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Non-Indigenous opposition to Indian Removal

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For information on Indian Removal

Political Opposition

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Although the Indian Removal Act was signed into law in May 1830, the Act faced significant political opposition concentrated primarily amongst Northern politicians, many of whom would later form the Whig Party (United States) in 1833.[1]

Theodore Frelinghuysen (c. 1855-1862)

Moral opposition

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Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen was one of the most vocal opponents to the Indian Removal Act because of the wide-held belief that Indigenous Americans would be treated inhumanely during removal processes.[2] Such concerns are reflected in the 1829 William Penn essays in which Jeremiah Evarts, spurred on by his Evangelical faith, warns that if the Act was implemented there would be “much suffering… much exposure, sickness, hunger [and] nakedness.”[3] Frelinghuysen was also motivated by his Evangelical faith and in protest, presented a six-hour speech in the Senate criticising the Act. Frelinghuysen asserted that by implementing the act, the nation would “turn traitors to [its] principles and fame… [and would] become the oppressors of the feeble.”[4]

Frelinghuysen’s concerns regarding the welfare of relocated Indigenous tribes was shared among other politicians. Federalist senator Daniel Webster bluntly stated the Act had “no concern for Indian Rights.”[5] In 1841, following more than a decade of Jacksonian removal processes, former President John Quincy Adams, once a proponent of voluntary removal, described the Jacksonian removal program as “among the most heinous of sins of this nation.”[6]

Concerns regarding constitutional legitimacy

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The constitutional legitimacy and the potential for executive overstep was another issue that fostered opposition against the Indian Removal Act. The Act granted the president authority to exchange Indigenous homelands in existing states for western federal territories.[7] According to historian Alfred A. Cave, this measure was viewed as an “overly vigorous use of presidential prerogatives” by political opponents.[8]

Political opponents, including Whig Senator Asher Robbins, also opposed the act for its departure from the notion that Indian policy should fall under the jurisdiction of both the Senate and the President – a notion first supported by George Washington.[9] Highlighting this disregard for constitutional doctrine, Robbins declared the act unconstitutional for its favouring of Presidential discretion over a former senatorial responsibility.[10]

Disregard for other laws and treaties

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Political opponents also highlighted how the act threatened to dismiss established laws and agreements that secured Indigenous rights over land in existing states. John Howard, a member of the Georgia legislature, highlighted the contradictory nature of the act that went against previous agreements secured with Indigenous tribes. Howard claimed that the “United States government have solemnly by several treaties guaranteed to the Cherokee Nation all the lands which they claim within the jurisdictional limits of Georgia.”[11] The Indian Removal Act was perceived to be in direct violation of these treaties, as well as other established land agreements.[12]

Writing in the Albany Evening Journal, a publication supportive of the Whigs, editor Thurlow Weed, claimed that because of Jacksonian removal policies, “the Indians are cheated out of their property by the whites and driven from their homes by our government.”[13] Thus, political opponents resisted the dismissal of laws that jeopardised the legitimacy of the American legal system that (apparently) allowed for the dismissal of pre-established laws and agreements.

Impact

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Despite the persistent efforts of political opponents - especially the Whigs, of whom approximately 85% cast votes in opposition to Jacksonian removal measures - the Indian Removal Act was passed in 1830.[14] In tandem with unorganised Southern political opposition and Democratic domination, Cave ultimately highlights that “opponents generally were unable to muster the votes required to deny the Jacksonians" legislative success.[15]

Scholars

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On the process of Indian Removal, Cave writes that President Andrew Jackson instituted a process which could be considered an abuse of the executive power he held as president.[16] A prominent claim was that the Indian Removal Act only set forth the ability of the President to exchange land as opposed to the forced removals of Indigenous populations, which is what occurred under the processes of removal.[17] There was evidence for the notion that the legislation was only meant to institute an exchange as the Governor of Michigan at the time, Lewis Cass, proposed that the Indigenous tribes would be adequately reimbursed and relocated for the loss of their lands.[18] Cave critiques the overall process of removal by suggesting that the relocation of tribes on a voluntary basis was a fallacy which never was put into action, while also claiming that the Jackson and Van Buren administrations conducted the removals through fraudulent behaviour, ignoring terms set by the law.[19] Henry Clay, the former United States Secretary of State, an opponent of Jackson and member of the Whig party, claimed that the legislation would “stain” the United States’ legacy on which it had built on the values of “good faith” and maintaining care for “humanity.”[20]

Press and Women

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Catharine Beecher (c. 1858-1862)

