SOURCE 1 Excerpt from President Jackson's
First Annual Message, 1829
* * *The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of our States have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians in general, receding farther and farther to the west, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians, which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection. Under these circumstances the question presented was whether the General Government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions. The Constitution declares that "no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State" without the consent of its legislature. If the General Government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union against her consent, much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there. Georgia became a member of the Confederacy which eventuated in our Federal Union as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits, which, having been originally defined in her colonial charter and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States in the articles of cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress. And if they were so disposed would be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are reversed, and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect. Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States, and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States. Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race and to attest the humanity and justice of this Government. This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aboriginies to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to suppose that in this state of things claims can be allowed on tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely because they have seen them from the mountain or passed them in the chase. Submitting to the laws of the States, and receiving, like other citizens, protection in their persons and property, they will ere long become merged in the mass of our population.
SOURCE 2: SUPREME
COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)
Motion for an injunction to
prevent the execution of certain acts of the Legislature of the State of
Georgia in the territory of the Cherokee Nation, on behalf of the Cherokee
Nation, they claiming to proceed in the Supreme Court of the United States as a
foreign state against the State of Georgia under the provision of the
Constitution of the United States which gives to the Court jurisdiction in
controversies in which a State of the United States or the citizens thereof,
and a foreign state, citizens, or subjects thereof are parties.
The Cherokee Nation is not a
foreign state in the sense in which the terms "foreign state" is used
in the Constitution of the United States.
The third article of the
Constitution of the United States describes the extent of the judicial power.
The second section closes an enumeration of the cases to which it extends with
"controversies between a State or the citizens thereof and foreign states,
citizens or subjects." A subsequent clause of the same section gives the
Supreme Court original jurisdiction in all cases in which a State shall be a
party -- the State of Georgia may then certainly be sued in this Court.
The Cherokees are a State. They
have been uniformly treated as a State since the settlement of our country. The
numerous treaties made with them by the United States recognise them as a
people capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war; of being
responsible in their political character for any violation of their
engagements, or for any aggression committed on the citizens of the United
States by any individual of their community. Laws have [p2]
been enacted in the spirit of these treaties. The acts of our Government
plainly recognise the Cherokee Nation as a State, and the Courts are bound by
those acts.
The condition of the Indians in
relation to the United States is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in
existence. In general, nations not owing a common allegiance are foreign to
each other. The term "foreign nation" is with strict propriety
applicable by either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the
United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist
nowhere else.
The Indians are acknowledged to
have an unquestionable, and heretofore an unquestioned, right to the lands they
occupy until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our
Government. It may well be doubted whether those tribes which reside within the
acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with strict accuracy, be
denominated foreign nations. They may more correctly, perhaps, be denominated
domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title
independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when
their right of possession ceases; meanwhile, they are in a state of pupilage.
Their relations to the United States resemble that of a ward to his guardian.
They look to our Government for protection, rely upon its kindness and its
power, appeal to it for relief to their wants, and address the President as
their Great Father.
The bill filed on behalf of the
Cherokees seeks to restrain a State from forcible exercise of legislative power
over a neighbouring people asserting their independence, their right to which
the State denies. On several of the matters alleged in the bill, for example,
on the laws making it criminal to exercise the usual power of self-government
in their own country by the Cherokee Nation, this Court cannot interpose, at
least in the form in which those matters are presented. That part of the bill
which respects the land occupied by the Indians, and prays the aid of the Court
to protect their possessions, may be more doubtful. The mere question of right
might perhaps be decided by this Court in a proper case with proper parties.
But the Court is asked to do more than decide on the title. The bill requires
us to control the Legislature of Georgia, and to restrain the exertion of its
physical force. The propriety of such an interposition by the Court may well be
questioned. It savours too much of the exercise of political power to be within
the proper province of the Judicial Department.
