The Cherokees Vs. Andrew Jackson

The calamity of the Cherokee people has tormented the entire legacy of the former President Andrew Jackson. The effects of him enacting his Indian policy were truly atrocious and begun a number of questions as for the ethics of all the generations. The people of the Cherokee nation were enforced to surrender their own land during the eighteenth century due to dishonest and unjust treaties and corrupt deals. It was much easier for historians to grasp the understanding of the Cherokee removal by learning about the perspectives of the removal though the Cherokee people’s and Andrew Jackson’s experience.

According to the Memorial of the Cherokee Nation, it was unfair that the U.S. Executive changed the official boundary. “They do not consider that it is within the range of Executive duties to remove the “landmarks” of any tribe or nation, contrary to its consent, and the established principals heretofore pursued by this Government”(Memorial of the Cherokee Nation, pg. 2). The Cherokee’s belief was that it was not right that the executive had the power, or even the authority, to overrule or become involved with the states acts. The executives were in fact not even authorized to force the Indians to leave their land and nation. The people of the Cherokee nation wanted justice to be served to all of the parties that were involved. The Cherokee nation was exposed to intruders and a new class of people in their population. The Cherokee’s told their people, “leave our people to the mercy of the neighboring whites,”(Cherokee Address to the American People, pg.1). They felt like they were being left to the white people who were going to make their nation extinct. in addition, they felt as if they had no protection whatsoever. They felt like they were driven to an ultimatum such as emigrating from their homeland or comply with the legislation of a State. That land was their birthright and they felt like they would have no where or idea to go it they were removed from it. Although, it is also necessary to understand what Jackson felt as well.

President Jackson was filled with happiness and joy at the fact that this policy, that had been pursued for an ongoing rate of thirty tears, was at the chance of becoming established. It was stated in Andrew Jackson’s Second Annual Address to Congress, “to seek the same obvious advantages”(Andrew Jackson’s Second Annual Address to Congress, 1830, pg. 1). Jackson felt that since two tribes had agreed to the provisions, then the rest would follow in pursuit. He thought that this offer to the Indians was going to bring them joy and fill them with gratitude of new land and homes. Jackson felt as if the government was being generous to them by offering them new land, homes, and ways of paying for the removal and new settlement of the Indians. From Jacksons perspective, the Indian were going to be better off by being placed into a new settlement. As stated in Andrew Jackson’s Seventh Annual Message to Congress, they would be supplied with “clothing, arms, ammunition, and other indispensable articles;” and have access to the prairies where herds of buffalo were located ( Andrew Jackson’s Seventh Annual Message to Congress, pg. 1-2). The amount of resources and access the Indians would have was what compelled Jackson that this would be a great policy.

The removal of the Cherokee Indians holds a different meaning when looked at from the Cherokee’s and President Jackson’s side. While it may have seemed like a new beginning from one person, it looked as if another felt like they were being took away from their birth right, heritage, and home. Thus, the Indian removal became one of the more dramatic events in the United States history.

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