1828–1842
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Pro tip: Click any underlined terms throughout the presentation for detailed explanations.
What it was: A variety of cotton that could grow in the upland interior of the South, not just coastal areas.
Why it mattered: The cotton gin (1793) made processing short-staple cotton profitable. This opened vast new territories to plantation agriculture — but those territories were occupied by Native nations.
Connection to removal: Cotton expansion created economic and political pressure for access to Native lands. Planters wanted the soil; speculators wanted to buy and sell it; state governments wanted tax revenue and jurisdiction.
18 schools • 2 grist mills • 62 blacksmith shops • 8 cotton machines • 1,300 spinning wheels
$15–$20 million in Cherokee property value (contemporary estimates)
Why Georgia saw this as a threat: A formally organized Native nation with its own constitution challenged Georgia's claim to jurisdiction over all territory within its borders.
Adopted at Broken Arrow, 1821
The Deal:
Legal victory became meaningless without enforcement.
Jackson framed removal as humanitarian protection — a paternal duty to "save" Native peoples from decline.
That rhetoric masked coercion. If it's "for your own good," then rejecting it appears irrational — or hostile.
While "Trail of Tears" commonly refers to Cherokee removal, multiple nations were displaced:
Among first removed (1831-33)
Severe planning failures
Winter travel, cholera outbreaks
Estimated 2,500-6,000 deaths
Faced settler violence in Alabama/Georgia
Removal involved military force
Multiple waves of displacement
Several thousand deaths
Negotiated better compensation
Still faced hazardous conditions
Disease and resettlement stress
~600 deaths estimated
Removal entangled with Second Seminole War (1835-42)
Extended armed resistance
Some Seminole remained in Florida
Context: The Seminole in Florida resisted removal through armed conflict, making it the longest and costliest Indian war in U.S. history before the Plains Wars.
What they were: Temporary holding facilities where Cherokee were concentrated before the westward march. Eleven main camps in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia.
Conditions:
Death toll in camps: Estimates suggest several hundred died before removal even began.
~4,000
Best-supported scholarly estimate of Cherokee deaths during 1838-1839 removal process
Approximately one-fifth of the Cherokee population removed
Who: Russell Thornton, historical demographer, published "Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears" in Ethnohistory (1984).
Method: Thornton used Cherokee censuses, federal records, and missionary accounts to estimate population before and after removal. He compared:
Why this is the standard: Thornton's work is methodologically rigorous, transparent about sources and limitations, and widely cited by historians.
| Tribe | Number Removed | Deaths | Mortality Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cherokee | 17,000 | 4,000–8,000 | 23–47% |
| Creek | 15,000 | 3,500 | ≈23% |
| Choctaw | 15,000–20,000 | 2,500–6,000 | ≈17–30% |
| Chickasaw | 6,000 | ≈600 | ≈10% |
| Seminole | 3,000 | Unknown | Many died resisting |
Pattern: Deaths concentrated among the most vulnerable populations (children, elderly, those already sick or weakened)
Key insight: These deaths were predictable consequences of forced migration under harsh conditions with inadequate provisioning
What happened: On June 22, 1839, Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were killed on the same day in coordinated attacks.
Why: Many Cherokee viewed the Treaty of New Echota as illegitimate and its signers as traitors who had violated Cherokee law against unauthorized land cessions.
Consequences: