INDIAN REMOVAL = ETHNIC CLEANSING = GENOCIDE. The United States at the end of the American Revolution developed a policy called civilization. It helped fund missionary organizations to go into the Indian nations, particularly in the south, and teach Indians how to be Anglo Americans: how to grow wheat instead of corn; how to eat meals at regular times instead of when they were hungry; how to dress in European clothing; how to speak the English language; how to pray in church at designated times; how to live the kind of life that Anglo Americans believed was a civilized life. -- Theda Perdue, historian I am one of the native sons of these wild woods. We obtained these lands from the living God above. I would willingly die to preserve them. -- Major Ridge, Cherokee Georgia reacts to the Cherokee passage of a constitution in 1827 very badly. They say, “If they set up a constitutional government we’ll never be able to get rid of them.” “These misguided men,” a state legislator said of the Cherokees, “should be taught that there is no alternative between their removal beyond the limits of the state of Georgia and their extinction.” The thinking of the day becomes more racist that the Cherokees are inferior and cannot be like the whites. It’s convenient rhetoric to say that Cherokees are inferior and we need to get them out of the way, out of harm’s way, as Andrew Jackson would put it. The Congressional debate over the Indian Removal bill was a sectional brawl that drew the entire country’s attention. A campaign organized by “Benevolent Ladies” flooded Congress with pro-Indian letters and petitions. “Who can look an Indian in the face,” one Senator thundered, “and say to him: for more than 40 years we have made to you the most solemn of promises; we now violate and trample upon them all, but offer you, in their stead, another guarantee.” New England Senators voted 11-1 against Jackson’s removal bill. But the unanimous bloc of Southerners assured its passage in the Senate. The vote was closer in the House — 102-97. But the legislation passed. And President Andrew Jackson’s signature made Indian removal the law of the land. Andrew Jackson—the only president in the history of the United States to openly defy a Supreme Court order. He is said to have remarked that Chief Justice Marshall made his decision. Let him enforce it. And to the Georgians he said, “Light a fire under them. They’ll move.” Here is where we were placed to watch over the land, here where I was born and raised. We have to let go of this land that we hold so dear. Here where we grew up, where we worked, and where we have our cherished memories. I would willingly lie down and die if I could stop the removal. There is only one thing I see we can do. For the vast majority of the Cherokee people removal was not an option. It just was not. They couldn’t comprehend removal. They couldn’t comprehend that a handful of people signing a piece of paper would be enough to remove them from their homelands. I could continue, but I wont. THANK YOU to PBS and WE SHALL REMAIN
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 04:09:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015