Jeremiah Evarts, editor of The Panoplist magazine, extensively critiqued the Jacksonian process of Indian removal.[21] Alisse Theodore highlights the magazine’s impact throughout the 1830s, outlining how magazines and essays published by Evarts received attention from Congress.[22] Catharine Beecher became interested in Evarts' work and published a statement which called for women to sign petitions to provide protection for the Cherokee people.[23] Lydia Sigourney, another key figure, petitioned alongside Beecher.[24] Women were responsible for over 1400 petitions presented to Congress, despite being excluded from political processes. Beecher’s message was disseminated in various newspapers, one of which was the Christian Advocate and Journal and Zion’s Herald.[25] Over 100 women in early 1830 signed petitions that were sent to Congress. Their motivation derived from their religious background, which encouraged them to act in a merciful and empathetic manner, exemplified through their persistence in attempting to aid the tribes that would subsequently be affected by the process of removal under Jackson.[26] This marked one of the first major petitions that were initiated by women to defend the tribes against the possibility of removal. Beecher worked throughout her life to try and motivate women primarily situated in the middle to upper class echelon of society, to become more involved in political efforts that opposed Jacksonian removal policies.[27] The petitions and activism under Beecher, inspired from the works of Evarts, were largely conducted without any prohibition from the government.[28] Henry Clay supported the actions of the anti-removalist women, while other Congressmen either did not respond at all or remained neutral on the petitions that were sent to Congress.[28]

Missionary and Religious Opposition

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As part of a 'civilisation' program, Native Americans were promised full and equal citizenship if they successfully adopted Western practices such as farming, use of the English language, and engagement in Christianity.[29] Many missionaries travelled to Native Indian lands and resided amongst the local populations to assist in this process of civilisation, hoping that such advancement of Native American societies would prevent or undermine the need for Indian Removal.[30] In the state of Georgia, Christian missionaries opposed to the Indian Removal Act, including Reverends Evan Jones and Samuel Worcester, were committed to standing with the Cherokee population against the state’s removal policies.[31] Worcester’s life as a missionary was openly and overtly dedicated to the Cherokee people, and along with his friend Elias Boudinot - the Cherokee leader - he opposed the Indian Removal Act. In an effort to prevent white activist cooperation with Native Americans in their fight against removal, the laws of Georgia indicated that white settlers could not live on Cherokee territory.[32] The state government of Georgia had taken advantage of spreading its authority over the Cherokee population because the Jackson administration in power supported Indian Removal exceedingly, even though precluding federal legislation undermined Georgia’s attempt to circumvent the Cherokee’s land and influence in the region.[33]

George R. Gilmer (c. 1831)

Worcester’s refusal to leave Cherokee territory at the time of removal was chronicled in several letters between Worcester and the Governor of Georgia, George R. Gilmer.[34] Gilmer’s letters to Worcester expressed that he would face arrest if he did not leave Cherokee territory.[34] This angered Worcester and he vehemently defended himself in a letter replying to Gilmer. He argued that, as a missionary, it was his goal to spread spiritual awareness and the word of God to the Cherokee people via translation of the Bible, and that it was not his ambition to be a political revolutionary. He believed that he was not breaking any rules or laws and he explained that he was determined to stay with the Cherokee until he was forcibly removed by the state of Georgia itself. He also stated that Georgia had no right to express power over the lands of the Cherokee, therefore rendering their decision to ask him to leave of no practical relevance.[35] Worcester’s defiance of Georgian state law led him to eventually pursue legal proceedings as he posed as the plaintiff in Worcester v Georgia (1832).[36]

Ultimately, Worcester’s decision to stay amongst the Cherokee gave rise to questions about whether the laws of Georgia applied to Cherokee lands.[33] Worcester actively went against the state of Georgia’s demands, as he believed it was in the best interest of the Cherokee people to do so. Overall, Worcester’s religious values and belief in Cherokee sovereignty were at a standstill with the beliefs of the Georgian State Government, leading him to defy state law in an effort of resistance to Indian Removal.

