jan 1, 1829 - 1829: Gold discovered in Cherokee Georgia

Description:

Thousands of whites invaded, destroyed Indian property, staked out claims

The white invaders seized land and stock, forced Indians to sign leases, beat up Indians who protested, sold alcohol to weaken resistance, killed game which Indians needed for food

17,000 Cherokees surrounded by 900,000 whites in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, Cherokees decided that survival required adaptation:
- Chief Sequoyah invented a written language
- February 21, 1828, began publishing a newspaper

Georgia laws against Cherokee:
- lands were taken
- their government abolished
- all meetings prohibited
- advising others not to migrate were to be imprisoned
- could not testify in court against any white
- Cherokees could not dig for the gold recently discovered on their land

The Cherokee nation addressed a memorial to the nation, a public plea for justice...Jackson’s response to this, in his second Annual Message to Congress in December 1830, was to point to the fact that the Choctaws and Chickasaws had already agreed to removal,
- “a speedy removal” of the rest would offer many advantages to everyone
- For whites it “will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters.”
- For Indians, it will “perhaps cause them, gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.

Georgia now put Cherokee land on sale and moved militia in to crush any sign of Cherokee resistance. The Cherokees followed a policy of nonviolence
- property was being taken
- homes were being burned
- schools were closed
- women mistreated
- liquor was being sold in their churches
- their newspaper suppressed
- their government dissolved
- the missionaries in jail
- their land parceled among whites by the land lottery

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