Page 268 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Explore Indian 10.1

Removal on

MyHistoryLab 10.2

How did U.S. indian 10.3
policy impact tHe
“Five civilized tribeS”? 10.4

The Cherokees, the Creeks, the
Choctaws, the Chickasaws, and the
Seminoles represented the so-called
“Five Civilized Tribes” of the American
Southeast. In the 1790s, the United
States federal government had
signed treaties that promised to
recognize the rights of these tribes
as autonomous nations. In the 1820s trail oF tearS robert Lindneux, The Trail of Tears (1942) Cherokee Indians, carrying
and 1830s, American citizens, the their few possessions, are prodded along by u.S. soldiers on the Trail of Tears. Thousands of
Native Americans died on the ruthless forced march from their homelands in the east to the
state of Georgia, and, finally, the U.S. new Indian Territory in oklahoma.
government began a concerted effort SourCe: robert Lindneux, American. “Trail of Tears.” Courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago/Woolaroc Museum,
Bartlesville, oklahoma.
of denying the rights established by
those treaties. During this era, the INDIAN rEmovAl AND morTAlITy FIGUrES For ThE
“FIvE CIvIlIzED TrIbES”
“Five Civilized Tribes” faced legal
harassment alongside the intrusive Tribe Period removed Deaths
settlement of Euro-Americans Cherokees 1836–1838 20,000 4,000–8,000
upon their lands. The culmination Choctaws 1831–1836 12,500 2,000–4,000
of U.S. policy towards American
Indians in the 1830s was the forcible Chickasaws 1837–1847 4,000 500–800
removal of these five southeastern Creeks 1834–1837 19,600 3,500
Native American nations from their Seminoles 1832–1842 2,833 700*
traditional lands. The table on the *Including Second Seminole War casualties.
right details the cost of this removal SourCe: Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. university
of California Press, 1994;Foreman, Grant. Indian removal: The emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of
in terms of human lives. Indians. Norman, oklahoma: university of oklahoma Press, 1932, 11th printing 1989; Thornton, russell.
American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman, oklahoma: university
of oklahoma Press, 1987; Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians.
New York: Hill and Wang, 1993; Goins, Charles robert et al. The Historical Atlas of oklahoma. Norman:
university of oklahoma Press, 2006; Wishart, David M. “evidence of Surplus Production in the Cherokee
Nation Prior to removal,” The Journal of economic History. 55.1, 120-138.

K E Y Q U ES T IO NS Use myHistorylab Explorer to answer these questions:

cause Why were the “Five consequence What was choices What were the
Civilized Tribes” driven from the fate of the “Five Civilized alternatives to the forcible
their lands? Tribes” on the right and other removal of the “Five Civilized

Map the expansion of white Indian nations after removal? Tribes”?
settlement in the united States Map the removal of the Five Map the spread of Indian land
up to 1830. Civilized Tribes and other nations cessions up to 1830.
in the 1830s–1850s.

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