Judicial Opposition

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William Wirt (c. 1810-1834)

Aiming to accelerate the removal of the Cherokee people and open up their lands for white settlement, Georgia enacted oppressive laws that reduced the Cherokees’ civil liberties and annulled their laws and government.[37] Having failed to secure support from the executive and legislative branches, advocates of the Cherokee Nation decided to shift their dispute against the Indian Removal Act from Congress to the courtroom.[38] William Wirt, a constitutional lawyer and former U.S. Attorney General, made a request for an injunction against the state of Georgia for its violation of the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation.[39] The resulting case, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), was the first brought to the Supreme Court by Native Americans.[40] Wirt argued that according to federal treaties such as the Treaty of Hopewell (1785) and Treaty of Holston (1791), the Cherokee Nation remained a “foreign”, “sovereign and independent state…not owing allegiance to the United States, nor to any State of this Union” and hence, did not fall under Georgia’s jurisdiction.[41] The Court’s opinion, penned by Chief Justice John Marshall, asserted that the Cherokee Nation was not a foreign state but a “domestic dependent nation.”[42] Hence, it could not bring actions against Georgia in concert with the Constitution’s regulations on judicial disputes between states and nations, and the case was dismissed.[43]

A year later the Court modified its position in Worcester v. Georgia (1832).[44] Following the dismissal of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Evarts wrote to Worcester that if he refused to challenge the Georgian laws that had led to his arrest, the “Cherokees will make no stand whatever” since a court case remained “the only earthly hope” of protecting Cherokee land rights.[45] Representing Worcester, Wirt made another case for Cherokee sovereignty, arguing that Georgia’s laws were “void and of no effect” because it had no right to extend its authority over another nation.[46]

Chief Justice John Marshall (1833)

This time, Marshall acknowledged that previous federal treaties “explicitly recogniz[ed] the national character of the Cherokees.”[47] In an unprecedented legal endorsement of Native title to land, Marshall declared that Native Americans retained “their original natural rights as the undisputed possessors of the soil from time immemorial,” effectively overturning colonial claims to land ownership.[48] In accordance, former U.S. Attorney General Garrison describes Worcester as a “ringing affirmation of the sovereignty of American Indian nations” that had the potential to herald “a new era of relations.”[49]