SOURCE 3: “Our Hearts are Sickened”: Letter
from Chief John Ross of the Cherokee, Georgia, 1836
[Red
Clay Council Ground, Cherokee Nation, September 28, 1836]
It is well known that for a number of years past
we have been harassed by a series of vexations, which it is deemed unnecessary
to recite in detail, but the evidence of which our delegation will be prepared
to furnish. With a view to bringing our troubles to a close, a delegation was
appointed on the 23rd of October, 1835, by the General Council of the nation,
clothed with full powers to enter into arrangements with the Government of the
United States, for the final adjustment of all our existing difficulties. The
delegation failing to effect an arrangement with the United States
commissioner, then in the nation, proceeded, agreeably to their instructions in
that case, to Washington City, for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with the
authorities of the United States.
After the departure of the Delegation, a
contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, and certain individual
Cherokees, purporting to be a “treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of
Georgia, on the 29th day of December, 1835, by General William Carroll and John
F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the
chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious
Delegation, in violation of a special injunction of the general council of the
nation, proceeded to Washington City with this pretended treaty, and by false
and fraudulent representations supplanted in the favor of the Government the
legal and accredited Delegation of the Cherokee people, and obtained for this
instrument, after making important alterations in its provisions, the
recognition of the United States Government. And now it is presented to us as a
treaty, ratified by the Senate, and approved by the President [Andrew Jackson],
and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of the
displeasure of the United States, and the threat of summary compulsion, in case
of refusal. It comes to us, not through our legitimate authorities, the known
and usual medium of communication between the Government of the United States
and our nation, but through the agency of a complication of powers, civil and
military.
By the stipulations of this instrument, we are
despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals.
We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal
self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be
committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none
to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are
deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor
resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions
of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.
We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our
utterance is paralized, when we reflect on the condition in which we are
placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their
stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United
States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.
The instrument in question is not the act of our
Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction
of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our
Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which
they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and
to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common
country. And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but
contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us,
against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well
persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of
the United States; nor can we believe it to be the design of these honorable
and highminded individuals, who stand at the head of the Govt., to bind a whole
Nation, by the acts of a few unauthorized individuals. And, therefore, we, the
parties to be affected by the result, appeal with confidence to the justice,
the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the
enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a compact, in the formation of which
we have had no agency.
In truth, our cause is your own; it is the cause
of liberty and of justice; it is based upon your own principles, which we have
learned from yourselves; for we have gloried to count your [George] Washington
and your [Thomas] Jefferson our great teachers; we have read their
communications to us with veneration; we have practised their precepts with
success. And the result is manifest. The wildness of the forest has given place
to comfortable dwellings and cultivated fields, stocked with the various
domestic animals. Mental culture, industrious habits, and domestic enjoyments,
have succeeded the rudeness of the savage state.
We have learned your religion also. We have read
your Sacred books. Hundreds of our people have embraced their doctrines,
practised the virtues they teach, cherished the hopes they awaken, and rejoiced
in the consolations which they afford. To the spirit of your institutions, and
your religion, which has been imbibed by our community, is mainly to be
ascribed that patient endurance which has characterized the conduct of our
people, under the laceration of their keenest woes. For assuredly, we are not
ignorant of our condition; we are not insensible to our sufferings. We feel
them! we groan under their pressure! And anticipation crowds our breasts with
sorrows yet to come. We are, indeed, an afflicted people! Our spirits are
subdued! Despair has well nigh seized upon our energies! But we speak to the
representatives of a Christian country; the friends of justice; the patrons of
the oppressed. And our hopes revive, and our prospects brighten, as we indulge
the thought. On your sentence, our fate is suspended; prosperity or desolation
depends on your word. To you, therefore, we look! Before your august assembly
we present ourselves, in the attitude of deprecation, and of entreaty. On your
kindness, on your humanity, on your compassion, on your benevolence, we rest
our hopes. To you we address our reiterated prayers. Spare our people! Spare
the wreck of our prosperity! Let not our deserted homes become the monuments of
our desolation! But we forbear! We suppress the agonies which wring our hearts,
when we look at our wives, our children, and our venerable sires! We restrain
the forebodings of anguish and distress, of misery and devastation and death,
which must be the attendants on the execution of this ruinous compact.
