It began inside the Nation. In the winter of 1828, an old Cherokee councilman, Whitepath, rose up in rebellion against the new constitution. Suspicious of the Nation’s whirlwind progress, fearful of the Nation’s stormy enemies, Whitepath attempted to persuade his 15,000 countrymen to hold fast to the ways of the past. He assembled a series of localized meetings, where he advocated the abandonment of white religion, society, economy. He called for a return to tribal organization, but his call fell on younger ears and his plan was doomed to failure.
The Cherokees turned to John Ross for leadership. Like Sequoyah, John Ross possessed both grace and ability. These assets, combined with courage, enabled him to accomplish seemingly remote goals for his people. This handsome statesman, educated by his own father, represented the middle ground of Cherokee policy. Though refusing the reactionism of a Whitepath, John Ross also rejected any proposal to move west. For he knew that his people had lived here in the Smokies and belonged here, and he would not have them forced from their homeland.
Andrew Jackson would. This stern Tennessee soldier and politician began his career as a headlong Indian fighter and never lost the zeal. Although Jackson the soldier had been aided numerous times by Cherokee warriors, Jackson the politician was determined to move the Cherokees west. And in the watershed years of 1828 and 1829, Andrew Jackson was elected and sworn in as President of the United States.
Events conspired against the Nation. In July of 1829, in what is now known as Lumpkin County, Georgia, a few shiny nuggets of gold were discovered on Ward’s Creek of the Chestatee River. Within days, fortune hunters swarmed into the territory; more than 10,000 gold-seekers squatted on Cherokee lands, disregarded Cherokee rights, and pillaged Cherokee homes. With Jackson’s support, the Georgia legislature passed laws confiscating Indian land, nullifying Indian law, and prohibiting Indian assembly. By the end of 1829, the script for Cherokee removal had been blazoned in gold.
But there was more. Andrew Jackson asked Congress for “a general removal law” that would give him prime authority in the matter at the same time that it formed the basis for future treaty negotiation. Congress passed the Removal Act, which included a half-million dollar appropriation for that purpose, in May of 1830. Davy Crockett, whose legendary exploits and down-to-earth compassion made him perhaps the best representative of the mountain spirit, was a U.S. congressman at the time. Although his grandfather had been murdered by Dragging Canoe, Davy Crockett argued against and voted against the bill. He was the only Tennessean to do so, and he was defeated when he ran for reelection.
Smithsonian Institution
Major Ridge signed a treaty ceding all of the Cherokees’ land in the east to the United States. He, his son John, and his nephew Elias Boudinot were “executed” on June 22, 1839.
Cherokee leaders sought help from the U.S. courts. Their friend and missionary, sober and troubled Samuel Worcester, fell victim to a Georgia law “prohibiting the unauthorized residence of white men within the Cherokee Nation.” Worcester appealed to the Supreme Court, which in February of 1832 considered the case of Worcester v. Georgia. On March 3, a feeble Chief Justice John Marshall read the Court’s decision to a packed room: all the Georgia laws against the Cherokee Nation were declared unconstitutional.
Elias Boudinot, editor of the Phoenix and a special friend of Worcester, wrote to his brother and expressed the Nation’s joy and relief: