The Cherokee Nation, the Trail of Tears and the Jacksonian Era:

A Brief Study of Past and Current Literature

Albert C. Whittenberg

History 6130/7130

Dr. Lisa J. Pruitt

April 30, 2007

 Whittenberg 2

In 1975, Dr. R. David Edmunds, Assistant Professor of History at the University

of Wyoming, wrote an article for the journal, The History Teacher, regarding the

explosion of interest in the history of the American Indian. He tried to grapple with the

reasons for this growth while reviewing the large number of books and articles being

published. In the end, he would base this popularity on a number of factors including

Dee Brown’s classic work Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the disenchantment of

America’s youth with the leadership of the day combined with a strong “back to nature”

movement, and a focus in recent events of other minorities such as African-Americans.1

Scarcely seven years later, University of Wisconsin professor Reginald Horsman wrote

that the excitement for books on Native American history had died down in an article for

the popular journal, Reviews in American History.2 With this statement, Dr. Horsman

would then relent slightly by stating that recent works have improved since the 1960s and

early 70s. The study of the American Indian may seem like it is on a roller coaster in

terms of popularity from 1960 to present day, but there are a host of books and articles

that come out every year. One of the tribes that has risen and fallen in popularity

numerous times is the Cherokees. The story of the Cherokee’s Trail of Tears continues to

fascinate scholars as perhaps no single event in Native American history (although some

may argue the possible exceptions of Little Bighorn or Wounded Knee). The following

details some of these works ranging from certain events that happened before, during or

after the Trail of Tears and the many individuals that were part of it.

1
R. David Edmunds, “The Indian in the Mainstream: Indian Historiography for Teachers of
American History Sruveys,” The History Teacher (February 1975): 243.
2
Reginald Horsman, “Well-Trodden Paths and Fresh Byways: Recent Writings on Native
American Hisotry,” Reviews in American History (December 1982): 234.
 Whittenberg 3

It is impossible to talk about the study or popularity of American Indian history

without first mentioning Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It was such a significant

work for its time and shattered the stereotypical image of the savage Indian in simple

language that everyone could read and learn from. It was not the first work to try and tell

the Indian’s side of the story, but it was surely the most read from the 1970s to today.

This type of success frequently produces imitation. Since Dee Brown’s book centered on

the western tribes, fiction writer and sometime historian Gloria Jahoda wrote on the

events leading up to Wounded Knee by focusing on the eastern tribes. Her book, The

Trail of Tears, is not exclusively about the Cherokees but all the eastern tribes that were

moved west from their native lands or destroyed completely by the white man’s

government. In her eyes, the term “Trail of Tears” stood for all the eastern tribes that

faced these losses.

Like Brown’s book, Jahoda breaks each chapter of her book into a summery of a

different eastern Indian tribe. She also produces a common antagonist for all these events

called Jacksa Chula Harjo. This is the Creek name for Andrew Jackson which means

“Jackson old and fierce”.3 The only chapter not truly dedicated to a tribe is given to

Jackson and his Indian Removal Policy. Jahoda perhaps goes too far as she seems to pop

Jackson into every event, but she also clearly states that readers searching for an impartial

book should look elsewhere. In her book as well as countless other, the history of the

Cherokees has been permanently tied with the legacy and perhaps infamy of Andrew

Jackson.

Jahoda is not the only author to tie Andrew Jackson to the plight of the American

Indian and especially the Cherokees. Two books to tackle Jackson’s Indian Policy are
3
Gloria Jahoda, The Trail of Tears (New York: Random House, 1975), 6.
 Whittenberg 4

Anthony F. C. Wallace’s The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians and

Ronald N. Satz’s American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era. Dr. Wallace is a

professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and an author of a number of

books on Indian culture. His small and fairly recent work on Jackson’s Indian policies is

a very simplistic account detailing briefly Jackson’s life, his career in the Creek War, his

rise due to the Battle of New Orleans and his eventual election to the Presidency. More

importantly, Wallace details the desire of Jackson to remove the Indians mainly for the

sake of “illegal white squatters.”4 For example, the author writes that “in 1818 Jackson

met with the Chickasaw, and again by threats and bribery certain leading chiefs were

persuaded to give up most of the remaining Chickasaw claims in western Tennessee.”5

Wallace then concludes:

Thus, by the end of 1820, six years after his exploits at the War of 1812
had won him power in national affairs, Jackson had personally forced the
Southern Indians to cede much of Georgia, most of Alabama, virtually all
of western Tennessee, and a valuable chunk of land in Southern
Mississippi north of Natchez. These cessions took in about half the
territory that had been held by Southern Indians at the beginning of the
war, and it opened on the order of 50 million acres to white settlers and
spectators.6

All of this was done before Jackson ever became President. In this, Dr. Wallace

concludes Jackson’s life was a series of trying to move the so-called Indian menace away

(instead of just the acts he performed during his time in a political office).

The late Ronald N. Satz provided a more balanced and far less emotional account

in his work. Although a strong supporter of Indian rights, he systematically covers each
4
Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1993), 52.
5
Ibid., 53.
6
Ibid.
 Whittenberg 5

policy from Jackson’s administration to Polk. He is also reflects that what Jackson

proposed was nothing new:

Virtually every American President since the formation of the government

had seriously considered the feasibility of transferring the Indians to areas
outside the geographical limits of the United States. George Washington
envisioned a “Chinese wall” to keep whites and Indians apart. Thomas
Jefferson, after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, contemplated making a
permanent exchange of vacant land in the newly acquired area for Indian
land in the East. James Madison considered similar measures in his effort
to pacify the Indians after the War of 1812. John C. Calhoun, James
Monroe’s talented secretary of war, was a strong advocate of Indian
removal and convinced Monroe to adopt the policy in 1825.7

Satz is quick to point out that Andrew Jackson was not the Indian-hater that most

thought. Old Hickory “openly sanctioned Indian-white marriages, adopted an Indian

orphan, whom he treated as his own son, and counted hundreds of full-bloods as personal

friends.”8 In the author’s eyes, Jackson was motivated more by the nation’s potential

growth. Satz wisely points out such events that would have eventually led to removal

such as the “desire for a transcontinental railroad and the territorial organization of

Kansas and Nebraska in 1854.”9

While these three books attempted to explain why Jackson personally wanted to

remove the Indians, several others speak specifically to certain controversies that

revolved around Jackson and his Indian Policy. One such article was published in the

Winter 2003 edition of the Historian and was titled “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson

and the Indian Removal Act of 1830.” University of Toledo professor Alfred A. Cave

authored this article and contends (in terms of the Indian Removal Act) that few scholars

7
Ronald N. Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era (University of Nebraska Press,
1975), 6.
8
Ibid., 9.
9
Ibid., 294.
 Whittenberg 6

“acknowledge that the process as it was carried out by the Jackson administration

violated guarantees contained in the congressional legislation which authorized

removal.”10 He argues that most think that Congress gave Jackson the right to remove

the Indians by whatever means necessary. The Indian Removal Act did not authorize this

but explicitly stated that the measure must be voluntary. Cave then details that this was

the only way the bill would pass both houses of Congress. There was simply two many

legislators who doubted Jackson would be fair to the Indians (including a significant

number of Jacksonian Democrats who would break party rank on this issue).

Dr. Cave also breaks apart arguments from traditional Jackson biographers like

Robert Remini, who do not feel Old Hickory was personally to blame. He writes that

“Jackson regarded state harassment of Indians as a useful means of encouraging

removal.”11 Regarding the Cherokee tribe, Jackson is even quoted as saying, “build a fire

under them. When it gets hot enough, they’ll move.”12

Even more interesting is a brief journal article by the late University of Notre

Dame professor Anton-Hermann Chroust. Published in 1960 in the American Journal of

Legal History, Dr. Chroust’s article is titled appropriately “Did President Jackson

Actually Threaten the Supreme Court of the United States with Nonenforcement of Its

Injunction against the State of Georgia?” The Cherokee nation and Chief John Ross had

taken the state of Georgia to court regarding state laws they had passed to take away the

Indian’s rights and hopefully build that fire to make them leave the state. Before the trail

10
Alfred A. Cave, “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830,”
Historian (Winter 2003): 1330.
11
Ibid., 1339.
12
Ibid.
 Whittenberg 7

even started, “Whig papers in the North asserted that Jackson had recently declared he

would not lead any assistance in support of the Supreme Court in case Georgia should be

held in contempt.”13 Former Attorney General and now counsel for the Cherokee Nation

William Wirt asked during the hearing:

But if we have a government at all, there is no difficulty. In pronouncing

your decree you will have declared law, and it is part of the sworn duty of
the President of the United States to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed. If he refuses to perform his duty, the Constitution had provided
a remedy. But is this Court to anticipate that the President will not do his
duty, and to decline a given jurisdiction in that anticipation. Sir, unless the
government be false to the trust which the people have confided to it, our
authority will be sustained. I believe that if the injunction shall be
awarded, there is a moral force in the public sentiment of the American
community, which will, alone sustain and constrain obedience.14

With Wirt even mentioning the possibility of impeachment, the author reasons that it was

threatening and more importantly, Jackson’s threat worked as the case went to Georgia.

While numerous historians have focused on Andrew Jackson’s role in terms of his

Indian policy and specifically his part in the Cherokee removal, others have researched

the primary leaders of the Cherokee nation during these troubled times. Several books

and articles have appeared concerning the lives of John Ross and Major Ridge. Both men

were highly respected members of factions of the Cherokee Nation. Both had adopted

much of the white man’s culture while trying to balance it with the old ways. Both were

successful in the ways of both business and politics. Ridge would become the leader of

the Treaty Party (or Ridge Party) which favored moving West. Ross would represent a

even larger faction (usually called the Ross Party) who wanted to continue the fight to

13
Anton-Hermann Chroust, “Did President Jackson Actually Threaten the Supreme Court of the
United States with Nonenforcement of Its Injunction against the State of Georgia?” The American Journal
of Legal History (January 1960): 76.
14
Ibid., 77-78.
 Whittenberg 8

keep their native lands. Both factions would eventually be moved to the West and would

struggle for power. These events and the murder that would eventually result are covered

in Thurman Wilkins’ Cherokee Tragedy: The Story of the Ridge Family and the

Decimation of a People.

Like Jackson, many historians go back and forth with their opinion of Major

Ridge and whether he is a tragic hero or black-hearted villain in this affair. Just by the

wording of the books title, Thurman Wilkins is convinced that Ridge’s intentions were

pure. Members of the Ross faction murdered Ridge and members of his family in June of

1839. The author writes about the killing of Ridge and his family:

All one brilliant Saturday morning in late Jun 1839…one [Major Ridge]
dragged from his bed at daybreak to receive twenty-seven stabs from a
knife; another lured forth on an errand of mercy, only to be hacked with a
tomahawk from behind; the third ambushed and shot from his horse, at the
edge of a lonely highway, just as the horse lowered its head for a drink
from the stream that swirled across the sandstone ford.15

Wilkins then compares Ridge to Richard III since the story is always told by the

victor. Like Shakespeare’s play, the good that a man does is hidden to ensure the image

of the monster comes forth. Wilkins provides a very detailed biography of Ridge and his

family by carefully examining the countless writing and documents of Ridge, Ross and

others. In this, Major Ridge is viewed as a man trying to face the inevitable and do what

is best for his people in the long run. Perhaps the man that preached Ridge’s funeral said

it best. Reverend Cephas Washburn stated that Ridge’s death “had come because of his

desire for the good of his people and that signing the Treaty of New Echota was the only

15
Thurman Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy: The Story of the Ridge Family and the Decimation of a
People (London: The MacMillan Company, 1970), 2.
 Whittenberg 9

act of life that could be called into question.”16 He is only guilty of being able to

perceive what the future will hold.

Another positive account of the life of Major Ridge is John Ehle’s Trail of Tears:

The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. Known more for his works of fiction, Ehle’s

style of writing may prove frustrating for historians with its lack of footnotes. He also

tells the story of the Trail of Tears through what he perceives is seen through Ridge’s

eyes. It is a common literary technique but unusual for nonfiction since the reader does

not know how much are Ridge’s actual thoughts or words (or what Ehle thought Ridge

was thinking or should be saying). Ehle also weaves the lives of John Ross and the

highly honored Sequoyah (author of the written Cherokee language) into the narrative. In

these three, he can cover all sides of the issues and finds little at fault with both Ross and

Ridge’s opinions. Sequoyah is seen more as the mediator between the two (a man whom

both factions respect and listen to). The author clearly states Ridge’s death was a murder,

but Ehle accounts it in a colorful manner:

Who killed John Ridge?

Why, here are the names.
Who killed Major Ridge?
Don’t you know? It was Johnston, Money Talker, Car-soo-taw-dy, Duck-
wa, Joseph Beanstalk, Soft-Shelled Turtle. There were ten or more who
fired the volley.
Who killed Stand Watie’s brother, Boudinot?
Listen to the men tell about it. There’s no secret, only pride.17

Ehle also gives Jackson’s point of view by writing that Old Hickory “shook his big head

at news of the murders as he did at claims of John Ross’s innocence.”18 This does not

16
Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 325.
17
John Ehle, Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation (New York: Anchor Books,
1988), 378.
 Whittenberg 10

mean that the author blamed Ross for what happened but that many during that time

(including the former President) thought he had a hand in it.

While Elhe’s style of writing is very compelling, it is perhaps too emotional for

the serious researcher. Like Brown and Jahoda, he is not trying to be impartial. This

story is a tragic one, and the white man’s government is to blame.

For those looking for more regarding Chief John Ross, Walter H. Conser,

professor of history at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, offers a far more

favorable view of Ross in an article he wrote as a graduate student for the Journal of

Southern History. It is titled simply “John Ross and the Cherokee Resistance Campaign,

1833-1838.” In this article, Conser views Ross as a far less violent man than Elhe or

Wilkins. Instead, he praises Ross for his policy of nonviolence in trying to resist

relocation by pleading with forces at Washington. Learning from the wars the white

government had with the Creeks, Ross determined political means were their only real

choice. When the executive and legislative branches did not work, he turned to the

judicial branch (which while initially successful would prove fruitless since Jackson did

not back the Supreme Court’s decision). Like so many historians, Conser also argues that

any method the Cherokee Nation adopted was doomed to failure, but Ross should be

praised for taking the higher ground. The author summarizes by stating:

Moreover, though the Cherokees’ use of nonviolence may have

confounded some military officers and allowed Ross greater flexibility in
developing the issue and obtaining partisan support, the Cherokee
resistance lacked sufficient political or economic leverage to defeat the
removal campaign. Unable to vote and not producing items the absence of
which would hinder or incapacitate the federal government, the Cherokees
were forced to confine their resistance to memorial protests and limited
political noncooperation. To his credit, Ross was not willing to sell out
his people, not willing to settle for personal preference at the expense of
18
Ehle, Trail of Tears, 379.
 Whittenberg 11

the integrity and well-being of the Cherokees as a whole. If he erred, it

was in trusting the federal government too much.19

While several authors have focused on Jackson, Ridge and Ross, some historians

have turned to minor political players in the Trail of Tears but still equally as important

from a cultural standpoint to the Cherokee Nation. One of these was John A. Andrew III

and his account of the missionary Jeremiah Evarts in the book, From Revivals to

Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, The Cherokee Nation, and the Search for the Soul of

America. The book is split into two parts with one being his beginnings as a son of a

Vermont, his passion for books, being admitted to Yale, passing the bar and becoming

editor of a religious monthly magazine called the Panoplist. The “revivals” mentioned in

the title of the book corresponds to Evarts being influenced greatly by the Second Great

Awakening that tore through New England society. The second part is Evarts’ struggle

against the forced Indian removal by the U.S. government.

Using the penname “William Penn,” Evarts would publish twenty-four essays

regarding his anti-removal campaign in the Panoplist, the National Intelligencer and

other magazines/newspapers. Dr. Andrew writes that Evarts “not only defended the

rights of Indian tribes but articulated a vision of the United States as a just republican

country whose institutions and habits rested on a foundation of law and morality.” 20 The

author argues Evarts was searching for the soul of America and was disgusted by what he

saw in the Indian policies and Jacksonian politics in general. In the fight for the

Cherokees, he found a cause worthy of standing up against two different Presidents (John

19
Walter H. Conser, Jr. , “John Ross and the Cherokee Resistance Campaign, 1833-1838,” The
Journal of Southern History (May 19780: 212.
20
John A. Andrew III, From Revivals to Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, the Cherokee Nation and the
Search for the Soul of America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 184.
 Whittenberg 12

Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson) to demand the Cherokee Nation keep its

sovereignty. Evarts proclaimed “has not God endowed every community with some

rights? And are not these rights to be regarded by every honest man and by every fair-

minded and honorable ruler?”21 Evarts would die before the Trail of Tears truly began but

Andrew concludes his book by stating the spirit of Evarts lived on through the many

rulers of the Cherokee Nation.

Another missionary to the Cherokee Nation was Reverend Samuel Austin

Worchester. His story is covered by Althea Bass’ book, Cherokee Messenger. The late

Althea Bass was a historian and author of several books on Indian history including the

Cherokee Messenger that was first printed in 1936 (and has gone through several

additional printings). Like Evarts, Reverand Worchester was also a representative from

the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Like Evarts, the Cherokee

struggle became his own but through a more personal means. Worchester’s original goal

was to “make the whole tribe English in their language, civilized in their habits, and

Christian in their religion.”22 However, he would become a blacksmith, carpenter,

doctor, translator, printer and coeditor of the Cherokee Phoenix, a Cherokee paper printed

in both English and Cherokee.

Worchester is perhaps best known for his part in the Supreme Court case

Worchester v. Georgia. Along with eleven other missionaries, Worchester protested the

state of Georgia passing a law prohibiting whites from living on Indian land without a

license. This was also in answer to the unfavorable decision that was handed down in the

case, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. The Supreme Court would rule for the missionaries

21
Andrew, From Revivals to Removal, 186.
22
Althea Bass, Cherokee Messenger (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 31.
 Whittenberg 13

and ultimately the Cherokee Nation. Unfortunately, Andrew Jackson did not agree with

the Court’s decision and remarked, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him

enforce it.”23 The author laments the decision of the highest court in the land was

apparently not important to Old Hickory.

Bass details Worchester going to jail due to the unfair law. He refused an offered

pardon as a sign of protest. When the Cherokees are forced westward, he and his family

would follow. Bass ends his account praising Worchester by stating the Cherokees

“remember that a good man came among them and cast his lot with theirs. When they

were sick, he was their physician; when they wee in trouble, he suffered imprisonment

for them; when they were exiled, he shared their banishment.”24

Besides the many books on the people involved with or responsible for the Trail

of Tears, significant work has been done on what happened afterwards. Like many others

mentioned in this document, the late William G. McLoughlin, professor emeritus of

history at Brown University, spent most of his life writing about the Cherokees with his

last book detailing the events that occurred after their removal West, After the Trail of

Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880. In it, the author calls this

time an “all-but-forgotten era in Cherokee history” where historians have “focused after

1839 upon the Indians of the Great Plains, whose heroic defense of their homelands in the

last of the Indian wars distracted attention from the southeastern nations.”25 McLoughlin

begins his book where so many end. The first chapter touches briefly on the murder of

23
Bass, Cherokee Messenger, 155.
24
Ibid., 345.
25
William G. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty,
1839-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), xiii.
 Whittenberg 14

Major Ridge and the implications afterwards. The rest of the book details the Cherokees

rise to sovereignty while surviving inner conflict, the Civil War and the drive of the white

man westward. Each time, the nation would be brought down only to rise again.

