12 Questions About The Indian Removal Act

12 Questions About The Indian Removal Act — page 1 — What Happened after the American Revolution The United States had won its The American Indians who held this land were from several different independence from Great Britain in 1783 The new country started to spread out beyond the original 13 colonies In 1803 the United States bought a large area of land from France This was called the tribes They were mostly part of the Cherokee Choctaw Creek Chickasaw and Seminole tribes They were called the Civilized Tribes by the US government Louisiana Purchase The land was because some had taken on the west of the Mississippi River It stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada At the time many people ways of the white settlers Some of the American Indians in the South could read and write in believed settlement would be driven by an idea that came to be known as Manifest Destiny They felt that white settlers were destined to inhabit North America from coast to Number of so called Civilized Tribes in the United States in the coast and from north to south But those who wanted to settle early 1800s the Deep South were met with resistance Approximately 60 000 Many American Indians lived in the southern United States American Indians lived in the South in the early 19th century And they possessed nearly 20 million acres 8 million ha Some members of these tribes could read and write in English The white settlers wanted to take over the land of these tribes

12 Questions About The Indian Removal Act — page 2 — CHEROKEE WRITING Sequoyah was a Cherokee leader He was convinced that the Atal only way the Cherokees could to survive was to have a written language He began his work in 1809 By 1821 he had developed a way to convert the language into 86 symbols This greatly increased the Cherokees ability to communicate over long distances Indians Some American English Some had Indians fought back Sequoyah displays their own written The battles caused the Cherokee constitutions Some bloodshed on both alphabet owned slaves Many sides The white settlers had given up wearing had superior weapons so their traditional clothing they usually won the battles They dressed as the settlers did The Cherokees published their own newspaper called the Cherokee Phoenix It was written in both the GO TO THE SOURCE Cherokee language and English To read the full text of the White people in Georgia Alabama and Mississippi wanted to claim Indian Removal Act go to www 12storyLibrary com primary the American Indians land as their own They wanted the land so they could grow crops especially cotton These settlers often struck out violently against the American

12 Questions About The Indian Removal Act — page 3 — Why Did White People Want American Indians Land White people wanted land for two But it was difficult to claim it when important reasons The most urgent American Indians were living there was the hunger for gold In 1829 The second reason was farming gold was discovered on Cherokee The recent invention of the cotton land in what is now the state of gin made cotton a major cash crop Georgia The Southern Gold Rush The soil in the South was rich It was brought many white settlers to good for growing cotton and other Cherokee territory Miners wanted crops And the tribes had already to claim the land developed the land They had where the gold cleared fields They had built fences was found They had constructed buildings for Prospectors pan their livestock If the tribes left for gold in Georgia in the

12 Questions About The Indian Removal Act — page 4 — Innovations in farming made cotton a popular crop in the South 330 white farmers could use the farms as they were They could start to grow crops immediately That meant they could quickly profit from their farming by taking American Indian Weight in pounds 150 kg of gold that came from the mines in the Cherokee territory each day during the Southern Gold Rush land The pressure was on to pave the way for the white settlers who felt entitled to the land This meant one thing the American Indians would need to relocate And the quicker Gold was discovered on Cherokee land bringing white miners to the area White settlers wanted the farms the American Indians had already built Pressure on the government to remove the American Indians grew stronger the better The miners did not want the gold to run out The farmers did not want to miss a growing season They considered the matter

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