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1830: Congress
passed the “Indian Removal Act.”
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Cherokee Chief
John Ross (1807 - 1839) fought the removal in the courts, ultimately
receiving a Supreme Court ruling in 1832 that “the laws of Georgia can have
no force” on Cherokee lands. The
decision meant that Georgia could not force the Cherokee from their land.
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President Andrew
Jackson refused to enforce the Court’s decision:
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“[Supreme Court
Justice John Marshall has made his decision.
Now let him enforce it.”
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In 1838,
Cherokees were rounded up, and their homes burned.
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A soldier named
John Burnett, an interpreter on the March:
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“[I] witnessed
the execution of the most brutal order in the History of American
Warfare. I saw helpless Cherokees
arrested and dragged from their homes…
I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into 645 wagons and started
toward the West.”
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~ pp. 466-467 “A New Nation” McGraw Hill; N.Y.C.; 2000; James A. Banks
et al.
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