In conclusion, we commend to your confidence and
favor, our well-beloved and trust-worthy brethren and fellow-citizens, John
Ross, Principal Chief, Richard Taylor, Samuel Gunter, John Benge, George
Sanders, Walter S. Adair, Stephen Foreman, and Kalsateehee of Aquohee, who are
clothed with full powers to adjust all our existing difficulties by treaty
arrangements with the United States, by which our destruction may be averted,
impediments to the advancement of our people removed, and our existence
perpetuated as a living monument, to testify to posterity the honor, the
magnanimity, the generosity of the United States. And your memorialists, as in
duty bound, will ever pray. Signed by Ross, George Lowrey, Edward Gunter, Lewis
Ross, thirty-one members of the National Committee and National Council, and
2,174 others.
Source: John Ross, Letter from John Ross,
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Indians, in Answer to Inquires from a
Friend Regarding the Cherokee Affairs with the United States (Washington,
D.C., 1836), 22–24.
SOURCE 4:
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each
State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other
State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such
Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled
to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee
from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of the executive
Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to
the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
(No
Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein,
be discharged from such Service or Labour,
But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour
may be due.) (This clause in parentheses is superseded by the 13th Amendment.)
New States may be admitted by the Congress
into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State
be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without
the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the
Congress. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful
Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to
the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to
Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
ARTICLE
III—THE COURTS
SECTION
1.
The judicial power of
the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior
courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges,
both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good
behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a
compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
SECTION
2.
The judicial power
shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution,
the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under
their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers
and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to
controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies
between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between
citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming
lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens
thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
In
all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those
in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original
jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall
have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and
under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
SOURCE 5: The Georgia Gold Rush, 1830
From the Niles' Weekly
Register. XXXIX: 995 (October 9, 1830). 106.
THE CHEROKEE GOLD-DIGGERS.
We have been already informed by the "Columbus [G.] Enquirer," that
major Wager, had passed through that town, with a company of infantry under the
immediate command of lieut. Alston, destined for the Cherokee nation; that they
would also be reinforced by companies from Charleston and Augusta, major W.
assuming the command of the whole; and that "the object of this
augmentation of force in the Cherokee nation, is to displace the gold diggers,
and aid the authorities of Georgia in executing the laws of that state over the
Cherokee territory."
The Georgia Athenian of
the 21st states, that major W. had arrived at his destination; and that he was
doing something effectual for the removal of the gold-diggers from the
territory; that "the policy pursued is to destroy the provisions,
camp-equippage, working utensils, or whatever else is found belonging to the
diggers; while the diggers themselves are conveyed to the nearest ferry, and
put across the river free of charge"--that at least one hundred of them
"had been met in one day, who had been thus expelled from the territory,
or had taken the hint from this gentle specific administered to others."
__________
STATE OF GEORGIA. By his
excellency George R. Gilmer, governor and commander in chief of the army and
navy of this state and of the militia thereof.
WHEREAS thousands of
persons have entered upon the lands of the state, in the occupancy of the
Cherokees, and are now, and have been for some time past, employed in taking
great quantities in value of gold therefrom--And whereas this state of things
was unforseen by the legislature, and therefore no laws have been passed for
the prevention thereof--And whereas the powers vested in the executive
department by the constitution and laws do not sufficiently enable the governor
to remove or restrain such trespassers--It is therefore considered that an
extraordinary occasion has occurred for convening the general assembly of the
state at a period earlier than that prescribed by law--I have therefore thought
fit, and by virtue of the power in me vested by the constitution, do hereby
require the members of each house of the general assembly of this state, to
convene at the state house in Milledgeville, on Monday the eighteenth day of
October next, then and there to deliberate and decide on such matters as
the public welfare may render necessary.
