US History

Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Native Americans

Migration

This collection uses primary sources to explore Cherokee removal and the Trail of Tears.

Teaching Guide: Exploring Cherokee Removal

An 1884 map of the land surrendered by the Cherokee Nation to colonial governments and the United States government from 1721 to 1835.

Tennessee Governor John Sevier’s 1803 letter to Cherokee warriors asking for permission to build a road through Cherokee territory.

An 1818 talk by Tennessee Governor Joseph McMinn to the Cherokee Council on the Treaty of the Cherokee Agency and plans for Indian removal.

An 1818 letter from Cherokee chiefs to Tennessee Governor Joseph McMinn criticizing the Treaty of the Cherokee Agency.

A photograph of a spinning wheel inside a historic home in New  Echota, Georgia.

 A compilation of population and personal-property statistics for the Cherokee Nation as printed in *The Cherokee Phoenix*, June 18, 1828.

Excerpt of an 1833 letter from John Ridge to Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin, urging Wilson to force John Ross into a treaty.

A letter from President Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Nation  about the benefits of voluntary removal, March 16, 1835.

An excerpt from the Treaty of New Echota, December 1835, which  led to the removal of Cherokee to reservations west of the Mississippi  River.

An 1897 letter from Henry B. Henegar, a wagon master employed by John Ross during the Trail of Tears, describing removal of the Ross Party.

A photograph of John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation  from 1828 to his death in 1866.

An excerpt from “Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation,”  written by John Ross and sent to the U.S. Congress on June 21, 1836.

An 1837 message from Brigadier General John E. Wool to the Cherokee Nation warning them of the consequences of resisting removal.

 A map of Texas and Indian Territory, 1879.

Resources

1. “[Cherokee Removal](http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cherokee-removal),” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 
2. [Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears](http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/10.0), LearnNC. 
3. [The Trail of Tears and the Forced Relocation of the Cherokee Nation](https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/118trail/118trail.htm), National Park Service. 
4. Sarah H. Hill, “[Cherokee Removal Scenes: Ellijay, Georgia, 1938](https://southernspaces.org/2012/cherokee-removal-scenes-ellijay-georgia-1838).” *Southern Spaces*. 

Overview

By the 1820s, the Cherokee Nation had seen much of their ancestral lands (in what is now the southeastern US) disappear, through treaties with colonial governments and the United States government. Hoping to avoid cultural destruction, several Cherokee leaders—including John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and John Ridge, the Speaker of the Cherokee Council—led their people into a period of reform called the “Cherokee Renaissance.” By 1830 the Cherokee Nation had adopted a written language and forged a constitution modeled on that of the United States, complete with a chief executive, a representative government, and courts enforcing Cherokee laws. Many Cherokee had converted to Protestant Christianity, lived in nuclear family homes, and farmed the land—sometimes with the labor of enslaved African Americans. 

This same period saw the rise among US citizens of “[Manifest Destiny](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/manifest-destiny),” a belief that white Americans were God’s chosen people, selected by Him to spread the United States from the East to the West Coast, “sea to shining sea.” [Andrew Jackson](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/jacksonian-democracy), a famous “Indian fighter,” was elected President in 1828, largely on his pledge to move Indian tribes westward to allow the advance of white civilization. Emboldened by Jackson’s stance, state legislators in Georgia passed laws that abolished the Cherokee government, invalidated Cherokee laws, and created a lottery system by which white Georgians could legally take Cherokee homes and land. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, allocating funds to forcibly remove Native Americans from the Southeast to lands west of the Mississippi River. 

Cherokee leaders could not agree how to respond. In 1835, government negotiators took advantage of their factionalism and persuaded a small group, led by John Ridge and his father Major Ridge, to sign the Treaty of New Echota—which ordered the Cherokee to remove themselves from their homes and relocate to land west of the Mississippi River. This primary source set uses documents, images, and music to reveal the story of Cherokee removal, which is part of a larger story known as the Trail of Tears. Thousands of Native Americans—Chickasaw, Creek Choctaw, Seminole, and Cherokee—suffered through this forced relocation.

English

Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears

cherokee-removal_01_35b35b794c8f639d385d80e2033ee9a3.jpg

Courtesy of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via North Carolina Digital Heritage Center.

Royce, Charles C., “Map of the former territorial limits of the Cherokee ‘Nation of’ Indians,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/35b35b794c8f639d385d80e2033ee9a3.

This map shows the former territorial limits of the Cherokee Nation and contains the boundaries of various cessions of land made to British colonies in America and to the United States, according to treaties, during the time from the first contact between Cherokee and Europeans to the Cherokee removal west of the Mississippi River.

An 1884 map of the land surrendered by the Cherokee Nation to colonial governments and the United States government from 1721 to 1835.

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Item 1 of 14 in the Primary Source Set Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears