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TITLE OF LESSON PLAN: Journey of the Cherokee Nation

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TITLE OF LESSON PLAN: Journey of the Cherokee Nation

CREATED BY: Sonia Melian

LENGTH OF LESSON: 1-2 days GRADE LEVEL: 8-12

OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to evaluate the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears.

MATERIALS: primary sources, United streaming video of the Trail of Tears, an excerpt of Jackson’s State of the Union Address (12/6/1830), Cherokee court cases, Indian Removal Act, and a timeline

PROCEDURE:

Teacher will discuss the impact of westward expansion and the Cherokee Nation while showing pictures of John Ross, John Ridge, a picture and a map of the Trail of Tears. Students will make a timeline, while they watch the Trail of Tears video (15 minutes). Their notes should include the Cherokee Nation, the Supreme Court Case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Indian Removal Act, and the Trail of Tears.

EVALUATION: Students will discuss in groups:

1. Who were the people that shaped the lives of the Cherokee nation? 2. What was discovered on Cherokee lands that fueled the fire for removal? 3. How did the Indian Removal Act contradict the Supreme Court’s landmark

decision of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia?

4. Why do you think that the other branches of government did not take action against Andrew Jackson when he ignored the ruling of Worcester v. Georgia?

5. What would you have done in response to the Indian Removal Act?

DBQ of the Trail of Tears- students will complete the document based questions and then write an essay on the Trail of Tears.

EXTENSION (if any): R.A.F.T.

1. Cherokee Indian writes a speech to Jackson to remain in Georgia. 2. General Winfield Scott writes a letter to Cherokee Indians to move west. 3. Andrew Jackson writes a speech to validate the Indian Removal Act.

4. Supreme Court Justice writes a letter to Congress about Jackson’s refusal to accept their decision on Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.

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TAH GRANT REFERENCES: Westward Expansion

STANDARDS:

4. Demonstrate an understanding of the domestic and international causes, course, and consequences of westward expansion.

SS.8.A.4.1 Examine the causes, course, and consequences of United States westward expansion and its growing diplomatic assertiveness.

SS.8.A.4.3 Examine the experiences and perspectives of significant individuals and groups during this era of American History.

SS.8.A.4.4 Discuss the impact of westward expansion on cultural practices and migration patterns of Native American populations.

SS.8.A.4.13 Explain the consequences of landmark Supreme Court decisions Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)

www.unitedstreaming.com Conflict- Trail of Tears

Andrew Jackson

State of the Union Address December 6, 1830

(An Excerpt)

It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly 30 years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on account of the

Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the south west frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good

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counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community. These consequences, some of them so certain and the rest so probable, make the complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress at their last session an object of much solicitude.

Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to the State authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the States within the scope of their reserved powers they are not responsible to this Government. As individuals we may entertain and express our opinions of their acts, but as a Government we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe laws for other nations.

With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes have with great unanimity determined to avail themselves of the liberal offers presented by the act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi River. Treaties have been made with them, which in due season will be submitted for consideration. In negotiating these treaties they were made to understand their true condition, and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the Western forests to submitting to the laws of the States in which they now reside. These treaties, being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are characterized by great liberality on the part of the Government. They give the Indians a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable subsistence on their arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest to maintain a separate existence, they will there be at liberty to do so without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and Mississippi.

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortifications of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated of has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there any thing in this which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

The present policy of the Government is but a continuation of the same progressive change by a milder process. The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual. Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our

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ancestors did or than our children are now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children by thousands yearly leave the land of their birth to seek new homes in distant regions. Does Humanity weep at these painful separations from every thing, animate and inanimate, with which the young heart has become entwined? Far from it. It is rather a source of joy that our country affords scope where our young population may range unconstrained in body or in mind, developing the power and faculties of man in their highest perfection.

These remove hundreds and almost thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival. Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it can not control, the Indian is made

discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many

thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830

[President Andrew Jackson insisted this enactment of his 'wise and humane' Indian Removal Policy be applied only with the negotiated agreement of affected tribes. Fulfilling the written document's mandate, which left the intention of voluntary participation unstated, culminated tragically eight years later in the forced death-march known as the Cherokee Trail of Tears. The interim years proved no less tragic. Broken promises and treaties, fraudulent land purchases, and patronizing, often brutal treatment by the military and government at all levels, combined with steadfast refusal by many tribes to be relocated, inevitably resulted in conflict and war. Tribes were 'dispersed or destroyed' and their remnants forcibly resettled West of the Mississippi.