Given
under my hand and the great seal of the state at the state house in Milledgeville,
this twentieth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eighteen
hundred and thirty, and of American independence the fifty-fifth.
GEORGE R.
GILMER
SOURCE 6
|
Elias Boudimott
Proposes a Cherokee Newspaper, 1827
PROSPECTUS
For Publishing
at New Echota, in the Cherokee Nation,
A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER,
To be Called the
Cherokee Phoenix.
 It has long been the opinion of judicious
friends to the civilization of the Aborigines of America, that a paper
published exclusively for their benefit, and under their directions, would
add great force to the charitable means employed by the public for their
melioration. In accordance with that opinion, the legislative authorities of
the Cherokees have thought fit to patronise a weekly paper, bearing the above
title; and have appointed the subscriber to take charge of it as Editor. In
issuing this PROSPECTUS the Editor would, by no means, be too sanguine, for
he is aware that he will tread upon untried ground: Nor does he make
any pretensions to learning, for it must be known that the great and sole
motive in establishing this paper, is the benefit of the Cherokees.
This will be the great aim of the Editor, which he intends to pursue with
undeviating steps. Many reasons might be given in support of the utility of
such a paper as that which is now offered to the public, but it is deemed
useless. There are many true friends to the Indians in different parts of the
Union, who will rejoice to see this feeble effort of the Cherokees to rise
for their ashes, like the fabled PHOENIX. In such friends must principally
depend the support of our paper. The Alphabet lately invented by a native
Cherokee, of which the public have already been apprized, forms an
interesting medium of information to those Cherokees who are unacquainted
with the English language. For their benefit Cherokee types have been
procured.The columns of the Cherokee Phoenix will be filled, partly with
English, and partly with Cherokee print; and all matter which is of common
interest will be given in both languages in parallel columns. As the great object of the Phoenix will be
the benefit of the Cherokees, the following subjects will occupy its columns. 1.The laws and public documents of the
Nation. 2.Account of the manners and customs of the
Cherokees, and their progress in Education, Religion and the arts of
civilized life; with such notices of other Indian tribes as our limited means
of information will allow. 3.The principal interesting news of the
day. 4.Miscellaneous articles, calculated to
promote Literature, Civilization, and Religion among the Cherokees. In closing this short Prospectus, the
Editor would appeal to the friends of Indians, and respectfully ask their
patronage. Those who have heretofore manifested a christian zeal in promoting
our welfare and happiness, will no doubt freely lend their helping hand. ELIAS
BOUDINOTT. |
|
SOURCE 7: President Jackson Reports on Indian Removal, 1830
SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE. December 6, 1830.
Fellow-Citizens of
the Senate and House of Representatives: . . .
 It gives me pleasure to announce to
Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for
nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the
white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important
tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session
of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining
tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages. The consequences of a speedy removal will
be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians
themselves. The pecuniary advantages while it promises to the Government are
the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of
collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on
account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in
large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the
whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to
the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern
frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future
invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi
and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States
to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the
Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the
power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and
under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which
is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the
protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels to
cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and
Christian community. These consequences, some of them so certain and the rest
so probable, make the complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress
at their last session an object of much solicitude. Toward the aborigines of the country no one
can indulge a more friendly feeling then myself, or would go further in
attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy,
prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon them my own solemn
convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to
the State authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the States
within the scope of their reserved powers they are not responsible to this
Government. As individuals we may entertain and express our opinions of their
acts, but as a Government we have as little right to control them as we have
to prescribe laws for other nations. With a full understanding of the subject,
the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes have with great unanimity determined to
avail themselves of the liberal offers presented by the act of Congress, and
have agreed to move beyond the Mississippi River. Treaties have been made
with them, which in due season will be submitted for consideration. In
negotiating these treaties they were made to understand their true condition,
and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the Western forests
to submitting to the laws of the States in which they now reside. These
treaties, being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are
characterized by great liberality on the part of the Government. They give
the Indians a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable
subsistence on their arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest
to maintain a separate existence, they will there be at liberty to do so
without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have
been subject in Alabama and Mississippi. Humanity has often wept over the fate of
the aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily
employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a
moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared
from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on
the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true
philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the
extinction of one generation to make room for another. Philanthropy could not
wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by
our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests
and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with
cities, towns and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements
which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000
happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and
religion? The present policy of the Government is but
a continuation of the same progressive change by a milder process. The tribes
which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were
annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population
and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire
the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair
exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land
where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual.  And is it supposed that the wandering
savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized
Christian? It is more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers
than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of
the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous.
