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be moved by force. The U.S. secretary of war told John Ross that
Jackson no longer recognized any government among the Eastern
Cherokees, and neither Ross nor anyone else would be allowed to
challenge further the legitimacy of the removal treaty. At the same
time, congressmen and community leaders urged Ross not to give up
hope, but rather to trust that the system would work, and justice
would prevail, before the deadline for relocation arrived.
Immediate action on behalf of the treaty did not come easily.
General John Ellis Wool was the commander of the U.S. troops origi-
nally ordered to enforce the Treaty of New Echota. When he arrived
to begin the process of disarming the Cherokees, he was met with a
memorial signed by council members, protesting both the treaty
itself and the plan for disarmament that followed from it. When he
attended a council meeting in September 1836, he learned even more
about the Cherokee majority s side of the New Echota story:
[I]t is, however, vain to talk to people almost universally opposed
to the treaty and who maintain that they never made such a
treaty. So determined are they in their opposition that not one . . .
would receive either rations or clothing from the United States
lest they might compromise themselves in regard to the treaty. . . .
The whole scene since I have been in this country has been noth-
ing but a heartrending one, and such a one as I would be glad to
get rid of as soon as circumstances will permit.1
Wool asked to be relieved of his mission, and he was.
Brigadier General R.G. Dunlap led his Tennessee troops to
begin building stockades for the use of the U.S. soldiers who would
THE TRAIL OF TEARS AND INDIAN REMOVAL
56
enforce removal, and containment pens to hold the Cherokees who
did not plan to leave voluntarily. The problem was that the construc-
tion sites put Dunlap and his men close to Cherokee communities
and homes. They talked; they socialized. The contrast between the
sophistication of the Cherokees many of the young girls had been
educated formally by Christian missionaries and the crudeness of
the wooden pens that were meant for their imprisonment soon
struck the Tennessee forces. At length, Dunlap threatened to resign
his commission rather than continue to assist in preparations for re-
moval, claiming that enforcing the Treaty of New Echota would dis-
honor both his men and his home state.
Meanwhile, only about two thousand Cherokees, less than 15 per-
cent of the Cherokee Nation, left of their own accord to join the
  Old Settlers  in Indian Territory in the West. Among them were
members of the Treaty Party. Despite the fact that his men in the
field balked at their orders, Jackson remained firm. The Treaty of
New Echota would be implemented. He gave instructions that no
one have additional communications with John Ross, in speech or
writing, about the treaty. After Jackson served out his second term
in the White House, his vice president and hand-picked successor,
Martin Van Buren, began his administration in March 1837, making
it clear that he had every intention of following Jackson s precedents
and implementing Jackson s policies.
In August 1837, the Cherokees gathered by the thousands at
Red Clay, Tennessee, which served as the seat of government in the
place of New Echota after the state of Georgia forbid the Cherokee
Council to meet. At this meeting a U.S. agent sent for the purpose
made a speech in which he tried to convey that resistance to removal
was useless. The talk in question did not manage to end opposition
to removal, as the Cherokees were offended and angered by sugges-
tions that their failure to support the minority-made Treaty of New
Echota reflected merely the bitter fruit of faction politics rather than
a serious complaint against an illegitimate compact. A British visitor
who witnessed the meeting, George Featherstonhaugh, left with far
more sympathy for the Cherokees than the U.S. government. He later
reported on what he witnessed in his memoir A Canoe Voyage up the
Minnay Sotor, and in the process offered a succinct sketch of the re-
moval issue as a whole:
A whole Indian nation abandons the pagan practices of their
ancestors, adopts the Christian religion, uses books printed in
their own language, submits to the government of their elders,
builds houses and temples of worship, relies upon agriculture
The Trail of Tears
57
for their support, and produces men of great ability to rule
over them. . . . Are not these the great principles of civilization?
They were driven from their religious and social state then,
not because they cannot be civilized, but because a pseudo set
of civilized beings, who are too strong for them want their
possessions!2
In early 1838, John Ross and a delegation of other Cherokee
leaders, including Elijah Hicks and Whitepath, traveled again to
Washington, D.C. They brought with them the signatures of 15,665
Cherokees protesting the Treaty of New Echota. The Commissioner
of Indian Affairs told them that the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs had met and voted to sanction the president s plans to carry
out the treaty. Outraged citizens from around the United States sent
messages and petitions on behalf of the Cherokee cause. Nonethe-
less, Van Buren ordered that seven thousand soldiers be assembled to
prepare for action. Time had run out. On May 23, 1838, the military
roundup of the Cherokee Nation began.
Removal
Replacing John Wool as the military commander of the removal
campaign was Major General Winfield Scott, known as   Old Fuss
and Feathers,  a veteran of the War of 1812, the Blackhawk War, the
Seminole Wars, and at one time nearly a duelist against Andrew
Jackson. Scott looked at his mission without enthusiasm; when he
realized that many of the Georgia troops seemed as interested in
killing the Cherokees as removing them, he realized the extent of
the challenge he faced. He attempted to bring order to a chaotic
situation.
His address to the Cherokees offered equal parts warning and
plea:
Chiefs, head-men and warriors! Will you then, by resistance,
compel us to resort to arms? God forbid! Or will you, by flight,
seek to hid yourselves in mountains and forests, and thus oblige
us to hunt you down? Remember that, in pursuit, it may be
impossible to avoid conflicts. The blood of the white man or the
blood of the red man may be spilt, and, if spilt, however acci-
dentally, it may be impossible for the discreet and humane
among you, or among us, to prevent a general war and carnage.
Think of this, my Cherokee brethren! I am an old warrior, and
have been present at many a scene of slaughter, but spare me, I
THE TRAIL OF TEARS AND INDIAN REMOVAL
58
beseech you, the horror of witnessing the destruction of the
Cherokees.3
Within four weeks in May and June, separate military opera-
tions in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama succeeded
in removing roughly seventeen thousand Cherokees from their
homes at gunpoint and gathering them together in various contain-
ment camps that had been constructed for the purpose of Cherokee [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]