Indians in American History

1. Indians in American History Civilization and Removal

2. Treaties • Treaty--Alliance • symbolic joining • government to government • honor

3. Earliest Treaties • Friendship • Est. alliance • Mutual defense assistance • Trade: Economic & Symbolic • weapons, tools, cloth & other goods • food, forest products, leather & furs

4. Indian Trade • Symbolic Act of Friendship • Economic • Foundation of colonial economies • Integrates American Indians into world exchange economy • Goods transform native societies • new material goods • new emphasis on commercial hunting

5. Trade’s Impact

6. Land-Treaties-Boundaries • Proclamation of 1763 • Establishes Boundary Line • Boundary to be • negotiated • marked • recognized

7. Transition: Tribe to Nation • Creeks: Line “Like a stone wall never to be broke” • fixed boundary • fixed permanent boundary • existence “guaranteed” with colonial neighbors

8. American Revolution • Indians on the Losing Side • Trade economy on decline • Americans want land--not trade • American population Rising • Americans Expanding--moving west

9. American view of Indians • “The Enemy” • The Conquered Enemy • Indians savage--based on Indian warfare and lifestyle

10. Constitution & Federalist Indian Policy • Indian tribes sovereign, independent nations w/right to self gov’t • Encroachment = war • Moral obligation to protest Indians • tribes “declining” • Want land acquired honorably

11. Expansion with Honor • Tribes sovereign, independent nations • Gov’t to gov’t relationship with Federal gov’t (not states) • Purchase land--for national expansion • by public treaty • under authority of United States

12. Civilization of Indians • Two assumptions • Indians aren’t civilized • some can become civilized • Southeastern Indians • Intermarriage and “progress” • 1790 Treaty of New York (Creek) • 1791 Treaty of Holstein (Cherokee) • Northeast Indians • “savage” • Treaty of Greenville

13. Civilization Program • Economic • hunting to commercial agriculture • private land v. communal lands • Social • women: sexual reformation and domestic gentility • patrilineal v. matrilineal inheritance • educate and Christianize • Political • abandon town life • erode power of tribal governments

14. Civilization Program • some would call it cultural genocide • goal: make Indians imperceptible from their white neighbors • Indians: culturally deficient • Africans: race the issue

15. The Creek Country

16. The Creek Country, ca. 1798

17. The Tallapoosa River Valley

18. Hopthle Mico

19. A Federal Agent’s View • Hawkins’s “Sketch” • What does the description of Tal-e-see tell us about Creek society and gov’t? • What does it say about Hawkins?

20. Cherokees • Civilized? • Written Law Code • Constitution • Learn to write: in Cherokee • Tensions • religion • patrilineal v. matrilineal • traditional v. “new ways”

21. Federal-State Conflict • How and Why? • states want Indians out • extend inequitable laws over tribes • program of harassment and pressure • extreme pressure by S. and W. on federal gov’t to extinguish Indian title to land

22. Georgia Laws, 1829-1830 • Laws of the Cherokee Nation null & void • Illegal to prevent and Indian from emigrating • Illegal to prevent an Indian from selling property • No Indian or descendant of any Indian shall be a competent witness in court • Tribal assembly unlawful

23. Motives • Greed - land and other resources • Racism - Indians inferior • Fear

24. Views: Lewis Cass • Indian populations declining • Civilization a total failure • Indians • “despise labor” • “government unknown among them” • “roam the forests at will” • have not “reclaimed” the earth from a state of nature as “the Creator intended”

25. Views: William Penn (Jeremiah Evarts) • Indians have a right to their land • Indians have their own form of gov’t and have not surrendered their sovereignty • U.S. should uphold previous treaties

26. Views: William Penn (Jeremiah Evarts) • “Are we to declare to mankind, that in our country law is totally inadequate to answer the great end for which human laws are made, that is, the protection of the weak against the strong?”

27. Removal • Accomplished via Treaty (not law) • Actual form: Land Exchange

28. Jackson’s Message on Indian Removal • Indians able to “pursue happiness in their own way” • characterized as “fair exchange” • will “save” the Indians • to go to a new land to better oneself is a normal event

29. Jackson’s Message on Indian Removal • end federal-state conflict • open up large tracts of land for “civilized population” • national security • protect Indians from “power of the states”

30. Jackson’s Message on Indian Removal • Some “facts” incorrect • Some assumptions invalid • Not all motives revealed

31. Indian Removal Act,1830 • Pres. to set aside Indian territory on public lands west of Miss. R. • Exchange districts there for land occupied by Indians in the east • Grant tribes absolute ownership to new land “forever” • treat with tribes for rearrangement of boundaries to effect removal

32. Indian Removal Act, 1830 • Property left behind by emigrating Indians to be appraised and compensation paid • grant emigrants “aid and assistance” on journey and first year in new country • protect emigrants from hostile western Indians and other intruders • continue power exercised over tribes by Trade and Intercourse Acts

33. Southeastern Removal Treaties (Civilized Tribes) • 1830: Removal Act • 1830: Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (Choctaw) • 1832: Treaty of Pontotoc (Chickasaw) • 1832: Treaty of Payne’s Landing (Seminole) • 1832: Treaty of Washington (Creek) • 1835: Treaty of New Echota (Cherokee)

34. Removal Treaties • U.S. employed questionable methods • bribes • negotiated w/ non-authorized chiefs • coercion

35. Emigration:A Brutal Experience • Choctaw: unprepared and under funded • Creeks (war in 1836) • Cherokee: Trail of Tears • Seminole: fight

36. Cherokee Indians • Fight in the U.S. court system • Wage public relations campaign • Divided • John Ross • Treaty Party (John Ridge)

37. Ah-he-lah-qey-yah • Spoliation Claim • What does the claim tell us about • the process of removal? • the lifestyle of Ah-he-lah-qey-yah?

38. Removal-Discussion Questions • Were the assumptions about Indians valid? • Was removal “ethnic cleansing”? • Was it constitutional? • Was it in the best American tradition? • What were the other options?

39. Removal-Discussion Questions • Indians divided over the proper course. Put yourself in their shoes. What do you believe was the best option for Indians in the 1830s?

40. Removal-Discussion Questions • Wallace: “The U.S. acquired millions of acres of fertile Southern land, which it sold at little or no profit to speculators and settlers, thereby in effect subsidizing the expansion of the cotton industry and the slave system along with it.” Do you agree?

41. Teaching Resources • U. S. Indian Policy, 1815-1860: Removal to Reservations: A Unit of Study for Grades 8 12. Compiled by David L. Ghere and Jan F. Spreeman. Organization of American Historians and the National Center for History in the Schools, 2000. • http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/

42. Teaching Resources • National Humanities Center Web Site: A toolbox with on-line professional development seminars, including documents and background information. Includes excellent unit on Expansion (1815-1850). http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/pds/pds.htm

43. Suggested Readings

44. An overview of removal • Foreman, Grant, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932. A dated but valuable source.

45. Primary Sources • The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents. Edited with an Introduction by Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green. The Bedford Series in History and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1995. (a great source of primary documents)

46. For the Creek Indians • Wright, J. Leitch. Jr. Creeks and Seminoles: Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge People. Chapter 10: "Dispersal and Survival." Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.