He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their
population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation,
the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the
whole expense of his removal and settlement.  It is, therefore, a duty which this
Government owes to the new States to extinguish as soon as possible the Indian
title to all lands which Congress themselves have included within their
limits. When this is done the duties of the General Government in relation to
the States and the Indians within their limits are at an end. The Indians may
leave the State or not, as they choose. The purchase of their lands does not
alter in the least their personal relations with the State government. No act
of the General Government has ever been deemed necessary to give the States
jurisdiction over the persons of the Indians. They they possess by virtue of
their sovereign power within their own limits in as full a manner before as
after the purchase of the Indian lands; nor can this Government add to or
diminish it. May we not hope, therefore, that
all good citizens, and none more zealously than those who think the Indians
oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting
to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and
by a speedy removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or imaginary,
present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be threatened. . .ANDREW
JACKSON
SOURCE 8: THE Supreme Court CASES
CHEROKEE NATION v. GEORGIA
Supreme Court of the United States, 1831 30 U.S. (5
Pet.) 1, 8 L.Ed. 25
The counsel have shown conclusively that they are
not a state of the union, and have insisted that individually they are
aliens, not owing allegiance to the United States. An aggregate of aliens
composing a state must, they say, be a foreign state. Each individual being
foreign, the whole must be foreign.
This argument is imposing, but we must examine it
more closely before we yield to it. The condition of the Indians in relation
to the United States is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in
existence. In the general, nations not owing a common allegiance are foreign
to each other. The term foreign nation is, with strict propriety, applicable by
either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the United States is
marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist no where else.Though
the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and, heretofore, unquestioned
right to the lands they occupy, until that right shall be extinguished by a
voluntary cession to our government; yet it may well be doubted whether those
tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States
can, with strict accuracy, be denominated foreign nations. They may, more
correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a
territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must
take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases.
Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United
States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
They look to our government for protection; rely
upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants; and
address the president as their great father. They and their country are
considered by foreign nations, as well as by ourselves, as being so
completely under the sovereignty and dominion of the United States, that any
attempt to acquire their lands, or to form a political connection with them,
would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory, and an act of
hostility.
These consideration go far to support the opinion,
that the framers of our constitution had not the Indian tribes in view, when
they opened the courts of the union to controversies between a state or the
citizens thereof, and foreign states.
Worcester v. Georgia, 1832
When the state of Georgia began forcibly removing
Cherokees from their lands, the tribe appealed to the Supreme Court, asking
it to enforce its treaty rights. In the 1832 case of Worcester v. Georgia
the Court ruled in the Cherokees’ favor, deciding that the tribe
constituted a sovereign nation. The following excerpt in taken from the
Court’s majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Marshall.
From the commencement of our government, congress has
passed acts to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indians; which treat
them as nations, respect their rights, and manifest a firm purpose to afford
that protection which treaties stipulate. All these acts, and especially that
of 1802, which is still in force, manifestly consider the several Indian
nations as distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries,
within which their authority is exclusive, and having a right to all the
lands within those boundaries, which is not only acknowledged, but guarantied
by the United States
The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community,
occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which
the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have
no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in
conformity with treaties, and with the acts of congress. The whole
intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our
constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.
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