McLoughlin writes that the fight continues today as 150,000 Cherokee members have no

land base despite legal recognition and an elected chief. He also details that 232,000

Americans identified themselves as Cherokees in the last census.26 They are still a voice

but have no real sovereignty.

In his book, Dr. McLoughlin writes one of the saddest and most telling

paragraphs regarding the Cherokee nation and perhaps all American Indians:

The social and psychological dilemma of the Cherokees lay in the inability
of white Americans to accept the fact that the United States was, had
always been, and would always be a multiracial and multicultural nation.
The Enlightment outlook of the Founding Fathers had said that all human
beings were created biologically equal; the Christian missionaries said that
“God hath made of one blood all nations.” However, most nineteenth-
century U.S. citizens assumed, without question, that this was “a white
man’s country.” Social Darwinism reinforced this myth. It enabled
whites to relegate blacks to segregation by law after freeing them from
slavery at such heavy cost. It excluded Chinese immigration in 1882. It
justified the reduction of Indians to second-class citizenship under the
mask of bettering their condition.27

He then asks the even harder question of who can the Cherokee ask for help, and who

will respect them.

One item that received little attention is the 1,087 Cherokees who stayed behind

in North Carolina after the Trail of Tears.28 Emeritus Professor of History at the

University of Tennessee John R. Finger is one of the few historians to research this

26
McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 380.
27
Ibid.
28
John R. Finger, “The Abortive Second Cherokee Removal, 1841-1844,” The Journal of
Southern History (May 1981): 208.
 Whittenberg 15

population in both an article for the Journal of Southern History called “The Abortive

Second Cherokee Removal, 1841-1844” which led to a book titled The Eastern Band of

the Cherokees 1819-1900. In his article, Finger explains the attempts of the federal and

state governments to move the remaining Cherokees west. This ragtag bunch had

avoided the Trail of Tears “either by hiding out in the mountains or by taking advantage

of a provision in the Treaty of New Echota (and two previous treaties) allowing qualified

Cherokees to stay and become citizens of their home states.”29 This band of Cherokees

was almost exclusively in western North Carolina and is usually titled the Cherokees East

(or the Eastern Band of Cherokees). Unlike Georgia, Finger argues the North Carolina

state government showed little or no concern about the Indians being removed. The

Cherokees themselves were not interested in moving due to favoring their mountain

homes, concerns over news of the murders of the Ridge family, a general belief that the

climate out West was harmful, and they were “suspicious that removal might interfere

with their efforts to secure federal money due them under various treaties.”30

Finger also argues in this article that one of the biggest reasons that a second

removal attempt failed was a change in power in Washington. The author gives a laundry

list of Washington officials that attempted to move the Cherokees west, but President

John Tyler did not feel the measure was a priority. Finger writes that Tyler “was more

sympathetic toward the Indians then Jackson and Van Buren had been, but he was largely

concerned with forestalling the economic policies of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and

29
Finger, Second Cherokee Removal, 207.
30
Ibid., 209.
 Whittenberg 16

other Whig leaders.”31 Tyler was a strong believer in states’ rights and would not force

removal in a state that did not mind their Indian population.

