The Cherokee removal took place between 1838 and 1839 because of the Cherokee leaders embracing the civilization policy. The Cherokee leaders embraced the civilization from the white man. By the virtue of accepting and embracing the white man, the Cherokee community had to accept civilization as a sign of good will. Before the civilization and interactions with the white man, the Cherokee community had a lifestyle. The community had leaders who advised the community. The leaders also gave direction to the community. When the Cherokee leaders accepted the civilization, it hurt their efforts to maintain residence in their native land. They had occupied the land along the Mississippi river. This paper focuses on how the Cherokee community suffered by embracing civilization.
The book, The Cherokee Removal, highlights the views of different authors regarding the removal that came because of accepting civilizations. Before the civilization, the community existed with rules, which guided the daily activities. For example, the men engaged in hunting activities while women engaged in farming activities (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.134). The community believed that the division of labor had to take place by considering the genders. According to Perdue, & Green (2004, p. 4), “ the Cherokees associated farming with women and hunting with men.” Before the white man came, the community maintained a balanced diet varying between meat, vegetables, and corn. At the same time, the white man maintained a staple diet of bread and ale. It indicates a completely difference in lifestyle between the two. Embracing civilization meant conforming to the white man’s culture thus hurting the community’s effort to preserve its culture and way of life.
The Cherokee community intended to maintain their native land because they had organized lifestyles. They could engage in hunting and farming activities at their pleasure. The area around the Mississippi river enabled them to perform farming activities. However, the leaders embraced the white man who came with civilizations (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.103). That move hurt their efforts to maintain their ancestral land. Between 1838 and 1839, troops from the United States moved in and pushed the Cherokee community from their homeland. The Cherokee leaders embraced civilization with the intention of safeguarding their people’s interests. Perdue & Green accounts that, “the Cherokees embraced the government’s program with enthusiasm, but they also decided to adapt "civilization" to Cherokee needs and goals” (Perdue & Green, 2004, p. 12). The Cherokee community lost their livelihoods in the southeast and had to begin new ways of life in the Indian Territory. The Cherokee community suffered the eviction because the cotton farmers wanted to practice farming in that land. The land that Cherokees occupied also had deposits of gold and white southerners wanted to exploit those deposits.
As the leaders accepted the civilization that came along with the white man, they lost their properties. This is because the British leaders were motivated to accomplish their objectives that included taking advantage of the Cherokee properties for economic gains. The book states that “British traders traveled into the Cherokee country for two major commodities-deerskins and war captives” (Perdue & Green, 2004, p. 5). The community would have benefited from the gold deposits that lay on their land. However, they moved to the territory, which did not have mineral deposits. The southern territory, which they occupied, would enable them to engage in economic activities. Before the 18th century, the Cherokee community had occupied the southern territories (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p. 115). However, when the European settlers came they developed an interest in their land. The settlers demanded that the Cherokee community leaves their original territory. It led to the revolutionary war where the Cherokee community surrendered their territory to the Europeans. The community lost its native land, something they had wished to preserve from the very beginning.
The Cherokee community lost their authentic cultures by embracing civilizations. The white man urged the Cherokee leaders to embrace modern ways of life and abandon hunting. Hunting enabled the Cherokee community to have meat in their diet. Now the white man they had allowed in their territory urged them to abandon hunting. Instead, the white man asked the Cherokee leaders to introduce food production through farming as a way of life. The white man did not value their way of life. "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms . . . and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?" (Perdue and Green, p. 120).
The eviction did not respect the Cherokee community’s sovereignty. The troupes that conducted the evictions treated members of the community inhumanly. For example, “united states soldiers rounded up most Cherokees and imprisoned them in stockades to await deportation” (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.168). It shows that the congressional representatives at that time did not respect the sovereignty of the Cherokee community. The congressional representatives did not perceive the land along the Mississippi river as native Cherokee land. If they respected the sovereignty of the Cherokee community, they would ask them to move in a respectable manner. The move to deport the members of the Cherokee community degraded the community. The community received harsh treatment during the deportation process (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.170). Most members of the community lost contact with their birth town due to civilization. The congressional leaders did not consider the birth right of the Cherokee community as they advocated for the Indian removal.