Although the Supreme Court mandated the reversal of Worcester’s conviction, Georgia, which had not acknowledged either proceeding, refused to yield or record its decision to disobey the Court’s mandate.[50] Without written evidence that the state judge had refuted the Court’s order, the federal government could not enforce the Court’s decision.[51] Thus, although symbolic, the Supreme Court ruling did not nullify Georgia’s tyrannising laws or grant the Cherokee full land rights.[52] While the case had established that only federal and not state governments could legislate on Indian affairs, the Jackson administration used such exclusive power to execute Cherokee removal in accordance with the Indian Removal Act.[53] In 1835, the Cherokee were forced out of Georgia on a westward march that became known as the Trail of Tears on account of its genocidal nature.[54] As Breyer summarises, the Cherokees’ fight in the courtroom and victory in Worcester was incidental in light of their subsequent loss in their battle against the Indian Removal Act.[55]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ Cave, A. A. (2003). Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Historian, 65(6), 1332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24452618
  2. ^ Meyers, J. (2000). No Idle Past: Uses of History in the 1830 Indian Removal Debates. The Historian, 63(1), 53.  
  3. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1347.
  4. ^ Frelinghuysen, T. (1830). Speech of Mr Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey. Internet archive. https://archive.org/details/speechofmrfrelin00freliala/page/10/mode/2up
  5. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1352.
  6. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1352.
  7. ^ Garrison, T. A. (2017). Inevitability and the Southern Opposition to Indian Removal. The Native South. University of Nebraska Press. p. 111.
  8. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1352.
  9. ^ Meyers, 2000, p. 54.
  10. ^ Meyers, 2000, p. 58.
  11. ^ Garrison, 2017, p. 112.
  12. ^ Garrison, 2017, p. 112.
  13. ^ Valone, S. J. (2001). William Seward, Whig Politics, and the Compromised Indian Removal Policy in New York State, 1838-1843. New York History, 82(2). p. 110.  
  14. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1351.
  15. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1352.
  16. ^ Cave, 2003, p. 1332.
  17. ^ Cave, 2003, p.1333.
  18. ^ Cass, L. (1830). Removal of the Indians. North American Review: 62-121 as cited in Cave, 2002, p. 1334.
  19. ^ Cass, Removal of the Indians. North American Review: 62-121 as cited in Cave, 2003, p.1337.
  20. ^ Cave, 2003, p.1347.
  21. ^ Theodore, A. (2002). A Right to Speak on the Subject: The U.S. Women’s Antiremoval Petition Campaign, 1829-1831. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 5(4). http://www.jstor.org/stable/41940290. p. 603.
  22. ^ Theodore, 2002, p. 603.
  23. ^ Beecher, C. (1874). Educations Reminiscences and Suggestions. New York: J.B. Ford and Company, 62-63 as cited in Theodore, 2002, p.605.
  24. ^ Clayton Savant, C. (2011). The Destiny of Hope: The “Damned Mob” of Women Activist Writers and the Indian Removal. [Sic] - a Journal of Literature, Culture and Literary Translation, 1.2. https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/1.2.lc.2
  25. ^ Theodore, 2002, p. 605.
  26. ^ Theodore, 2002, p. 608-609.
  27. ^ Theodore, 2002, p. 616-617.
  28. ^ a b Theodore, 2002, p. 617.
  29. ^ Norgren, J. (2004). Cherokee Cases: Two Landmark Federal Decisions in the Fight for Sovereignty. University of Oklahoma Press. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=b5vSmVI3Up0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true. p. 33.
  30. ^ Norgren, 2004, p. 33.
  31. ^ Jones, E. (2019). Rev. Evan Jones. https://slate.com/author/rev-evan-jones.
  32. ^ Norgren, 2004, p. 5.
  33. ^ a b Urofsky, M. I. (2004). 100 Americans Making Constitutional History: A Biographical History. CQ Press, p. 209.
  34. ^ a b Georgia, Governor. (1831). Letter.
  35. ^ Worcester, S. A. (Samuel Austin), 1798-1859 (1831-06-10). [Letter], 1831 June 10, New Echota, Cher[okee] Na[tion] to George R. Gilmer, Governor of Georgia / S[amuel] A. Worcester. Retrieved from https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlna_ch045#item.
  36. ^ Norgren, 2004, p. 5.
  37. ^ Pommersheim, F. (2012). Broken Landscape: Indians, Indian Tribes, and the Constitution. Oxford University Press.https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199915736.003.0004. p. 102.
  38. ^ Andrew, J. A. (2007). From Revivals to Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, the Cherokee Nation, and the Search for the Soul of America. University of Georgia Press. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ZRR5wbNvaHkC&pg=PA234&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. p. 234.
  39. ^ Breyer, S. (2002). The Cherokee Indians and the Supreme Court. Journal of Supreme Court History 23(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/1059-4329.00009. p. 219.
  40. ^ Norgren, 2004, p. 9.
  41. ^ U.S. Supreme Court, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, March 18, 1831 quoted in Bens, J. (2020). The Indigenous Paradox: Rights, Sovereignty, and Culture in the Americas. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812297188. p. 56.
  42. ^ Cherokee Nation v. Georgia quoted in Breyer, 2002, p. 221.
  43. ^ Pappas, George D. (2017). The Literary and Legal Genealogy of Native American Dispossession: The Marshall Trilogy Cases. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315642130. p. 33.
  44. ^ Norgren, 2004, p. 5.
  45. ^ Evarts, J, Jeremiah Evarts to Samuel Worcester, 1831, Letter, quoted in Breyer, 2002, p. 223.
  46. ^ Garrison, T. (2010). The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations. University of Georgia Press. https://books.google.com.lb/books?id=IVvU_yWHOFEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ar&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. p. 177.
  47. ^ U.S. Supreme Court, Worcester v. Georgia, March 3, 1832 quoted in Martinez, D. (2018). Documents of American Indian Removal. ABC-CLIO, p. 56.
  48. ^ Worcester v. Georgia quoted in Martinez, 2018, p. 103.
  49. ^ Garrison, 2010, p. 197.
  50. ^ Miles, E. A. (1973). After John Marshall's Decision: Worcester v. Georgia and the Nullification Crisis. The Journal of Southern History 39(4). https://doi.org/10.2307/2205966. p. 529.
  51. ^ Satz, R. N. (2002). American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era. University of Oklahoma Press. https://books.google.com.au/books/about/American_Indian_Policy_in_the_Jacksonian.html?id=x85rIvny-48C&redir_esc=y. p. 49.
  52. ^ Malone, H. T. (2010). Cherokees of the Old South: A People in Transition. University of Georgia Press. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6PpsOPyM0aMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. p. 178.
  53. ^ Sands, K. (2012). Territory, Wilderness, Property, and Reservation: Land and Religion in Native American Supreme Court Cases. American Indian Law Review 36(2). https://www.jstor.org/stable/41784763. p. 275.
  54. ^ Sundquist, M. L. (2010). Worcester v. Georgia: A Breakdown in the Separation of Powers. American Indian Law Review 35(1). https://www.jstor.org/stable/41148666. p. 239.
  55. ^ Breyer, 2002, p. 227.

Sources

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