THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACTBY SARAHI URIBE, RACHEL PRETTYMAN,

DREW BLONDIN, AND CHEYANNE STEVENS

Thurgood MarshallGrade 5

The Indian Removal Act was sign by Congress and President Andrew Jackson. Jackson had been known for his toughness, which meant harsh and unfair treatment to the Native Americans. It had been Jackson’s idea to start the Indian Removal Act. He wanted the Indian’s land and thought if he could get tribes to sign treaties, so he could easily remove them. Due to the Indian Removal Act, Indian tribes East of Mississippi had to leave their lands and walk many miles to Indian Territory which is now called Oklahoma. This was one of the first of many forced removals of the Native Americans from their land by the United States Government over many years.

In 1791 the United States Government signed a treaty recognizing the Cherokee nation’s independence and the Cherokee lived happily east of Mississippi for many years. In 1829 Americans found gold on the Cherokee’s homeland and they wanted to Cherokee to leave. In 1832, Cherokee went to court, and Chief Justice John Marshall said they could stay, but the ruling was ignored and the federal troops were called in to remove the Cherokee in 1838.

The Trail Of Tears14,000 Cherokee were forced to walk

over 800 miles through North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas in the winter of 1838-

1839 to get to Oklahoma. Weather got colder and more than 4000 Cherokee died because disease, coldness, or lack of food.

Once they got to Oklahoma on March in the year 1839, the Cherokees were one of the tribes that stayed in Oklahoma.

Where the Navajos startedAt first the Navajo were

living peacefully in Canyon de Chelly. Then, when the Americans moved out west, the Americans started to raid them and the Navajo raided the Americans. The Navajo wanted to have peace with the white soldiers, so they signed a peace treaty. But someone accused a Navajo cheating on a horse race and broke the peace treaty. The American soldiers came to the Navajo camp and forced all of them to go to Fort Defiance.

The Trail Of The Longwalk

About 3000 Navajo, were forced to walk about 300 miles to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. Many of the Navajo died during the walk from sickness and starving to death. The Navajo tribe walked through some of Arizona and New Mexico before they finally arrived at Fort Sumner in the Bosque Redondo area.

At their new home, the Navajo had trouble planting food because the land was not good for planting corn, so they could not eat. About 25 percent of the Navajo died from starvation. They lived there for another 4 years.

References•

Armstrong Nancy. Navajo Long Walk.

New York Scholastic,1994.

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Cherokee Messenger,1995. The Cherokee Cultural Society of Houston. http://www.powersource.com/chero

kee/history.•

Horizons.

United States History;

Beginnings. New York Harcourt, 2005.

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The Long Walk. 2007. The view zone. http://viewzone.com/day3w.