sakaisettlersocr

Cherokee Nation on "Trail of Tears w --1838
thirds of Mississippi.(9)
pean settlers. In magnitude this was as sweeping as Hitler's
grand design to render continental Europe "free" of Jews.
The settlers were particularly upset that the Indian Under Jackson's direction, the U.S. Army committed
nations of the Old Southwest showed no signs of collaps- genocide on an impressive scale. The Cherokee Nation, for
ing, "dying out" or trading away their land. All had instance, was dismantled, with one-third of the Cherokee
developed stable and effective agricultural economies, with population dying in the Winter of 1838 (from disease,
considerable trade. Euro-Amerikans, if anything, thought famine, exposure and gunfire as the U.S. Army marched
that they were too successful. The Cherokee, who had them away at bayonet point on "The Trail of Tears9').(l 1)
chosen a path of adopting many Western societal forms,
had a national life more stable and prosperous than that of So the man who led the settler's "national struggle
the Euro-Amerikan settlers who eventually occupied those for economic and political democracy" was not only a
Appalachian regions after they were forced out. A bourgeois politician, but in fact an apostle of annexation
Presbyterian Church report in 1826 records that the and genocide. The President of "The Trail of Tears" was a
Cherokee nation had: 7,600 houses, 762 looms, 1488 spin- stereotype frontiersman-a fact which made him popular
ning wheels, 10 sawmills, 31 grain mills, 62 blacksmith with poorer whites. After throwing away his inheritance on
shops, 18 schools, 70,000 head of livestock, a weekly drinking and gambling, the young Jackson moved to the
newspaper in their own language, and numerous libraries frontier (at that time Nashville, Tenn.) to "find his forwith
"thousands of good books". The Cherokee national tune". That's a common phrase in the settler history
government had a two-house legislature and a supreme books, which only conceals the reality that the only "forcourt.(lO)
tune" on the frontier was from genocide. Jackson eventually
became quite wealthy through speculating in Indian
Under the leadership of President Jackson, the land (like Washington, Franklin and other settlers before
U.S. Government ended even its limited recognition of In- him) and owning a cotton plantation with over one hundian
sovereignty, and openly encouraged land speculators dred Afrikan slaves. The leader of "Jacksonian
and local settlers to start Seizing Indian land at gunpoint. A Democracyw had a clear, practical appreciation of how
U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Cherokee sovereign- profitable genocide could be for settlers.
ty vs. the state of Georgia was publicly ridiculed by
Jackson, who refused to enforce it. In 1830 Jackson finally First as a land speculator, then as slavemaster, and
got Congress to Pass the lkmoval Act, which authorized finally as General and then President, Jackson literally
him to use the army to totally relocate or exterminate all spent the whole of his adult life personally involved in
Indians east of the Mississippi River. The whole Eastern genocide. During the Creek War of 1813-14 Jackson and
half of this continent was now to be completely cleared of his fellow frontiersmen slaughtered hundreds of unarmed
Indians, every square inch given over to the needs of Euro- 2(j women and children-afterwards skinning the bodies to