About the Trail of Tears

The Question of this project: How was the journey to finding rights, for the Cherokee nation?

The journey to obtaining rights as a Cherokee nation was a long a rough journey. The Cherokee people had 53,000 square miles of land in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama combined but in 1802 white settlers, and President Thomas Jefferson began looking at removing the Cherokee tribe from their lands (GPB n.d.).

In the court case Worcester v. Georgia, the Cherokee Nation looked to get a federal injunction against the laws passed by the state of Georgia because these laws denied them the rights and privileges from within the state. One year later the U.S. Supreme court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign. In other words, the state of Georgia had no right to enforce any of their state laws in the Cherokee territory. Andrew Jackson, who was President at that time, rejected the ruling of this case and ordered the removal of the Cherokee nation. The United States army forces were used in certain instances to round them up. This elimination and journey is called The Trail of Tears. Out of the 15,000 Cherokee people who left, 4,000 died on the way to Indian Territory but what is now the state of Oklahoma (FJC n.d.).

These past couple paragraphs are the official take on what happened but there is also the point of view of someone who went through it herself and her name was Margaret McGurie. In this interview she went on to explain in detail, how it was on the journey. She said, The Cherokees had to walk; all the old people who were too weak to walk could ride in the Government wagons that hauled the food and the blankets which they allowed to have. It goes on to say that the food on the Trail of Tears was horrible and there was not very much of it, so often the Indians had to go two days without water. This trail started in Georgia and went across Kentucky, Tennessee, and through Missouri all the way to Old Fort Wayne which was built as a shelter for the Indians until houses were built (Montiero 1837).
As a conclusion it is clear that the Cherokee Indians went through a lot just to get rights. I would need information on

Works Cited

FJC. n.d. Federal Judicial Center. Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.fjc.gov/history/timeline/cherokee-nation-v.-georgia.

The Federal Judicial Center produced and maintains this site in furtherance of its statutory mission. The Center regards the contents of this site to be responsible and valuable. The Court ruled four years later in Worcester v. Georgia that the Cherokee Nation was a separate political entity that could not be regulated by the state, and that only the federal government had authority to regulate the use of Indian land.

GPB. n.d. Judgement Day. Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html.

PBS is America's largest classroom, the nation's largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world. In addition, PBS's educational media helps prepare people for success in school and opens up the world to them. Their main goal is to fulfill our essential mission to the American public, providing trusted programming that is uniquely different from commercial broadcasting and treating audiences as citizens, not simply consumers. For 15 consecutive years, a national study has rated PBS as the most-trusted institution in America.

Montiero, Lorrie. 1837. Sequoyah Research Center. August 20. Accessed November 4, 2018.
https://ualrexhibits.org/tribalwriters/artifacts/Family-Stories-Trail-of-Tears.html.

The collections of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Sequoyah National Research Center constitute the largest assemblage of Native American expression in the world. Our mission, to acquire and preserve the writings and ideas of Native North Americans, is accomplished through collecting the written word and art of Native Americans and creating a research atmosphere that invites indigenous peoples to make the Center an archival home for their creative work.

Oyez. Accessed November 4, 2018. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1832/2.

Oyez a free law project from Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Lawis a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court's audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions (through Justia). Oyez also provides detailed information on every justice throughout the Court's history and offers a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of several justices.

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