Picture this: you wake up one morning thinking it’s just going to be a normal day, but then, everything changes. Generals start invading your home and drag you off your front porch and tell you that you can’t live on this land anymore; that it is now for other people to use and have. You can’t grab anything to bring with you. All you have are the clothes and shoes that you have on, nothing more. Think about that. It almost seems too horrible to be true. But this did happen. It was called the Indian Removal Act that took place in 1838, where over 15,000 Cherokee Indians were forcefully removed from their homes and sent on a brutal journey almost 1,000 miles long to present day Oklahoma. This journey is known as the Trail of Tears, since so many
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Sacred land was illegally and unconstitutionally being taken from the Cherokee. Lastly, the government had basically tricked the Indians into giving away their land, and made promises they didn’t keep.
The first reason why the Indian Removal Act was not justified was because innocent Indians were forced to go on this treacherous journey while not getting enough food, water, and shelter. They started migrating towards present day Oklahoma during the winter of 1838. With snow falling and winds blowing, finding shelter was one of their hardest tasks. One text states, “Many of these helpless people did not have blankets and many had been driven from home barefooted.”(Doherty and Jaffe). This source makes it clear how the Cherokee Indians didn’t even have blankets to cover themselves in the cold and how some …show more content…
However, they are wrong. Even if it allowed expansion, the government still made many crucial mistakes. The Indians were lied to. The government made promises that they never kept. According to one document, “The object was, first, to take their lands. Then the U.S. government would force those Indians to relocate… Years earlier, treaties with the U.S. government had granted these lands to them (Cherokee) forever...In 1828, the Georgia state legislature passed a law that denied the right of the Cherokee to rule themselves.”(Challenge). This was the real plan that the government came up with. Years earlier, the Cherokee had discussed their land with generals and U.S. leaders, and they responded by telling the Indians that the land was theirs, and that they would be able to live there in peace. Even treaties were signed about the Indians having rights to their land, yet they still got threatened and removed. Another piece of evidence about the government not being honest with the Indians states, “ Property of many has been taken, and sold before their eyes for almost nothing-- the sellers and buyers, in many cases, being combined to cheat the poor Indians...They are prisoners, without a crime to justify the fact.” (Green and Perdue 172). This is a journal entry of one of the bystanders from the Indian Removal. It shows how property was illegally being
Sacred land was illegally and unconstitutionally being taken from the Cherokee. Lastly, the government had basically tricked the Indians into giving away their land, and made promises they didn’t keep.
The first reason why the Indian Removal Act was not justified was because innocent Indians were forced to go on this treacherous journey while not getting enough food, water, and shelter. They started migrating towards present day Oklahoma during the winter of 1838. With snow falling and winds blowing, finding shelter was one of their hardest tasks. One text states, “Many of these helpless people did not have blankets and many had been driven from home barefooted.”(Doherty and Jaffe). This source makes it clear how the Cherokee Indians didn’t even have blankets to cover themselves in the cold and how some …show more content…
However, they are wrong. Even if it allowed expansion, the government still made many crucial mistakes. The Indians were lied to. The government made promises that they never kept. According to one document, “The object was, first, to take their lands. Then the U.S. government would force those Indians to relocate… Years earlier, treaties with the U.S. government had granted these lands to them (Cherokee) forever...In 1828, the Georgia state legislature passed a law that denied the right of the Cherokee to rule themselves.”(Challenge). This was the real plan that the government came up with. Years earlier, the Cherokee had discussed their land with generals and U.S. leaders, and they responded by telling the Indians that the land was theirs, and that they would be able to live there in peace. Even treaties were signed about the Indians having rights to their land, yet they still got threatened and removed. Another piece of evidence about the government not being honest with the Indians states, “ Property of many has been taken, and sold before their eyes for almost nothing-- the sellers and buyers, in many cases, being combined to cheat the poor Indians...They are prisoners, without a crime to justify the fact.” (Green and Perdue 172). This is a journal entry of one of the bystanders from the Indian Removal. It shows how property was illegally being