Finally, in 1835 John Deere invented the "singing plow," which cuts through sticky prairie soil without clogging. Those lands West of the Mississippi which had been treatied to the Eastern Indians 'in perpetuity,' were rendered valuable farmland by Deere's invention. Settlers eventually flooded the territory. Inevitably, the Indians had nowhere else to go.]

The Indian Removal Act of 1830

CHAP. CXLVIII.--An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there; and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily distinguished from every other.

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SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President to exchange any or all of such districts, so to be laid off and described, with any tribe or nation within the limits of any of the states or territories, and with which the United States have existing treaties, for the whole or any part or portion of the territory claimed and occupied by such tribe or nation, within the bounds of any one or more of the states or territories, where the land claimed and occupied by the Indians, is owned by the United States, or the United States are bound to the state within which it lies to extinguish the Indian claim thereto.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in the making of any such exchange or exchanges, it shall and may be lawful for the President solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with which the exchange is made, that the United States will forever secure and guaranty to them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them; and if they prefer it, that the United States will cause a patent or grant to be made and executed to them for the same: Provided always, That such lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That if, upon any of the lands now occupied by the Indians, and to be exchanged for, there should be such improvements as add value to the land claimed by any individual or individuals of such tribes or nations, it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such value to be ascertained by appraisement or otherwise, and to cause such ascertained value to be paid to the person or persons rightfully claiming such improvements. And upon the payment of such valuation, the improvements so valued and paid for, shall pass to the United States, and possession shall not afterwards be permitted to any of the same tribe.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That upon the making of any such exchange as is contemplated by this act, it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such aid and assistance to be furnished to the emigrants as may be necessary and proper to enable them to remove to, and settle in, the country for which they may have exchanged; and also, to give them such aid and assistance as may be necessary for their support and

subsistence for the first year after their removal.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such tribe or nation to be protected, at their new residence, against all interruption or disturbance from any other tribe or nation of Indians, or from any other person or persons whatever.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President to have the same superintendence and care over any tribe or nation in the country to which they may remove, as contemplated by this act, that he is now authorized to have over them at their present places of residence.

First Cherokee Indian Case

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia

Citation: 5 Pet. 1 (1831)

Concepts: Sovereignty of Indian Nations/ Reserve Power of States

Facts

In 1791, a federal treaty granted the Cherokee Indians land within the boundaries of Georgia. In the 1820s the state began to enforce strict laws which were meant to assert control over the Indians and their land. The Cherokee Nation filed suit requesting the Supreme Court of the United States to order the state to stop enforcing these laws. The Georgia officials refused to participate in the suit. Meanwhile, Georgia’s governor and legislature executed a Cherokee Indian, Corn Tassel, under the laws being contested by

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the Cherokee Nation. This was in direct defiance of the Supreme Court’s notice to the state of Georgia that it was looking into the conviction of Corn Tassel, thus furthering the problem.

Issue

Whether the state of Georgia could enforce its state laws upon the Cherokee nation and deny the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Opinion

The Supreme Court denied the Cherokees request reasoning it had no jurisdiction to decide such a case. Chief Justice Marshall wrote, “this is not the tribunal that can redress the past or prevent the future.”

Second Cherokee Indian Case

Worcester v. Georgia

Citation: 6 Pet. 515 (1832)

Concepts: State Powers/Federal Jurisdiction/Tribal Sovereignty

Facts

A Georgia law required all whites living in Cherokee Indian Territory to obtain a state license. Two missionaries refused to obey the state law, were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to four years of hard labor for violating the state licensing law. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court of the United States arguing that the laws they had been convicted under were unconstitutional because states have no power or authority to pass laws concerning sovereign Indian Nations.

Issue

Whether States had the reserve power to pass laws concerning the Indian Nations.

Opinion

The Court ruled that the State had no power to pass any laws affecting the Cherokees because Federal jurisdiction over the Cherokees was exclusive. The missionaries’ convictions were therefore reversed. This case led to much disagreement within the three branches of government. The President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, was rumored to have said that the Chief Justice has made his decision with this case, now let him enforce it. In what has been described as a political outcome to this case, the state of Georgia would, in time, pardon the two missionaries.

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Name __________________________________________ Date _______________________

Class/Subject ____________________________________ Teacher _____________________

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References

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