The Cherokees are best associated with The Trail Of Tears (1836-1839) which is now widely seen by modern historians as a massacre of the Cherokee people and it is hard to excuse the actions of the US government. The Cherokee had been living in the area now called Georgia, with their own laws and customs, but in 1828, when gold was discovered on Cherokee lands, the treaties that existed between the US state and the Cherokee nation were ruled null and void, making the Cherokee claim to the land worthless. This was contested by the Cherokee as far as the Supreme Court in the case of Worchester V Georgia, but Chief Justice John Marshall ruled against them and they lost the case. The Cherokee were forced to sign the Treaty of New Echota as part of the Indian Removal Act. Encouraged by President Jackson, the people of Georgia drove the Cherokee at gunpoint on a thousand-mile trek across the Mississippi. A quarter of them died on a journey that has become known as the “Trail of Tears”. This was not just an act of the US government but all the white population. It appeared no-one truly cared about the well-being of the Native Americans because, for the colonists, the end justified the means. Jackson had felt done the right thing. “The philanthropist …. will rejoice that the remnant of that ill-fated race has been at length placed beyond the reach of injury and oppression, and that the paternal care of the general government will hereafter watch over them and protect them.” (The Mammoth Book of Native Americans) He thought that, by moving the tribes away from white settlers, it would be better for both whites and Native Americans in the long run. Forced expulsions were a common feature of the treatment of Native American tribes by US authorities in the 18th and 19th century.
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