Through the eviction process member’s of the Cherokee, community lost their possessions. “She brought what bedding and few cooking utensils she could carry and had to leave behind our other possessions (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.169).” The Cherokee community had many possessions, which they valued. They engaged in crafts, which enabled them to design ornaments and jewelry. For example, they made ornaments from shell and copper. They also designed bracelets made from bones. These ornaments enabled the members of the Cherokee community to present their beauty. The crafts of designing such ornaments also served as social economic activities. Women engaged in such activities to pass time and train their daughters as a way of life. The process of civilization hurt the process of engaging in such crafts. These crafts made the Cherokee community unique from other communities.
The civilization process interfered with Cherokee’s religion. The whites were motivated to see that the Cherokee have embraced their lifestyle fully, which meant abandoning some customary practices. Perdue & Green (2004, p.11) states, “To most Americans, ‘civilization’ was not an abstract concept. Rather ‘civilization’ meant contemporary American culture.” Earlier, the Cherokee community had established a way of interacting with supernatural beings. The community engaged in rituals and activities, which enabled them to maintain peace with supernatural beings. The community leaders engaged the community members in rituals, which helped them to communicate with other beings. Members of the Cherokee community believed that a supernatural being existed. They believed that the supernatural being controlled nature and their environment. For this reason, they saw the need to maintain a relationship with the being for social prosperity. Leaders offered their sacrifices on behalf of the community before hunting missions. Such rituals enabled the community to seek protection from the wild. The civilization led them to abandon their religious practices in favor of Christianity. The members of the community had to learn how to perform religious practices as Christians. The civilization cost the community because the Christian religion did not serve their needs. They could not relate with the Christian religion (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.153). The community needed a religion. They needed a religion, which addressed their issues as a community. Christianity, on the other hand, provided a way of life based on faith. They did not relate with faith, the community related with rituals to appease the spirits.
The civilization hurt the Cherokee community because they could not participate in the affairs that affected them. Through the civilizations, members of the white community began perceiving the Cherokee community as not socially equal to themselves. In consequence, the Americans pressured the Cherokees to learn and embrace the western lifestyle. Perdue & Green explains the American ideology by stating that they believed, “To be ‘civilized,’ native Americans must dress, think, act, speak, work, and worship the way rural United States citizens, ideally, did.” (p. 11). The civilizations led to social prejudices by the white community against the Cherokee community. The members of the white community pushed their leaders to perceive the Cherokee community as socially unequal. Consequently, the political representatives purchased the Louisiana territory (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p. 116). The purchase of the territory from France gave the political representatives a chance to move the Cherokee community to the Indian Territory. The Cherokee leaders did not participate in the process of deciding which land would serve their interests. The community had leaders who could have identified land for exchange. The civilization hurt the community because the white political representatives did not consider the political organization of the community. The white political representatives should have engaged the community leaders in negotiations for relocation.
The civilization hurt the Cherokee community as it disrupted their organization and structure. The community leaders had a hard time trying to rebuild the Cherokee nation. The community had to camp in different areas before they could settle down. The camps did not offer the community a good chance to build their nation again. In the camps, many problems existed and these problems led to the demise of the community members. “Many little children died of whooping cough” (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.169). The community did not have enough food in the camps. This meant that some members of the Cherokee community suffered from malnutrition. “There was much sickness among the emigrants” (Perdue, & Green, 2004, p.169). The community suffered from these sicknesses. The camps did not provide a good environment for raising families. The leaders lost their touch with the members of their community, as they appeared weak.
The move by the Cherokee leaders to embrace civilization hurt the community’s efforts to maintain their land. The community suffered from the loss of their ancestral land. The community also lost their ways of life, because the American lifestyle interfered with their culture. The community suffered from the prejudices initiated by the white community. The Cherokee community suffered because they had to abandon their religion. The community also faced forceful eviction. The forceful eviction led the Cherokee community to camps. In these camps, the members of the Cherokee community suffered and perished. In essence, the Cherokee leaders embraced “civilization” to protect their homeland, but this eventually hurt their community.
References
Perdue, T., & Green, M. D. (2004). The Cherokee removal: a brief history with documents (2 ed.). Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press.
