had signed over all of their lands to federal agents. These agents acquired these treaties through any manner of means including: trickery, bribery, and intimidation; which agreed to their terms of removal and said that no other governments can be erected over these lands without their consent. Currently, the majority of the Cherokee tribe resides in Oklahoma with other branches in Tennessee and the Carolinas, as well. This story has been told to me by my mom ever since I was a little boy and to this day is still a sad story. The villainy of early settlers to get lands in the early days of America is quite unsettling and I will never understand the way they went about doing things in that period. I can relate to this story more than others because I am about one-quarter Cherokee Indian so it is always refreshing (and easy) to do an assignment on something I actually know about and have a history with. References Sultzman, L. (1996). Cherokee History- Part One Retrieved August 1, 2010 from http://www.tolatsga.org/Cherokee1.html About North Georgia (2010) Sequoyah (a.k.a. George Gist) Retrieved August 1, 2010 from http://ngeorgia.com/ang/Sequoyah (a.k.a_George_Gist) Studyworld. (2010). Indian Removal Act of 1830. Retrieved August 1, 2010 from http://www.studyworld.com/indian_removal_act_of_1830.htm