Under Andrew Jackson the Forces of Nationalism and Sectionalism Were in Continual Conflict
Module 20: Nationalism and Sectionalism in Antebellum America
Welcome to Week 14!
First up, Module 20: Nationalism and Sectionalism in Antebellum America.
First, we'll examine the circumstances which led to the election of President Andrew Jackson in 1828, including economic concerns, foreign policy, the role of the government in the lives of everyday Americans and ideas about American "values." Slavery was also a major political issue, as we've seen in previous modules. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, we can see how disagreements over slavery shaped the landscape of the United States, especially as more states joined the Union. (We'll look into this divisive issue even further in Module 21.)
Then, we'll turn to another conflict that illustrated the relationship between the states and the government and Jackson's political (and racial) ideologies: the removal of eastern Native nations to land in the West, namely in Oklahoma.
These three questions will guide this module blog post:
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What were the economic circumstances and political developments which led to Andrew Jackson's election?
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How was Jacksonian America defined by both nationalism and sectionalism?
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How did Native nations in the Southeast respond to Indian Removal?
Watch the embedded video below for an overview of this module. Let's get started!
Nationalism and Sectionalism
In 1816, Congress issued a twenty-year charter for the Second Bank of the United States. It acted as the government's financial agent, issuing paper money, collecting taxes, and paying the government's debts. It was charged with ensuring that the paper money issued by local banks had real value. In the nineteenth century, paper money consisted of notes promising to pay the bearer on demand a specified amount of specie—gold or silver. The value of paper money fluctuated wildly, because banks would print more paper money than they had gold or silver in their vaults. The Bank of the US was supposed to oversee this process, and stop the overissuance of paper money.
Panic of 1819
However, it didn't do this successfully. After the War of 1812, more people were demanding loans to purchase land in the west. Local banks and the Bank of the United States paid these loans by printing more paper money. This land boom was especially acute in the South, where cotton production was rapidly expanding. In 1819, the economic bubble burst. Banks began to ask for payments, and those who could not repay declared bankruptcy, contributing to a rise of unemployment in eastern cities.
Many states suspended the collection of debts. Americans's distrust of banks began to deepen, and the reputation of the Second Bank of the United States was undermined as it was widely blamed for the Panic. The Panic of 1819 only lasted for about a year, but it started to illustrate some of the beginnings of the cracks in the "era of good feelings" and patriotism associated with the War of 1812.
Missouri Compromise
In 1817, Missouri requested to draft a constitution in preparation for admission to the Union as a state. At the time, Missouri had a population of 10,000 slaves. Saint Louis was a bustling Mississippi River town filled with powerful slave owners, and was an important trade headquarters for networks in the northern Mississippi Valley and the Greater West. James Tallmadge, a Republican congressman from New York, moved that no further slaves be introduced in Missouri, and that the children of those enslaved already in Missouri be freed at age 25.
Two years of controversy ensued. Congressmen were divided on sectional lines. In 1820, a compromise was proposed by Senator Jesse Thomas of Illinois: Missouri would be permitted to draft a constitution without restricting slavery. Maine would be admitted to the Union as a free state, to maintain the balance between free and slave states. And, slavery would be prohibited in all remaining territory within the Louisiana Purchase north of Missouri's southern boundary.
The Missouri Compromise marked a major turning point in America's sectional crisis, because it exposed just how divisive the slavery issue had grown. People debated the issue in newspapers, speeches, and in the halls of Congress. Legislators battled over whether the Constitutional framers intended slavery's expansion or not. Southerners argued that the framers supported slavery and wanted to see it expand. (Think about the question I asked a few weeks ago about whether or not the Constitution was a "slaveholder's document" or "put slavery on the path to extinction.")
Word Cloud #1:
In your opinion, why was it important for legislators to maintain a balance between free states and slave states?
Enter a response in the embedded word cloud below, or access it here.
Monroe Doctrine
American nationalism was clearly being tested within the country, particularly in issues over slavery and the role of national institutions like the Bank of the United States. At this time though, a sense of American nationalism became more pronounced in the context of international diplomacy and foreign policy. We can see this clearly with the Monroe Doctrine.
In 1823, John Quincy Adams, President James Monroe's Secretary of State, drafted a section of the president's annual message to Congress which became known as the Monroe Doctrine. According to the doctrine, the US would oppose any further efforts at European colonization in the Americas. This was in response to Russian incursions into the Pacific Northwest, border disputes with the British in Canada, and the possibility of the Spanish reconquest of South America. A series of revolutions in Spain's Latin American colonies between 1810 and 1822 had established independent nations including Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru.