Dr. Finger then expands his original article into a full book, The Eastern Band of

the Cherokees, 1819-1900, detailing the growth of this small population to the recognized

“band” of the Cherokee Nation today (originally the author had planned a second volume

taking his research from 1901 to present day). Chapter one is quick retelling of the Trail

of Tears and the events afterwards while chapter two is an expanded version of his article

for the Journal of Southern History. The remaining chapters deal with the Cherokees

East facing the “monumental task of preserving both themselves and their cultural

identity.”32 Much of this told through their leader William Holland Thomas in his

attempts to get them citizenship. He was a white man that had been adopted into the tribe

at an early age and eventually became their legal counsel. Thomas would also petition

the U.S. government to pay back claims from previous treaties. As money trickled in, he

used it to buy more than 50 thousand acres which would become the new Cherokee

“homeland” or “Qualla Boundary”.33 The fact that this land was very remote and not

very good farming soil would ensure that the whites would not suddenly want it back.

Thomas also put his name on the deed to ensure its safety as well (since he was a citizen

of both North Carolina and the United States).

The Eastern Band would face many of the same struggles as their western

brothers in trying to maintain some degree of sovereignty. The change of political power

31
Finger, Second Cherokee Removal, 211.
32
John R. Finger, The Eastern Band of Cherokees, 1819-1900 (Knoxville: The University of
Tennessee Press, 1984), 41.
33
Ibid., 44.
 Whittenberg 17

and the Civil War would prove just as unsettling (perhaps more since many from the

Eastern Band joined the Confederacy as their own battalion. Thomas also used this to try

and gain citizenship as they were now fighting for the Confederate states. It did not work

which is perhaps better since being a citizen of the Confederacy did not mean much after

its defeat.

Finally, some of tried to look the events of the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee

Nation as one complete saga and attempt to deduce the innocence or guilt of all the

players. Norman Finkelstein, professor of International Relations and Political Theory at

New York University, has written such a summary for the Journal of Palestine Studies

titled “History’s Verdict: The Cherokee Case.” In it, Finkelstein uses several of the

books or articles that have already been mentioned such as Satz, Wilkins and

McLoughlin’s works. When looking at the process from the early start of this nation to

today, the statistics speak for themselves:

On the eve of the European invasion, the Cherokees numbered perhaps

30,000 and occupied some 124,000 square miles. By the early nineteenth
century, the population had dwindled to under 13,000 and the territory to
no more than 17,000 square miles. Within another century, the Cherokee
Nation was almost completely dispossessed of its land.34

Finkelstein is quick to point out how the Cherokees adapted to white man’s

civilization. He describes John C. Calhoun’s report to the President’s Cabinet that “the

Cherokees were all cultivators, with a representative government, judicial courts,

Lancaster schools, and a permanent property.”35 The author writes this is truly ironic

since every President since Jefferson has felt relocation and not civilization is the answer

34
Norman Finkelstein, “History’s Verdict: The Cherokee Case,” Journal of Palestine Studies
(Summer 1995): 33.
35
Ibid., 36.
 Whittenberg 18

to the Cherokee problem. Like many mentioned before, Finkelstein paints Jackson as a

villain with his many rationales for relocation. Removal was voluntary. Removal would

allow the Cherokees more time “to civilize and prepare for assimilation.”36 It would help

prevent frontier violence. The most ludicrous of all was Jackson’s assertion that “the

Cherokee had no legitimate title to such huge parcels of land since they have neither

dwelt nor made improvements but merely have seen them from the mountains or passed

them in the chase.”37

Like McLoughlin, Dr. Finkelstein argues that relocation in the long run did not

really matter. The new Cherokee territory would become open to white settlers after the

Civil War. The writing was on the wall as “the call was soon raised to divide up the

Cherokee Nation’s communal holdings with surplus lands (estimated at fully two-thirds

the total) opened for white settlement.”38 The author concludes by stating that as soon as

1914, less than ten percent of Cherokees retained their original amount of land. Fitting

for a journal dedicated to Palestine Studies, Finkelstein compares the tragic fate of the

Cherokee Nation to the history of Palestine. He hopes that the fate of the Cherokees will

not also be Palestine’s.

