Read every document once, in order. Expect about 30–40 minutes. Each document says which checklist rows it can help with.
For each document, ask: who wrote it, when, how they knew, and why they wrote it.
On the worksheet, cite a document by its number, author, title, and date, then paste its URL. Example: Doc 5. Winfield Scott, Address to the Cherokee Nation, May 10, 1838. https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-trail-of-tears-and-the-forced-relocation-of-the-cherokee-nation-teaching-with-historic-places.htm
You may also cite the course lecture by title and date, with no URL. Example: HIST 101 lecture, “Removal” (Ch. 11, Lecture 3), [date of class].
Quotations are copied exactly from the sources listed. “. . .” or “…” marks words left out. Old spellings (“waggons,” “defence”) are kept as printed.
Doc 1
The Indian Removal Act
May 28, 1830
Who
U.S. Congress; signed by President Andrew Jackson
What kind of source
Federal law
Helps with checklist rows
Intent and Goal; Systematic Nature
That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there
Section 1
the United States will forever secure and guaranty to them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them … Provided always, That such lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same.
Section 3
the sum of five hundred thousand dollars is hereby appropriated, to be paid out of any money in the treasury, not otherwise appropriated.
Section 8
Read closely
The law says tribes “may choose” to exchange their land. Does the law itself order anyone to leave?
Compare this law with Doc 5. What changed between 1830 and 1838?
Intent and Goal (stated justifications); Targeted Group
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.
It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters.
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?
Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous.
Read closely
Which words make removal sound kind or generous? (Look for “benevolent” and “generous.”)
Jackson says the land is held by “a few savage hunters.” How does the lecture’s picture of Cherokee farms and towns challenge that claim?
U.S. commissioners and a small Treaty Party of Cherokee; never approved by the Cherokee National Council
What kind of source
Treaty
Helps with checklist rows
Systematic Nature; Targeted Group; Outcomes
The Cherokee nation hereby cede relinquish and convey to the United States all the lands owned claimed or possessed by them east of the Mississippi river, and hereby release all their claims upon the United States for spoliations of every kind for and in consideration of the sum of five millions of dollars
Article 1
It is hereby stipulated and agreed by the Cherokees that they shall remove to their new homes within two years from the ratification of this treaty
Article 16
Read closely
The treaty speaks for “the Cherokee nation.” Who actually signed it (see the lecture and Doc 4)?
Article 16 sets a two-year deadline. Which document tells the Cherokee the deadline has passed?
John Ross, protest to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives
September 28, 1836
Who
John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, writing from Red Clay Council Ground
What kind of source
Formal protest (memorial) to Congress
Helps with checklist rows
Targeted Group; Outcomes; Methods of Removal
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.
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.
Read closely
Ross calls the treaty an “instrument,” not a treaty. Why?
Ross wrote this two years before the roundup. Which later documents show whether his warnings came true?
General Winfield Scott, address to the Cherokee Nation
May 10, 1838
Who
Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, U.S. Army commander sent by President Martin Van Buren
What kind of source
Proclamation issued from the Cherokee Agency
Helps with checklist rows
Targeted Group; Methods of Removal; Systematic Nature; Scale and Scope
Cherokees! The President of the United States has sent me, with a powerful army, to cause you, in obedience to the Treaty of 1835, to join that part of your people who are already established in prosperity, on the other side of the Mississippi. . . . The full moon of May is already on the wane, and before another shall have passed away, every Cherokee man, woman and child . . . must be in motion to join their brethren in the far West.
Excerpt as printed by the National Park Service
My troops already occupy many positions in the country that you are to abandon, and thousands and thousands are approaching from every quarter, to render resistance and escape alike hopeless. All those troops, regular and militia, are your friends.
Later in the same address
Chiefs, head-men and warriors! Will you then, by resistance, compel us to resort to arms? God forbid! Or will you, by flight, seek to hid yourselves in mountains and forests, and thus oblige us to hunt you down?
Later in the same address; “hid” is in the printed text
Note. Date check: this address is dated May 10, 1838. Separate written army orders for carrying out the removal followed later in May. If you quote Scott’s address, date it May 10, 1838.
Read closely
Scott says “every Cherokee man, woman and child.” What does that phrase tell you about who was targeted?
Scott calls his troops “your friends” and asks whether the Cherokee will “compel us to resort to arms.” Is this a choice or a command? Explain.
Daniel S. Butrick, missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who had lived and worked among the Cherokee since 1818
What kind of source
Private journal kept during the roundup and the camps
Helps with checklist rows
Methods of Removal (families separated; basic needs); Accompanying Atrocities
As the soldiers advanced towards a house, two little children fled in fright to the woods. The woman pleaded for permission to seek them or wait till they came in, giving positive assurances that she would then follow on and join the company. But all entreaties were vain
Roundup in Georgia, entry for May 26, 1838
Those taken to the fort at New Echota were confined day and night in the open air with but little clothing to cover them when lying on the naked ground.
Same entry
Death is becoming a familiar event
Entry for July 22, 1838, in the camps
Read closely
What did the soldiers refuse to let the mother do? What does that suggest about how families were treated?
Butrick describes deaths in the camps before the march began. Which checklist question about “basic needs” does this help you answer?
Evan Jones, Baptist missionary to the Cherokee, writing from Camp Hetzel, near Cleveland, Tennessee
What kind of source
Letter, printed in the Baptist Missionary Magazine (September 1838)
Helps with checklist rows
Methods of Removal; Accompanying Atrocities (property seized); Outcomes
The Cherokees are nearly all prisoners. They have been dragged from their houses, and encamped at the forts and military posts, all over the nation. In Georgia, especially, multitudes were allowed no time to take any thing with them except the clothes they had on. Well-furnished houses were left prey to plunderers, who, like hungry wolves, follow in the trail of the captors. These wretches rifle the houses and strip the helpless, unoffending owners of all they have on earth.
Read closely
Jones calls the Cherokee “prisoners,” not emigrants. Why does that word matter?
What happened to Cherokee homes and property after families were taken?
A Cherokee correspondent, letter from the Cherokee Agency
June 19, 1838, dateline as printed
Who
An unsigned Cherokee writer; the name is not given. Do not attribute it to John Ross.
What kind of source
Letter first printed in the New York Journal of Commerce, reprinted in the Northern Watchman (Hartford, Conn.), July 28, 1838, p. 3
Helps with checklist rows
Methods of Removal; Accompanying Atrocities; Scale and Scope
The fair prospects with which we were flattered, for the relief of our people, are all blasted! Utter ruin and the deepest distress attend the unoffending Cherokees! I cannot find language to paint all that has taken place to increase the miseries of our people! On the 26th of last month, the forcible removal of the Cherokees commenced in Georgia, and on the 12th inst., throughout the other portion of the nation. At this moment, there are but very few Cherokees under the shelter of their own roofs
“12th inst.” means the 12th of this month (June)
One Cherokee man has been killed by the troops. He was deaf and dumb. Not hearing, he was walking off. He was shot. This took place in Georgia. There has been no resistance in any quarter by the Cherokees. All quietly submit to their fate and are driven off like so many sheep to the slaughter house.
Postscript
Read closely
Compare the postscript with Doc 6. Do two separate writers describe similar events? Why does that make each one more believable?
The writer says there was “no resistance in any quarter.” How does that affect any claim that force was needed?
Capt. L. B. Webster, U.S. Army officer who escorted Cherokee prisoners from North Carolina to the central depot in Tennessee
What kind of source
Private letter, as quoted by historian Theda Perdue
Helps with checklist rows
Methods of Removal; Systematic Nature
We were eight days in making the journey (80 miles), and it was pitiful to behold the women & children, who suffered exceedingly—as they were all obliged to walk, with the exception of the sick.
Webster was moving about eight hundred Cherokee to the central depot in Tennessee
Read closely
This writer was one of the soldiers carrying out removal. Why is a soldier’s sympathy useful evidence?
What does “obliged to walk” tell you about the choice the Cherokee had?
A traveler from Maine meets a detachment in Kentucky
Printed January 26, 1839
Who
An unnamed traveler from Maine who passed one of the Cherokee detachments on the road in Kentucky
What kind of source
Eyewitness report printed in the New York Observer, January 26, 1839
Helps with checklist rows
Scale and Scope; Methods of Removal (basic needs)
We found the road literally filled with the procession for about three miles in length. The sick and feeble were carried in waggons . . . a great many ride horseback and multitudes go on foot—even aged females, apparently nearly ready to drop into the grave, were traveling with heavy burdens attached to the back—on the sometimes frozen ground, and sometimes muddy streets, with no covering for the feet except what nature had given them.
Read closely
How long was the line of people? What does that tell you about scale?
What details show that the march itself was dangerous for the old and the sick?
Rebecca Neugin, about three years old in 1838; she told her family’s story to historian Grant Foreman in 1932
What kind of source
Oral history (memory and family tradition)
Helps with checklist rows
Methods of Removal; Targeted Group
When the soldiers came to our house my father wanted to fight, but my mother told him that the soldiers would kill him if he did and we surrendered without a fight. They drove us out of our house to join other prisoners in a stockade.
There was much sickness among the emigrants and a great many little children died of whooping cough.
Note. Handle with care: this is real testimony, but it is a memory recorded long afterward. Use it alongside a source from 1838 that agrees with it.
Read closely
This was recorded 94 years after the events, from a woman who was three in 1838. What are the strengths and limits of this kind of source?
Which documents written in 1838 (Docs 6–8) agree with her memory?
A missionary doctor who traveled with the Cherokee, a historical demographer, and the National Archives
What kind of source
Estimates from three kinds of sources
Helps with checklist rows
Scale and Scope; Accompanying Atrocities; Outcomes
No one knows exactly how many died during the journey. Missionary doctor Elizur Butler, who accompanied one of the detachments, estimated that nearly one fifth of the Cherokee population died.
National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places, Reading 3
Approximately 4,000 of 16,000 Cherokees died along the way.
National Archives, introduction to Jackson’s 1830 message
Results indicate these losses were very substantial; in fact, the number of deaths may have been twice the generally accepted figure of 4,000.
Russell Thornton, abstract of “Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears: A New Perspective and a New Estimate,” Ethnohistory 31, no. 4 (1984)
Read closely
Why do the estimates differ? (Think about who is counted, where, and over how long.)
Write one honest sentence you could use on your worksheet that gives a number and admits the uncertainty.
Why isn’t John G. Burnett’s “birthday story” here?
You may find a famous “soldier’s story” credited to John G. Burnett and dated 1890, more than fifty years after removal. Historians have questioned parts of it and who wrote it, so this reader uses accounts written during removal instead: a soldier’s own letter (Doc 9), two missionaries (Docs 6 and 7), a Cherokee writer (Doc 8), and a traveler on the road (Doc 10). If you use Burnett from another site, say so and explain why you trust it.
Before you open the worksheet
Which voice stayed with you, and why? Then pick the one document you think is the strongest evidence for the worksheet, and the one you would use most carefully.