1896 Political cartoon: "Keep off! The Monroe doctrine must be respected." Source: Wikimedia Commons
Monroe warned European powers not to interfere with the new independent states of Latin America. In return, the US would abstain from involving itself in the wars of Europe. It was referred to as "America's diplomatic declaration of independence."
The text of the Monroe Doctrine includes:
"America…in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own…She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all…She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force."
Keep this "diplomatic declaration of independence" in mind as we examine Indian removal policies.
Word Cloud #2:
What do you think was the main rationale behind the Monroe Doctrine? Do you think the US intended to safeguard the independence of Latin American countries?
Answer in the embedded word cloud below, or access it here.
(Think about this question as I explain a bit more about John Quincy Adams' opinions on American expansion!)
Election of 1824
The election of 1824 illustrated the role of sectionalism in politics. The race was between four candidates—Andrew Jackson, who had gained national fame through his military victories in the War of 1812, John Quincy Adams, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford (Georgia), and Henry Clay of Kentucky. None of the candidates received a majority of the electoral votes. Jackson came the closest, with 38% of the electoral vote and 43% of the popular vote, carrying states in all the regions outside of New England. The election went to the House of Representatives, who decided to go with Adams. The election of 1824 helped to lay the groundwork for a new system of political parties. Jackson and Crawford would soon unite to form the Democratic Party, and Adams and Clay formed the base for the Whig Party of the 1830s.
Adams had an expansive view of federal power, more expansive than most of his contemporaries. He argued that the Constitution had granted the federal government certain powers, and it should use those powers to promote economic development, scientific and technological progress, and education.
He hoped to encourage American commerce throughout the world, and enhance American influence in the Western Hemisphere. He was also an ardent expansionist, and strongly believed that the United States would eventually and peacefully absorb Canada, Cuba, and part of Mexico.
Election of 1828
Supporters of Andrew Jackson disagreed with Adams' interpretation of the Constitution. They organized under a rallying cry of individual liberty, states' rights, and limited government. They began to organize for the election of 1828 almost as soon as Adams' took office. Martin Van Buren, a senator from New York, supervised the organization. Van Buren argued that rather than being divisive and dangerous, political parties were necessary. They offered real choice to voters and could bring together political leaders from different regions in support of common candidates and principles, providing a check on sectionalism.
He set out to reconstruct a political alliance between "the planters of the South and the plain republicans [farmers and urban workers] of the North." By 1828, Van Buren had established the political apparatus of the Democratic Party, with local and state party units overseen by a national committee and a network of local newspapers devoted to Jackson's election and the party. Jackson won a resounding victory, carrying the entire South and West, and Pennsylvania. In his campaign, Jackson expressed his commitment to limited government, and relied on his popularity as a war hero. His campaign rhetoric emphasized his masculinity and frontier manliness, and downplayed Adams' intellectual attainments: "Vote for Andrew Jackson who can fight, not John Quincy Adams who can write."
Cigar box featuring Andrew Jackson as "Old Hickory." Source: Cigar Box Labels (yes, this is a real website)
Jackson had no formal education, and marketed himself as a champion of the "common man." His vision of the United States excluded any role for Native people or African Americans. He believed that all Native people should be pushed west of the Mississippi River, and that Blacks should either remain enslaved or be freed and sent abroad.
By the time he was elected, politics had become a form of mass entertainment, and a part of Americans' daily lives. Parades and rallies were organized and politicians had mass followings with popular nicknames—Jackson was "Old Hickory."
Jackson argued that government posts, like postmaster and customs official, should be open to the people rather than reserved for a class of permanent bureaucrats. He introduced the principle of rotation in office, making loyalty to the party the main qualification for these types of bureaucratic jobs.
In this era, two major political parties developed: the Democrats and the Whigs.
Democrats:
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The Democrats argued that the government should adopt a hands-off approach to the economy. They asserted that connections between bankers, merchants, and speculators and the government were only enhancing the wealth of "non-producers" and disadvantaging "producing classes" of farmers, artisans, and laborers.
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To Democrats, ordinary Americans needed to be able to test their abilities in the fair competition of the self-regulating market. Liberty was a set of private rights best secured by local governments and endangered by a powerful national authority.
Whigs:
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Contrarily, Whigs supported the federal government's role in guiding economic development, through things like a national bank, protective tariffs, and government aid for internal improvements.
