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Land, Growth, and Justice: The Removal of the Cherokees

Cherokee is a group of people who lived in the land that is south to the Appalachians back before it was called the United Sates. These people lived in the valleys of the land whose rivers drained in the southern Appalachian where they practiced their culture of farming and hunting. They made homes in this place and buried their dead ones in this land. They practiced hunting and gathering for survival besides farming in these lands, which were later called Virginia and Kentucky respectively. Later around 1838, the US troops with authority from Georgia State invaded the Cherokees land to expel them away from where they called home (Bowes 7). They were removed to the Indian Territory, the present day Oklahoma. The Cherokees were removed from their ancestral lands due to the demand for arable land when cotton growing became rampant in southeastern areas, gold discovery in these lands besides the racial prejudice harbored by the whites towards the American Indians.

A major debate has been seen in the past of whether it was really justice expelling the Cherokees from their ancestral lands was right or wrong. With some groups claiming they should have been removed as it was done, other people feel that Cherokees should not have been removed from their ancestral lands (Bowes 7). Despite the fact that white consensus settled for the removal of the Cherokees from their lands, the Cherokees were against the removal and individuals from the opposing side of the debate completely disagreed with the final decision of removing the Cherokees from their own lands. The Cherokee Indians deserved removal from their homeland since they would not really be in a position to survive on their own considering the lifestyle they lived. They would not be able to easily, coexist with the whites and their removal by the whites enabled them to create a new and even more prosperous civilization.

Considering their outdated life style lived by the Cherokees in the lands they predominantly occupied, their survival chances were limited (Meyer 270). Since they primarily depended on hunting and gathering, life was getting tough to them given that the deer and buffalos they hunted had moved westward. They sold their seaboard to move westward in pursuit of the animals but since the animals had become scare, their foods were diminishing and they the predominantly could only survive on roots and other plants gathered from the forest. This was a clear indication of a struggling community whose survival was becoming a problem.

Their staple food was deer and buffalos but with the diminishing number of these animals in the forests, since they hunted approximately fifty thousand yearly, their lives in was getting worse and worse. Most of the times, they would also trade the deerskins to foods brought by the Europeans (Meyer 273). It therefore means that deer was not only their source of food but also source of income. This is evident in their trade with the Europeans where they exchanged deerskins to their goods.

The Cherokees forced removal ended the long time debate on whether they should be removed or not. As the whites expanded their settlements towards the west, the quest of dealing with the Native Americans rose repeatedly more so when the natives refused to sell their lands to the whites by treaty. Besides survival purposes, the whites were also interested in; first the lands because of the availability of gold in this lands. Secondly, Andrew Jackson’s position on the fate of Indians existence was well known and it is one of the reasons that led to his victory and so he had to fulfil the promise (Meyer 275). Lastly, the new legislation passed by Georgia extending its jurisdiction to the territory of the Cherokee lands within the borders of Georgia.

Since neither, the whites nor the American Indians were ready to sacrifice their interest in favor of the other, the government decided to use a more creative even though costly method to eliminate the native Americans from their places of interest. They spent lots of money and time trying communicating and intervening in the talks of making the Native Americans move from the lands, they wanted. At last, the new workable system fortunately fell to the hands of the President George Washington’s war secretary Mr. Henry Knox. Henry Knox is attributed to the new and peaceful relation between the Native Americans and the whites. Both the president Washington and his secretary Knox believed that the uncivilized Indian life was just because of the little knowledge they had (Denson 12). Looking into the idea critically, the inferiority of these Native Americans was cultural and not racial.

This made the government to make a major announcement in 1791 that Cherokees should be led to transform and become more civilized in the society hence stopping the hunting and gathering they are used to. Soon after this major step towards incorporating the Cherokees in the civilized community, they began to weave clothes, planting which made them rich gradually and soon afterwards, the law that stopped theft of horses was established and the Cherokees came up with a system of writing their own language.
Indian removal policy began during the time of Andrew Jackson and was lastly passed in 1830. A lottery system was introduced in 1970 by the Georgia legislatures and this lottery system planned land distribution. This lottery system qualified citizens to register and win the lands from which the Indians were removed. Moreover, in late 1827, the General Assembly of Georgia declared it constitutional that the Federal Government at any point has no direct rights in the land distribution procedure.

The removal of Cherokees was indeed justified by the kind of projects and activities that were carried in those lands. The government implemented projects, which yield much than expected back to the economy of the country (Denson 13). The lands became extremely valuable to the government. In these lands, future rights of railway alignment occurred and road communications connecting the eastern Piedmont side on the Appalachian Mountains slopes, Ohio River in the regions of Kentucky and lastly the Tennessee Valley in Chattanooga. The location was strategic in the tremendous success of Atlanta, Georgia in their economic development. The regional transport and logistics development was very efficient due to the good location of this area even though the appropriation of the Cherokee land kept the wealth from the place out of their hands; it really contributed to the nationwide development economically.

After the removal of the Cherokees from their lands, one of the major projects that was put up is the cotton farming. This land fertile and cotton plantations not only did well but also surprised many by the unexpected produce harvested in the first harvesting year. The massive production of cotton made North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee rose drastically in that year from 750,000 bales to approximately 2.85 million bales in that year. This made the regions earn the name, King Cotton due to the success experienced. This cotton farming increase not only led to improvement of the economic growth in terms of the produce but also created employment opportunity for many in the region. This was more of economic use of the land the small subsistence farms ploughed by the Cherokees before their removal from the land (Denson 12). Their removal from the land was therefore an improvement to the economic use of the land. Capitalists would say the idea of removing them was exactly a perfect idea.

Besides the cotton farming in the lands, Gold discovery in Dahlonega around Georgia made the area even more valuable to the United States government. The only method this Gold would be mined is when the residents were relocated to other areas. As we all know, Gold is a very important mineral and it has economic value to the society and the entire nation. The gold mine contributed positively to the states and more people got employment in the gold mining factories and processing factories.

In summary, Cherokee removal from the lands around Georgia was a perfect move. Comparing the positive and the negative impacts of their removal, it is beyond that the positive effects of their removal are much more than the negative effects. I therefore support the move that was taken by the federal government in making the Cherokees evacuate the land. Many people got employment from the cotton farms and other as well were employed in the Gold mining factories. Through the employment opportunities created by these sectors, living standards of the majority of both the Cherokees and the Americans who were employed improved greatly.

Work Cited

Bowes, John P. Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal. Vol. 13. University of Oklahoma Press, 2016. Pp 7-9.

Meyer, Sabine N. “From Federal Indian Law to Indigenous Rights: Legal Discourse and the Contemporary Native American Novel on the Indian Removal.” Law & Literature29.2 (2017): 269-290.

Denson, Andrew. Monuments to Absence: Cherokee Removal and the Contest Over Southern Memory. UNC Press Books, 2017. Pp 12-13.

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