Cherokee Tribe History

Even if it was quite a good deal for the federal government, a lot of people who were part of the Cherokee tribe felt betrayed because the negotiators did not represent the tribal government. John Ross, the principal chief of the Nation once wrote “The instrument in question is not the act of our nation,” to the Senate of the United States of America protesting against this treaty. Furthermore, a large number of Cherokees (about 16,000) signed Ross’s petition, but the treaty was approved anyway by the congress. By 1838, just a few Cherokees had left their “former land” for what was called the Indian Territory. After this, nearly 7,000 soldiers were sent to expedite this removal process. The Cherokee were thus forced to march more than 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Unfortunately, along the way, as said earlier, it was easy for Indians to die contracting diseases such as whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, or cholera. Moreover starvation was also a big issue for the Indians. The federal government back then promised that their new land (Indian Territory) would remain intact forever, the truth though was quite different, and the more whites had envy of conquest, the more the Indian Territory shrank. Before a potential birth of this Indian country, any hope could have been forsaken. Everything was planned though: the architects of the removal had thought an Indian country where whites and other people needed a federal permission to enter the very Territory which was supposed to have clear boundaries. Nevertheless, the American began to conquer Texas, California and Oregon and the congress had thus no intention of leaving this territory to Indians.
In the early 1850’s the United States signed some treaties to reduce the tensions between them and the Indians. The treaty of Fort Laramie – with the Sioux, Cheyennes, Gros Ventres, and other tribes – allowed the United States to build posts and roads in the Central Plains. A second treaty at Fort Atkinson permitted them