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Whigs were established businessmen and bankers who supported a program of government-promoted economic growth, as well as farmers in regions near rivers, canals, and the Great Lakes, who benefited from their economic philosophies. (One Whig stronghold was upstate New York near the Erie Canal.)
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For Whigs, an activist national government should create the conditions for balanced and regulated economic development, promoting a prosperity in which all classes and regions would share.
Slaveholders were split—many slaveholders supported the Democrats, because of their belief that states' rights was the first line of defense for slavery. However, the largest southern planters, those who were the most wealthy and established, generally voted Whig.
During Jackson's presidency, Democrats reduced federal expenditures, killed the national bank, refused to issue federal aid for internal improvements, and paid off the national debt. States replaced the federal government as the country's main economic actors, planning their own systems of canals, roads, and chartering their own banks.
Nullification Crisis
When Jackson took office, he did not get rid of a particularly controversial tariff, the Tariff of 1828, which was a tax on imported manufactured goods from Europe. This tariff was referred to in the South as the "Tariff of Abominations," because southerners argued that it effectively raised prices southern consumers paid to benefit the North. In opposition to this tariff, John Calhoun of South Carolina (Jackson's vice president) wrote an essay and set of resolutions called the "South Carolina Exposition and Protest," which justified the doctrine of nullification.
According to this doctrine, states could nullify a federal statute it considered unconstitutional. If necessary, a nullifying state could leave the Union. Jackson was furious and considered himself betrayed by Calhoun. He denounced the ordinance of nullification and declared that,
"Can anyone of common sense believe the absurdity, that a faction of any state, or a state, has the right to secede and destroy this union, and the liberty of the country with it?"
Jackson persuaded Congress to pass the Force Bill, authorizing him to send in the military to enforce the tariffs that South Carolina refused to pay.
A compromise was reached on the tariffs, and South Carolina rescinded their nullification.
…But then, they nullified the Force Bill!
The nullification crisis united the ideas of secession and states' rights, giving the South a well-developed political philosophy to which it would turn to later when the sectional crisis becomes even more intense.
Panic of 1837
One of the central political struggles of Jackson's presidency was his war on the Bank of the United States. When he won election in 1832, he authorized the removal of federal funds from the Bank of the United States and deposited them in local banks—and the selection of those banks was often determined by personal or political connections. The Bank of the United States lost its ability to regulate the activities of the state banks.
As a result, the volume of paper banknotes in circulation increased by forty percent between 1834 and 1836. Additionally, banks did not have the amount of hard currency (gold or silver) on hand to redeem the banknotes.
In 1836, the government sold 20 million acres of federal land, nearly all of it paid for in paper money. The government issued a circular that year that required payment in hard currency for federal land purchases, which ends up draining eastern banks of even more gold and silver.
By the end of 1836, federal land sales had plummeted. The Bank of England increasingly demanded that American merchants pay their creditors in gold and silver, as they became suspicious about the value of American paper money.
In May 1837, customers began to run on the banks to exchange their banknotes for hard currency, but banks stopped redeeming their notes when it became clear that they would run out of gold and silver.
The panic led to a general economic depression that lasted until 1843. Businesses throughout the country failed, many farmers were unable to meet their mortgage payments, and tens of thousands of urban workers saw their jobs disappear.
Poll #1:
In your opinion, which of the following was the most important political issue for Americans during Jackson's presidency?
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The relationship between the states and national government
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The role of government in the lives of everyday citizens
Enter a response in the embedded poll below, or access it here.
Indian Removal
In the South, as we examined in previous modules, society had become rigidly polarized along racial lines. African Americans were supposedly "unfit" for any other social position besides enslavement. Native American people, because they were not white, would never be able to integrate into white society on equal footing with other non-Native white southerners.
Senator John Forsyth of Georgia expressed this viewpoint:
Natives were "a race not admitted to be equal to the rest of the community…not yet entitled, and probably never will be entitled, to equal civil and political rights." [1]
If they couldn't be assimilated—what would happen to Native people who sold their land to whites? Removal answered this question—they would be expelled.
State Laws to Induce Removal
Southern states, citing the principle of state sovereignty, began to challenge the federal claim based on the Constitution to exclusive jurisdiction over Native affairs, and denied the supremacy of treaty rights on tribal lands. They began to enact laws that brought state civil and criminal jurisdiction into tribal land.
