Chapter 5

The Cherokees

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In the south-east part of the USA

The Cherokee Nation originally lived in the corn area stretching from the Mississippi to the Atlantic coast. They lived comfortably well hunting, fishing and growing corn. Their main locations were the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee, Alabama, Carolina and Georgia.

Advanced culture

They were a modern tribe and even had their own laws based on the American Law of Independence. Their language was the first of the Native languages to get a written form. It was created in 1821 and had 85 letters.

The culture of these people had a golden period in the 1820s. Schools and churches were built, roads were constructed. Many of the new settlers were friends with the Cherokees and supported them, when America elected a new President, who was not in favor of the Indians.

The Natives had helped the first settlers start their new lives when they arrived.

The President helped push the Natives away

Then the Indian Removal Act changed the whole situation for the Natives. The new President had said about the Indians: «They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement.» Then the Gold Rush started and now the Europeans found the Natives to an obstruction on their way. The new law was to force the Cherokees to leave their homeland and move out to the territory west of the Mississippi.

Broken promise

Ten years earlier the Government had made a treaty which secured the Cherokees land in and around Georgia, but this was broken by the new act. The land was fertile and even contained gold. The Cherokees refused to move and were finally put into concentration camps. Then in the winter of 1838/39 the Natives were forced to leave for Oklahoma and Arkansas west of the river.

The move killed many people

This migration had a terribly high cost. Most of their things were left behind, because they could only bring the belongings, which they could carry. The climate also worked against them. Winter storms and cold weather caused a lot of death. The more fortunate had horses, but most of them had to walk the long way out to the west. Of about 18000 people only 12000 arrived safely.