Andrew Jackson and the Cherokee

To own land, that is the privilege of whom? To Andrew Jackson the Cherokees current homesteads where on his country’s land. For whatever reason at that time some people living in America weren’t treated as good as there white counterparts. Meanwhile the Cherokees principal chief John Ross felt like that land belonged to his people. If you want to get technical he was speaking on the behalf of a tribe that made up a mere one-eighth of his ancestry. Not exactly a full blooded leader. He also was one of the main reason the “trail of tears” was as hostile and brutal as it was on his people. Its ironic, even as hard as Jackson pushed and deceived the Cherokee, the Cherokee people in turn pushed back, but past the point of being rational.

Some of these individual efforts worsened the outcome for the whole tribe. Jackson’s manipulative ways of handling this situation in office and out of office forced the Cherokee to make hard decisions, and I feel like these decision makers for the Cherokee failed miserably. The reason behind the lack of attack on Jackson is quite obvious, politicians have been acting like politicians well since the very beginning. As selfish and egocentric as his view was, he knew what the was going to do, and being president of this powerful nation not much any one nation could do to stop him let alone the nation of a tribe.

To any logically thinking person the senate wasn’t a roadblock to Jackson it was a mere bump in the road. Even the Cherokee tribe knew what power he possessed. That is why the smart two thousand Cherokee, “resigned themselves to the inevitable, asked their belongings, and headed west” (AJ vs. the CN). The rest ignorantly stuck behind because they had faith in the false hope that John Ross would be their savior. This being the basis for the remainder of my discussion of the Cherokee tribe, the faulty leadership.

The leaders’ inability to act for the overall well being of their tribe cost the Cherokee supplies, land, and most importantly lives. In a huge sense, it was John Ross being jokingly overambitious during his negotiations with the President that caused a lot of their pain and suffering. He also was the main voice behind trying to resist the government even after the two years was over, not to mention the whole two years they had to leave. What makes me almost as upset is how he laughed at Jackson’s proposal of five million dollars. Shortly after his tribe ended up taking that deal anyway with more sly stipulations and mandates that weren’t attached with the offering Ross got. For example they were going to get rations of supplies, food, and rifles if Ross had signed. He didn’t, therefore the Cherokee didn’t get these things they needed for survival. This same man had the never to ask the President for an amount of money almost equivalent to the national debt. He knew he would never get it. That is what he wanted though. He wanted to make sure the government didn’t make him an offer he morally should have taken. That is why his demands weren’t normal or reasonable; they were over the top for a reason. This stubbornness on the part of the Cherokees leader almost showed the Cherokees ambitions to compete or interact with the white world by trying to beat them at the own system they created in the courts.

Most of the Cherokees didn’t need money or want the same land, all they wanted was peace and quiet on some sort of land they could call their own. Even as arrogant as it sounds Jackson told them if they were to stay to the east of the Mississippi they would die off like the rest of the previous tribes Jackson had prior dealings with. He said this because most of the Cherokee people were only half civilized compared to the white man. They would have trouble legally. Keeping up with new technologies, and since there would be no marked territory, none of the Cherokee would be able to instantly have money to buy property from the whites.

Even though the ideology and reasons behind