In Alabama, the general assembly passed laws in 1827, 1828, and 1829, which extended the state's legal authority into all of the Creek Nation, with the proviso that no Indian would enjoy 'any political or civil rights' under state law. In 1832, they passed a law which prohibited the functioning of Creek national government.
The Georgia State Assembly passed a law in 1829 which declared Cherokee laws null and void, and extended jurisdiction into the Cherokee Nation. Other legislation enacted in 1828 and 1830 also imposed penalties on Cherokees who attempted to serve in a governmental capacity, and appointed a special police force to enforce Georgia law in Cherokee country.
Mississippi and Tennessee also extended state jurisdiction into the countries of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees.
The policy of the states was obvious. State politicians made no effort to hide the intent behind their actions. For example, during its debate on its 1829 act, the Alabama House of Representatives announced:
"The great object of the proposed measure must be to bring about Creek removal." As soon as the Creeks "see and feel the palpable act of legislation under the authority of the state," the fear of the state "will induce them speedily to remove." [2]
The states' tactics of destroying the political sovereignty of the tribes were effective. Southern tribes were banned from operating tribal governments, and tribal members were susceptible to criminal punishment if they tried to go into public service. When the states passed laws subjecting Native people to state civil and criminal jurisdiction, Native people were now accountable to a whole array of laws the people could neither understand, nor in some cases, read.
Native people were also denied the right to testify in court on their own behalves. This essentially legalized the theft of Native property.
White settlers would forge promissory notes signed by Native people, pledging certain property (usually portable property like livestock or enslaved people) in return for a "loan" made by the settler. With that note, the swindler could get a court order foreclosing on Native property—then accompanied by the sheriff, the white settler could come and take the listed goods and the victim would have no recourse.
Others would just loot Native homes—if only Natives witnessed the crime, they were able to get away with it.
Both Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson refused to provide assistance to tribes who appealed to the federal government for protection from the states, despite treaty provisions which obligated the US to defend the tribes from encroachment and state interference in their affairs.
In fact, Jackson actively defended the states. Jackson represented his plan for removal, which he first recommended in his first annual message to Congress, and later as a removal bill—as necessary both for state economic development and the survival of Natives, who would surely be "doomed to weakness and decay," "surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization."
In the quote below from his second annual message to Congress in 1830, Jackson clearly laid out his philosophy:
"What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?"
Indian Removal Act
The removal act, signed into law on May 28, 1830, authorized the president to enter into negotiations with all the Eastern tribes. If the tribes agreed, removal treaties would stipulate an exchange of their land in the East for equal or greater amounts in the West.
The US would pay for moving coasts, provide support for their first year of residence in the West, and compensate individuals for the value of improvements they had made to the land they left behind.
The language of the act—and the way Jackson discussed his plan more generally—stressed that removal was strictly voluntary. Tribes could not be forced to sign removal treaties. However, they could be harassed by state governments and settlers enough to drive them to the conclusion that their only hope of retaining national sovereignty was to flee.
A quote from Jackson's first annual message in 1829:
"This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws."
And one from his second annual message in 1830:
"Can it be cruel in the Government when, by events which it can not control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions!"
Poll #2:
Why do you think Jackson continually downplayed the notion that removal was cruel?
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Did his language make removal seem more compatible with tribal sovereignty? (Tribes were "voluntarily" removing to the west?)
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Did his rhetoric capitalize on the strong anti-Native sentiment among white Southerners?
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Some combination of both?
Answer in the embedded poll below, or access it here.
Native Responses to Removal
In September 1830, Secretary of War John Eaton met with the Choctaws to negotiate the first removal treaty. Choctaw women were especially vocal about their resistance to removal—as the farmers and heads of matrilineal clans, women traditionally controlled the land, and their opinions about its sale mattered a great deal. No one dared to oppose them publicly—even though some of the Choctaws did privately express a willingness to remove.[3]
We can see similar dynamics in the Cherokee women's petition assigned for this module. Appealing to the Cherokee Nation, the women offered several reasons why the nation should not sign a removal treaty:
"We therefore humbly petition our beloved children, the head men and warriors, to hold out to the last in support of our common right, as the Cherokee nation have been the first settlers of this land; we therefore claim the right to the soil."
