Preview

Unfair Treatment of the Native Americans

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1506 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Unfair Treatment of the Native Americans
Unfair treatment of the Native Americans- the Cherokee Nation

Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less then respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history. The US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. In this essay I will explain why and how the Native Americans were treated by the United States’ government, in which way were the treaties broken and how the Native nation were affected by the 19th century happenings. I will focus mostly on the Cherokee Indians. During the 1750s and 1760s there were several conflicts between the British and French nations. This Great War of Empire or the Seven years War took place in the Carolinas and it was known as the Cherokee War between 1756 and 1763. Europeans were struggling for North America in the 18th century, and each of them controlled a land in America: Florida was controlled by the Spanish, Canada and Louisiana was occupied by the French, and the British held the Atlantic seaboard. Europeans wanted to convince Indians to help them with the fight for North America, especially British and French competed for Cherokee allegiance.
It turned out that Cherokees were helping the English at the beginning of the Seven Years War. In this way, the Cherokees were continually attacked by the French allies: the Choctaw and Iroquois. Because of these attacks, Cherokees asked the British to protect their families and homes by building forts. In 1756 Governor Glen of South Carolina agreed to build two forts for the Cherokees: the first one built on Savannah River is Fort Prince George, and the second one is



References: Grace Steele Woodward, “The Cherokees”, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman and London, (1988) Theda Perdue, “The Cherokee” (Frank W.Porter III General Editor, University of Kentucky, New York, Philadelphia, 1989 Ncpedia, William L. Anderson and Ruth Y. Wetmore:Cherokee Indians, part 4, 2006 (accessed 01.06.2013.) http://ncpedia.org/cherokee/revolutionarywar

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Significant publications include items about wars, folklore, religion, social customs, biography, and government relations and treaties, as well as such multi-volume works as United States Indian Office, Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1839-1943), and United States Department of the Interior, Biographical and Historical Index of American Indians…

    • 12144 Words
    • 49 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the late 1780’s the US began urging the Cherokees to stop hunting and their traditional ways of life and to instead learn about how to live, farm, and worship like Christian Americans. Despite everything the white people in Georgia and other southern states that abutted the Cherokee Nation refused to accept the Cherokee people as social equals and urged their political representatives to take the Cherokees land. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 gave Thomas Jefferson the chance to relocate the eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi River.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The seven years war impacted the British’s relationship with both French and Indian populations as there was a “worldwide struggle for imperial domination” (Foner, 169). The British started problems with the French after this struggle began because French forts in Pennsylvania were going to be removed. As a result, the French were very angered and Indian forces helped attack against the British. The result of this war, caused by the initial negative relationship between the English and French empire caused “France’s 200-year-old North American empire to come to an end” (Foner, 171). The English empire also took over Louisiana, a former French empire. Indians fought in this war “to maintain their independence from both empires” (Foner, 171).…

    • 171 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the beginning Cherokee Indians were called Aniyunwiya Indians. They were the largest Native American Tribe. They lived in southeastern North America; George, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. They were very friendly. In the early 1800’s they were forced to leave George, Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee because of President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Policy. The Cherokee Indians called their journey the Trail of Tears because they had little food and were very tired. Four thousand out of fifteen thousand men and women died along the way. The Indians that were forced to leave settled in Oklahoma.…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Involuntary Exchange of Lands Native Americans and the Supreme Court 3. An Attempt at Assimilation 4. Two Illegal Treaties 5. Betrayal and a Forced March The Cherokee are Native Americans.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Cherokee tribe inhabited what is present day Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. Being located in what would become the Southeastern part of the United States meant their inevitability in getting involved in the revolutionary war. The Cherokee tribe’s involvement in the American Revolution was both important to the course of the war and resulted in devastation to the tribe.…

    • 1976 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Native American Paper

    • 632 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Firstly, the Cherokee were made up of seven clans with which each had a different purpose and job. The names and jobs of all the tribes in English are Long Hair which sends the Peace Chief, Blue who is the oldest; Wolf to protect clans, Wild Potato is the keeper of the land (gatherers), Deer is the fastest runners and hunters, Bird sends messengers, and lastly Paint are the medicine people. The belief system for the Cherokee was that good is rewarded and evil is punished. One main object they used was river cane making and using it for multiple purposes. The Trail of Tears was an important part of the Cherokee past since they used it to move to a different territory. (Information for the Cherokee Paragraph: http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation.aspx)…

    • 632 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The United states revolution impacted Native American in two distinct ways. The first one being in the displacement of Native Americans. After the Revolution colonists started to migrate to West intruding on Native land that was protected by the proclamation of 1763, this Westward movement created conflict among settlers and Natives. The second way the Revolution impacted Native Americans is the dispossession of land by colonists in upstate New York, Ohio river valley, and southern back country. Native tribes like the Cherokee ceded most of their land as a result of…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bibliography: Ballantine, Betty & Ian (Eds.). The Native Americans: An Illustrated History. Atlanta, GA. Turner. (1993) Print.…

    • 2907 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most of the Cherokee lived Eastern half of the North America, they were the first of the Native American Tribes to come in contact with the new colonist. War began when Andrew Jackson ignored the treaty President Washington had signed and waged war on the Cherokee. The US Government began displacing Cherokee to the west of the Mississippi River. On 1832 the US Supreme Court founded the Cherokee as a nation. But Andrew Jackson ignored the ruling to concentration camps which eventually began to be known as “The Trail of Tears”.…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the major “selling points” for mistreatment and the removal of Native Americans was that they were a alien like people who were uncivilized and simple. The dislike for the Native Americans was apparent well before the Indian Removal Act, many presidents before Jackson had talked of the importance of europeanizing the Native Americans. Settlers came to know this as the “Indian Problem,” and their solution for this “problem” was to civilize the Natives by teaching them european ways including, conversion to christianity, teaching them english, western farming and western gender roles. In relation to the Indian Removal Act, the “Indian Problem” was still just merely an excuse for settlers to remove Natives from land that they wanted. Around…

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cherokee Removal Analysis

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages

    When Albert Gallatin, a statesman in Jefferson’s cabinet, expressed interest in learning more of Cherokee’s history, Ridge immediately wrote him a letter disclosing his vision of the future of the Cherokee Nation and describing their culture in great detail. Ridge attempted to display a different image than simply “savages”: “They [Cherokees] have their regular meals as the whites … tables are usually covered with a clean cloth and furnished with the usual plates, knives, and forks…” Indeed, this might seem like an obvious claim, but many people believed that Cherokees only ate when they were hungry and labelled them as savages. By simply stating all of the daily routines, Ridge advocated for the Cherokees in an attempt to change the misconceptions about…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Because of the Seven Years’ War the Indians were able to unite and work together instead of working against each other in the rebellion, “…the mixing of Indian warriors in French armies had helped to inspire this sense of identity as Indians rather than members of individual tribes.” (Foner 167). The Indians were eventually successful and they were rewarded with the Proclamation of 1763. This did not allow British settlers to settle past the Appalachian Mountains and the land west was for the Indians (Foner…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Cherokee a large Native American tribe that previously inhabited large areas of land in the southeast, specifically the lower Appalachian Mountains (Gilbert, 178). Currently, they reside in a reservation in western North Carolina, and two in Oklahoma, one of which is the largest reservation in the United States (Cherokee Ancestry). The Cherokee were a warrior society, often traveling as far north as Ohio, and as far west as the Mississippi river to wage war on other tribes (Gilbert, 187). The ancient Cherokee nation was broken into many scattered settlements along the southern Appalachian rivers, due the rugged nature of the land. The Cherokee dwellings were mostly one to two story square houses, made of logs with a plastered interior and…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cherokee Removal

    • 2936 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The Cherokee Removal could be said to have begun when England lost the Revolutionary War to the United States. That’s when the people of the United States felt that they could control “uncivilized” people and their land. Of course the Cherokee to those people were “uncivilized” so that meant that they could take over what rightfully belonged to the Cherokee. However, President George Washington and Henry Knox wanted to experiment with the Cherokee in hopes of having them become civilized. President Washington and Mr. Knox did not take into consideration how the United States people would feel about the Cherokee; they felt that no matter what the Cherokee were taught that they would never fully be equal because of race. The Cherokee accepted some of the changes and resisted others, eventually this led to the forced removal of the Cherokee. After several failed treaty attempts, the Cherokee finally accepted that they would have to leave when soldiers arrived. The final negotiation was for the Cherokee to be able to move alone in the winter or 1838-39 and this would become known as the “Trail of Tears” because so many Cherokee died along the way.…

    • 2936 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays