‘Jacksonland’ highlights efforts to prevent removal

BY WILL CHAVEZ

Assistant Editor – @cp_wchavez

Steve Inskeep, National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” host and author of the book “Jacksonland,” recently spoke about his book during the “From Removal to Rebirth: The Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory” symposium held April 22-23 at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also signed his book at the museum’s gift shop after his presentation. COURTESY “Jacksonland” is Steve Inskeep’s narrative history of Principal Chief Ross and President Andrew Jackson, who led their respective nations when the CN was being harassed to give up its lands. COURTESY

About the Author

WILL CHAVEZ

WILL-CHAVEZ@cherokee.org  918-207-3961 Will Chavez is a Cherokee/San Felipe Pueblo Indian who has worked in the newspaper and public relations field for 25 years. During that time he has performed public relations work for the Cherokee Nation and has been a writer, reporter and photographer for the Cherokee Advocate and Cherokee Phoenix newspapers. For many years h ...

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TULSA, Okla. – Author and radio host Steve Inskeep recently provided insight about the actions Principal Chief John Ross took beginning in the late 1820s to retain what remained of Cherokee Nation lands in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.The host of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and author of “Jacksonland” discussed the history of Ross and President Andrew Jackson, who led their respective nations when the CN was being harassed to give up its lands. Inskeep spoke at the “From Removal to Rebirth: The Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory” symposium held May 22-23 at the Gilcrease Museum.“I see John Ross as part of the wider American democratic tradition,” Inskeep said.He said the Cherokee fight against removal is “one strand” of the American democratic experience. “I, as an American, as a journalist, as a student of our democratic system, have learned a lot in the course of writing this book about what I see as the Cherokee contribution to our national democratic traditions.”Ross’s goal, Inskeep said, was to maintain the CN’s sovereignty within the “umbrella of the wider United States.” As an example, he read a letter by Ross to the secretary of War, the department that oversaw Indian affairs, to protest the Cherokees’ harsh treatment by its white neighbors in Georgia. Ross declared the Cherokees considered themselves to be “part of the great family of the republic of the United States” and that they were “willing to sacrifice everything in the republic’s defense.”“Other Native leaders wanted out of this new and spreading country. John Ross, as leader of the Cherokees, wanted in, and that to me makes him a vitally important figure because he was, in effect, a part of an original minority seeking to play on an equal footing with the white citizens who dominated the country,” Inskeep said.Ross knew he would have to come up with a proposal to save Cherokee sovereignty and land and asked for suggestions from Cherokee leaders. Inskeep said Ross proposed the tribe enter into a treaty with the United States for admission as citizens as part of a territorial or state government within Georgia. In the late 1820s Ross was willing to “extinguish traditional culture for the sake of civilization and the preservation of existence,” Inskeep said, which he hoped would eliminate Georgians’ prejudice against Cherokees.“In short, they (Cherokee) would change almost everything in order to preserve their rights to the land,” he said. “Clearly not everyone in the Cherokee Nation agreed with that vision as he expressed it, but he expressed the determination to be seen as an equal in white society and laid out the possibility by making the Cherokee Nation a separate territory or state.”The Georgians were not interested, Inskeep said, but were interested in Cherokee real estate and how it could be utilized to grow crops such as cotton. The government wanted the CN and other tribes to move west of the Mississippi River “where they would not be corrupted by white society.”“This is a very interesting argument. ‘I am ruining your life; you need to leave your home,’” he said.To achieve his vision, Ross utilized “the tools of the emerging democratic system” by allying with U.S. political leaders and subscribing to newspapers. He corresponded with newspapers to inform people about Cherokee issues. The CN also founded the Cherokee Phoenix in 1825 and began printing its views in the newspaper in Cherokee and English in February 1828. Also, the Phoenix was partially distributed by exchange or traded for as many as 100 newspapers from throughout the U.S.“Articles from the Cherokee Phoenix would be clipped and reprinted by other newspapers across the United States,” Inskeep said. “They would go viral in the 19th century sense.”Ross and the Cherokees also fought for their lands in Congress and came close to winning in Congress by helping lobby against the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which narrowly passed, Inskeep said. After losing in Congress, the CN went to the Supreme Court. The tribe won its second case, Worcestor v. Georgia, in 1832 that held a Georgia criminal statute prohibiting non-Natives from being present on Native lands without a state license was unconstitutional. The case also laid out the relationship between tribes and the U.S. government and is considered the government’s foundation for the doctrine of tribal sovereignty.Jackson ignored the ruling and efforts to remove the CN from Georgia by Jackson and the Georgians continued. By the spring of 1838, Inskeep said, Cherokee people began seeing soldiers preparing to escort them from their lands. The deadline to leave came on May 23, 1838, exactly two years after Jackson signed the Treaty of New Echota, which sold remaining Cherokee lands in the East. Congress had approved the treaty by one vote.Inskeep said in April 1838 the Cherokee people defied the Indian Removal Act and the Treaty of New Echota by planting crops as if they expected to be there to harvest them. An Indian agent in the CN observed this, and Inskeep said the people’s actions might have persuaded federal officials to seriously negotiate with Ross, who was in Washington.“In the spring of 1838 the farmers of the Cherokee Nation proved their ownership of the land one more time,” Inskeep said. “Removal was inevitable, but he (Ross) wanted to at least improve the terms. Faced with the realization that troops under his command were going to cause a humanitarian disaster, President Martin Van Buren finally negotiated with John Ross. It was too late to avoid removal, but Ross at that moment was able to improve the terms.”