There are countless other volumes covering the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee

Nation. John R. Finger asked “why another book on the Cherokees” in the preface to his

text on the Eastern Band of the Cherokees.39 He said it is a fairly predictable question,

but one that might get asked year after year as more volumes are published. The topic is

36
Finkelstein, “History’s Verdict”, 38.
37
Ibid., 39.
38
Ibid., 42.
39
Finger, The Eastern Band of Cherokees, xi.
 Whittenberg 19

never a simple one. The historic figures involved are not one-sided but unique in their

views and philosophies (especially as compared to today). Each one of these books or

articles builds on one another and frequently references one another. The saga of the

Trail of Tears was not a surprise but a series of events that had been building for some

time.

Several of the authors have mentioned that U.S. Presidents felt that the Indian

problem could be resolved by relocating them (some say as early as Jefferson while

others as early as Washington). It has been established time and time again that the

Cherokees as a nation had embraced much of the white man’s culture. They moved from

hunters to farmers. They established a government for themselves and modeled it after

ours. They fought the white man’s laws not with violence but through petitioning our

three branches of government. They accepted missionaries to their land and allowed

schools to be built. They had their own written language and newspaper. Looking back,

we have to ask ourselves why this had to happen.

Although some paint Andrew Jackson as the devil while others proclaim him an

agent merely reflecting the will of the people, all of these historians agree that Jackson

did serve as a catalyst. Although the Trail of Tears did not truly begin till after the old

man had left office, his actions sent them on their way. Were his intentions evil or noble?

Did he truly care about these people? This may never be decided fully, but it cannot be

denied that he paved the way for the Trail of Tears. If you believe what Anton-Hermann

Chroust concluded, Jackson threatened the Supreme Court to ensure the Cherokees would

lose. If you agree with Anthony F. C. Wallace’s research, Jackson had been stealing land

away from the Indians before he even became President. If you prefer the less emotional
 Whittenberg 20

account of Jackson in Ronald N. Satz’s work, Jackson still felt the Indians should be

relocated for both their good and the white man. According to John R. Finger’s findings,

the popularity of Indian relocation would die with the Jacksonian era. Finally, Norman

Finkelstein would present the darkest portrait of all with the Cherokee Nation losing

more and more land even though Jackson and his followers were long out of the political

picture. Apparently, man’s greed never goes out of style.

 Whittenberg 21

Bibliography

Andrew, John A. From Revivals to Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, the Cherokee Nation
and the Search for the Soul of America. Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1992.

Bass, Althea. Cherokee Messenger. University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

Cave, Alfred A. “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of
1830.” Historian (Winter 2003): 1330-1353.

Chroust, Anton-Hermann. “Did President Jackson Actually Threaten the Supreme Court
of the United States with Nonenforcement of Its Injunction against the State of
Georgia?” The American Journal of Legal History (January 1960): 76-78.

Conser, Walter H. “John Ross and the Cherokee Resistance Campaign, 1833-1838.” The
Journal of Southern History (May 1978): 191-212.

Edmunds, R. David. “The Indian in the Mainstream: Indian Historiography for Teachers
of American History Surveys.” The History Teacher (February 1975): 242-264.

Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Anchor
Books, 1988.

Finger, John R. “The Abortive Second Cherokee Removal, 1841-1844.” The Journal of
Southern History (May 1981): 207-226.

Finger, John R. The Eastern Band of Cherokees, 1819-1900. Knoxville: The University
of Tennessee Press, 1984.

Finkelstein, Norman. “History’s Verdict: The Cherokee Case.” Journal of Palestine

Studies (Summer 1995): 32-45.

Horsman, Reginald. “Well-Trodden Paths and Fresh Byways: Recent Writings on Native
American History.” Reviews in American History (December 1982): 234-244.

Jahoda, Gloria. The Trail of Tears. New York: Random House, 1975.

McLoughlin, William G. After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for
Sovereignty, 1839-1880. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Satz, Ronald N. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era. University of Nebraska
Press, 1975.

Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New
York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
 Whittenberg 22

Wilkins, Thurman. Cherokee Tragedy: The Story of the Ridge Family and the Decimation
of a People. London: The MacMillan Company, 1970.