Ch. 21: Westward Expansion Vocabulary: westward expansion, reservations, Manifest Destiny, transcontinental railroad, tycoon, Andrew Jackson, John Ross

Trouble for the Native Americans Dozens of Native American tribes had lived throughout the West. On the Great Plains, tribes like the Arapaho and the Sioux hunted buffalo. In the Southwest, the Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo were successful hunters and farmers. In the Pacific Northwest, the Nez Perce were traders and fishermen.

Trouble for the Native Americans After the United States government bought the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark Expedition explored it, many settlers from the East Coast wanted to move onto the new lands. They claimed that it was the Manifest Destiny of the United States to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. They also didn’t think they should share the land that the United States had just bought from France. Conestoga Wagon

Trouble for the Native Americans Over time, the Native Americans found the lands that they had lived on filled with new American settlers. Railroad tycoons were building the Transcontinental Railroad on lands that were originally theirs, taking up spaces that used to be grazing lands for buffalo herds. They became angry and bands of men from both sides: Native American and settler alike would attack each other’s villages and towns. Transcontinental Railroad

Trouble for the Native Americans In time, the U.S. Army was called in to deal with the problem of the Native Americans attacking American towns. The Native Americans would sit down with Generals and form treaties to keep new settlers out of their lands, but in a few years the treaties would be broken and the fighting would begin again. Oftentimes, the U.S. Army would use diseases like smallpox and measles to kill large sections of Native Americans.

The Battle of Little Bighorn In one battle, the Native Americans were actually successful against the U.S. Army: the Battle of Little Big Horn. General George Custer was defeated by the Lakota tribe at Little Bighorn in Montana. But even that success was short lived. The Lakota were eventually defeated and sent to live on reservations with other Native American tribes.

Broken Promises In the early 1800’s the Cherokee were living in the Appalachian Mountains around Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. A group of Creeks, called the Red Sticks, attacked Fort Mims in Alabama, and started the Creek War.

Broken Promises Andrew Jackson was a Colonel in the U.S. Army during the Creek War. He enlisted the help of the local Cherokees to fight against the Red Sticks. When the Cherokee got back to their villages after the Creek War, they found their homes and villages destroyed. The Cherokee leaders were furious. Gen. Andrew Jackson

Broken Promises After the Creek War, the U.S. government wanted to thank the Cherokee people for their help. The Cherokee leaders signed the Treaty of New Echota. It said that the Cherokee were allowed to keep the lands that they lived on in Georgia. Soon, the state of Georgia gave the land that belonged to the Cherokee to American settlers.

Broken Promises The Chief of the Cherokee, John Ross, knew that this was against the law. So, instead of declaring war, he took the state leaders of Georgia to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that the land belonged to the Cherokee, and American settlers could not take it away from them. The Cherokee were thrilled, and they celebrated their victory. Chief John Ross

Broken Promises Settlers from Georgia, however, kept moving onto Cherokee lands. The Cherokee complained again, but the U.S. government did nothing to stop the new settlers.

The Trail of Tears To make matters worse, a few years later, Andrew Jackson was elected to be president of the United States; and as one of his first acts signed the “Indian Removal Act of 1830.” The “Indian Removal Act of 1830” stated that all Native Americans east of the Mississippi were to be moved, forcibly if necessary, to reservations in Oklahoma.

The Trail of Tears The U.S. Army came back to Cherokee lands to move them to Oklahoma. They started moving from the mountains, on foot, in October of They travelled all winter to their new lands on the reservation in Oklahoma. Over 4000 Cherokee died on this journey because of cold or disease.

The Trail of Tears John Burnett, a soldier that escorted Native Americans to the reservations in Oklahoma wrote in his journal: “…I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades…One can never forget the sadness and solemnity of that morning. Chief John Ross led in prayer and when the bugle sounded and the wagons started rolling, many of the children rose to their feet and waved their little hands good-bye to their mountain homes…the suffering of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold, and exposure.”

Questions about Chapter 21 1.Why did many Native American groups have a right to be angry? 2.What happened to Native Americans who fought against the American settlers in the West? 3.What two Native American groups were involved in the Creek War? Tell what their relationships to the United States were. 4.Who was the leader of the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears? 5.How did he react differently than other Native American chiefs when their lands were being taken by settlers?