They noted the changes the tribe had adopted as a result of American Indian policy (called the "plan of civilization," the policy encouraged Southeastern tribes to assimilate), and questioned what impact removal would have on those changes:
"Our Father the President advised us to become farmers, to manufacture our own clothes, & to have our children instructed. To this advice we have attended in everything as far as we were able. Now the thought of being compelled to remove [to] the other side of the Mississippi is dreadful to us, because it appears to us that we, by this removal, shall be brought to a savage state again, for we have, by the endeavor of our Father the President, become too much enlightened to throw aside the privileges of a civilized life."
Within the Cherokees, we can also see other iterations of a strong sense of Cherokee nationalism. For example, Sequoyah, who was not literate in any language, developed a system for writing Cherokee in the early 1820s. He worked for years to create and perfect the Cherokee syllabary. The syllabary spread rapidly throughout Cherokee society. By 1835, nearly a quarter of all Cherokees were literate in their own language. Slightly more than half of the households had a member who could read Cherokee. [4] Another 18 percent had English readers, making Cherokee literacy comparable if not higher than that of their white neighbors.
The high literacy rate led to the publication of a bilingual newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, which informed Cherokees about the actions of their government, local events, and world news.
Thus, although whites who desired Native land, and Andrew Jackson himself painted Native people as "savage" and "uncivilized," Southeastern tribes had adopted many practices which could be deemed "civilized."
Poll #3:
In your opinion, did Cherokees' adaptation of assimilation policies make them more threatening to white settlers in Georgia?
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Yes
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No
Answer in the embedded poll below, or access it here.
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)
After Jackson signed the Removal Act into law in 1830—and after the Georgia state legislature had enacted more and more laws infringing on Cherokees' rights to self-government, the Cherokee Nation turned to the Court to uphold their treaty rights against the State of Georgia. They sought to prevent Georgia from executing or enforcing any of its laws within the Cherokee territory, as recognized by treaty between the US and the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation argued that its lawsuit was one involving an action brought by a foreign nation against a state.
The Cherokees argued that they were a "foreign state" because of their treaty history with the United States. Treaties such as the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell and the 1791 Treaty of Holston recognized the Cherokees as "sovereign and independent; with the right of self government, without any right of interference with the same on the part of any state of the United States." Cherokees were not citizens of the US, and the Cherokee Nation was not a state of the union, therefore, they reasoned they were a "foreign state."
Ultimately, although Chief Justice John Marshall conceded that "the relation of the Indians to the United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions that exist nowhere else," the Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was not a foreign state under Article III of the Constitution. He noted that under the text of the commerce clause, Indian tribes were treated as discrete entities from foreign nations. [5]
"Domestic Dependent Nations"
Ultimately, the Supreme Court denied the Cherokees' injunction against Georgia because of this issue of definitions. But Marshall also went on to offer some key phrases in his opinion that further defined the relationship between Native nations and the United States, which have become foundational principles in Indian law.
The Court described tribes as "domestic dependent nations" with territorial integrity and powers of self-government.
What does it mean to be a "domestic dependent nation"?
Marshall wrote in Cherokee Nation, the tribes were:
"so completely under the sovereignty and dominion of the United States, that any attempt to acquire their lands, or to form a political connection with them, would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory, and an act of hostility." [6]
Nevertheless, tribes, as "domestic dependent nations," had a unique relationship with the federal government, described as one of "pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembled that of a ward to a guardian." [7]
The "guardian-ward" analogy eventually became doctrine in the development of the trust relationship, in which the US acts as the trustee for the beneficiary tribe (and individual Natives) in regard to matters of trust land and natural resources, as well as "protecting" tribes from the states. Yet, it is not clear what the standard of "care" for the trustee was. (After all, the federal government did not prevent Southern states from passing laws which infringed on Native rights.)
Moreover, although the trust relationship should at best be used as a shield to protect tribal resources from jurisdictional encroachments by the states, it has often been used by the federal government as a "sword" against the tribes to advance its own agenda. [8]
Poll #4:
In your opinion, do "domestic dependent nations" possess sovereignty?
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Yes
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No
Enter a response in the embedded poll below, or access it here.
Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
Worcester came to the Court a year after Cherokee Nation with basically the same issue. The issue was whether the State of Georgia had legitimate (criminal) jurisdiction to prosecute a non-Native missionary for preaching within the Cherokee Nation without a license to do so. The defendants, Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler, were working on Cherokee lands with the permission of the Cherokee Nation. They lacked any state license and were convicted in a trial and sentenced to four years of hard labor in the state penitentiary. The Court ruled that the state of Georgia did not have criminal jurisdiction to prosecute a state offense that occurred in Cherokee country.
