By Allen C. Guelzo, Princeton University
An aspect of optimism, which helped fuel the era of reform in American life in the 19th century, came from the belief Americans had that the westward sway of empire would carry republicanism, civilization, and Christianity into the uninhabited western regions of the United States. And yet, these lands were anything but ‘uninhabited’. Of course they were uninhabited only in the sense that they contained few English-speaking white people and were home to the nomadic Indian tribes such as the entire Cherokee tribe of Georgia.
The Nomadic Indian Tribes
The French- and Spanish-speaking settlements were scattered throughout the Mississippi valley and along the borders of the Louisiana Purchase. Thus, by no means were these western areas exactly unpopulated or uninhabited.
Americans, however, in the rush of optimism, saw little in this that made them pause. Michigan Democrat, Lewis Cass, announced, “A principle of progressive improvement seems almost inherent in human nature”. Since there was little of this in the constitution of ‘our savages’, Cass thought that whites were justified in simply pushing past them. Once the back of Indian resistance in the old northwest had been broken by William Henry Harrison and by the War of 1812, it was relatively easy to shoulder tribes—like the Sac and Fox—across the Mississippi, especially since the tribes themselves were divided between the old conflict of assimilation and resistance.
The Cherokees
The first large-scale proposal for Indian removal beyond the Mississippi was made as early as 1825 by President Monroe. However, it was Andrew Jackson who put Indian removal into high gear, by proposing to uproot the entire Cherokee tribe of Georgia.
Now, this was an unusual move because the Cherokees, more than any of the other eastern woodland Indian tribes, had carried assimilation to the white man’s culture to the point where they had their own written language, their own books and newspapers, a constitution, and even in the ultimate imitation of whites—black slaves.
All of this meant nothing to Andrew Jackson, especially since the state of Georgia craved the Cherokees’ lands for cotton cultivation. The Cherokees, however, appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Under the guidance of the Democrats’ eternal thorn in the flesh, Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court handed down a favorable verdict for the Cherokees in the case of Worcester v. Georgia, in 1832.
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The Trail of Tears
Jackson was no more impressed by the Supreme Court than he was by the Cherokees, the British, and everyone else he had encountered in his violent career. “John Marshall has made his ruling,” Jackson intoned. “Now let him enforce it”.
Georgia, with Jackson’s blessing, proceeded to occupy the Cherokee lands, imprison Congregationalist missionaries who protested the occupation, force new treaties on the despairing Cherokee chiefs, and round up recalcitrant Cherokees. They were forced to march westward, in the winter of 1838 to 1839, on what became known as the Trail of Tears. Of the 16,000 Cherokees driven across the Mississippi to new lands in what is now Oklahoma and Arkansas, over 4,000 of them died en route.
Did the Trail of Tears Benefit Anyone?
The reward that Jackson or Monroe earned for these examples of near-genocide in Illinois, Georgia, and other places, was the opening up of some of the finest agricultural soils in the world. Travelers who emerged out of the thick woodlands along the Ohio River into the Illinois territory suddenly found, stretching before them, a limitless vista of multicolored prairie grass, like an immense carpet waving in the wind.
The soil was so fertile on the Illinois prairies that the prairie grass sent knotted roots 18 inches into the ground, and until the introduction of John Deere’s steel plow, farmers on the Illinois prairie actually had difficulty breaking up the prairie sod.
American Expansion into the Mississippi Valley
Difficulty notwithstanding, the land was cheap and secure. Title was easy to obtain from the federal government. As a result, American expansion and settlement in the Mississippi valley and across the Mississippi proceeded far faster than anyone, including Thomas Jefferson, could have predicted.
Congress also had a system of political organization that permitted the settlers to organize themselves first into federally supervised territories, and then to petition Congress for admission as states on an equal footing with all the other states. Thus, by 1819, Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, and Mississippi had all passed through the territorial phase and were admitted as states of the Union.
Common Questions about White Expansion and Occupation of Cherokee Lands
The Cherokees had carried assimilation to the white man’s culture to the point where they had their own written language, their own books and newspapers, a constitution, and even in the ultimate imitation of whites—black slaves.
The first large-scale proposal for Indian removal beyond the Mississippi was made as early as 1825 by President Monroe. However, it was Andrew Jackson who put Indian removal into high gear, by proposing to uproot the entire Cherokee tribe of Georgia.
The Cherokees were forced to march westward, in the winter of 1838 to 1839, on what became known as the Trail of Tears. Of the 16,000 Cherokees driven across the Mississippi to new lands in what is now Oklahoma and Arkansas, over 4,000 of them died en route.
