For discussion groups on Tuesday and Thursday, please also read "A letter from President Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Nation about the benefits of voluntary removal, March 16, 1835," the excerpt from the Treaty of New Echota, December 1835 [transcription available below document], and the excerpt from "Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation" by John Ross to Congress, June 21, 1836. Links to these documents are below in "Trail of Tears Primary Sources." Please also read "Was Indian Removal Humanitarian or Racist," on p306-307 of the Edwards textbook (scanned below as well).
For a fuller background on the Trail of Tears, please watch the relevant episode from the PBS series, "We Shall Remain" [link below]
These documents will be the focus of the second Response assignment (available below and in Dropbox).It will be due Sunday, September 13, by 11:45pm.
In this response assignment, you will write a400-500 word essayanalyzing the debate over the removal of the Cherokees in the 1830s from the perspective of whites and the Cherokees. Use the lecture, textbook, primary source documents, and video to help you examine the following two-part question:
What were Andrew Jackson’s motivations for removing the Cherokee from Georgia? How did various Cherokee leaders respond to the decision?
NOTE: Remember that a historian attempts to understand events and ideas from the point of view of various historical actors. It is tempting to apply modern-day thinking and simply dismiss the actions of many of these individuals as “racist,” “greedy,” or “ignorant,” but be careful not to apply twenty-first century ideas to these historical actors of the early nineteenth century! Try to understand and analyze the perspective of each source and how each might compare and contrast with others.
Remember to edit and proofread before submission and to provide parenthetical in-text citations for your sources! The Rubric guidelines from last week still apply.