This time, Chief Justice Marshall was much more forceful—he reasoned that in both the Treaty of Hopewell and the Treaty of Holston, the US had recognized tribal sovereignty and federal protection of that sovereignty. For example, the Treaty of Hopewell, in "its essential articles treat the Cherokees as a nation capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war, and ascertain the boundaries between them and the United States." [9]
Ultimately, Georgia had no jurisdiction to impose laws in Cherokee country because the authority to deal with the tribes, "the whole intercourse between the United States and this [Indian] nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States." In other words, it was the federal government which was responsible for dealing with Native nations—individual states could not impose their own laws or interfere with tribes' rights to self-government.
Despite the ruling in Worcester, a victory for the Cherokees, Georgia continued to do what they were doing. Ultimately, the Cherokees were removed to Indian territory (Oklahoma) in 1835.
Choctaw and Cherokee Removal
After most of the Choctaws who had attended the conference with Eaton I mentioned earlier had left, Eaton told the remaining members of the council that if they did not agree to remove, the president would declare war on them and send in the army. They agreed to sell their land, signing the first removal treaty.
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek specified that removal would occur in three waves of about seven thousand people each, once a year from 1831 through 1833. Families could stay in Mississippi if they wished—after registering with an Indian agent they would supposedly receive land and citizenship in the state.
However, government agents blocked the efforts of Choctaws who wished to remain, refusing to register those who asked or destroying registrations of those who signed up. In the end, only 69 Choctaw families received an allotment of land in Mississippi under the treaty.[10]
Choctaw removal began in 1831. People were moved to Vicksburg and Memphis, transferred to steamboats and carried via the Mississippi, and then they walked. The walk was brutal—the winter was cold and snowy, the people lacked warm clothes, the transport agents failed to supply enough food. In 1832, a cholera outbreak struck the migrants and killed many. By the time the last wave was scheduled, news of the hardships terrified the remaining Choctaws, and only 900 agreed to go. Of the 14,000 Choctaws who left Mississippi, 2,500 people died in the move. About 6,000 of them remained in the East—some of whom moved themselves west over the next several years.
Despite efforts by Cherokee leader John Ross, who spent months in Washington lobbying senators to reject the Cherokee treaty, the Senate ratified the Treaty of New Echota by a vote of 31 to 15—just above the two-thirds requirement. In the spring of 1838, Georgia and federal troops began to gather Cherokee people for the trek west. Military units plucked people from their homes, sometimes not even giving them time to pack a bag. They transported them to holding camps, where they were housed until enough people were gathered to make up a removal party. Many suffered from exposure, bad water, and inadequate food in these holding camps. Much of the death toll attributed to the Trail of Tears occurred in these camps before the march.
Detachments began to head west during the summer, but extremely hot weather and food shortages caused excessive suffering. No one knows the cost in lives exactly. But many think that perhaps four thousand out of a total of about sixteen thousand Cherokees died. The government officially recorded 424 as dying along the way. In 1840, the Office of Indian Affairs computed that in the previous ten years, more than 100,000 Eastern Indians had been removed to the West. Between 60 and 70 percent of them came from the South.
Conclusion:
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Although the United States developed a sense of nationalism in the context of international diplomacy, domestic divisions over slavery and the role of national institutions contributed to the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, who took power under the rallying cries of individual liberty, limited government, and states' rights.
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Jackson championed limited government, but reinforced the power of national government in the face of the nullification crisis and to remove Native people from their homelands in the Southeast.
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Native nations in the Southeast, such as the Cherokee and Choctaw, resisted removal by calling attention to changes they had adopted at American request, refusing to sign removal treaties, and challenging the removal process in court.
Citations:
[1] Theda Perdue and Michael Green, The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 87.
[2] Perdue and Green, Columbia Guide, 88.
[3] Perdue and Green, Columbia Guide, 90.
[4] Perdue and Green, Columbia Guide, 202.
[5] Frank Pommersheim, Broken Landscape: Indians, Indian Tribes, and the Constitution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 104.
[6] Robert Williams, Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 62.
[7] Pommersheim, Broken Landscape, 105.
[8] See Sidney L. Harring, Crow Dog's Case: American Indian Sovereignty, Tribal Law, and United States Law in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
[9] Pommersheim, Broken Landscape, 109.
[10] Perdue and Green, Columbia Guide, 90-91.
Source: https://www.maryklann.com/hist-109-course-blog/2021/5/8/module-20-nationalism-and-sectionalism-in-antebellum-america
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