There are many factors that led to the Trail of Tears. For many years, the English settlers had been trying to convert the Native Americans’ religious beliefs and cultural practices. English settlers wanted the Native Americans to assimilate to the traditional European lifestyle. With the number of immigrants coming to America increasing, more and more land was being taken from the Native Americans. This was particularly an issue in Georgia, where gold had been discovered on Cherokee land. State governments began to help the settlers financially, by pushing the Native Americans out of their land by passing legislation that limited the Native Americans’ rights and sovereignty. The president at the time was Andrew Jackson, who signed the “Indian …show more content…
As the Cherokees became more like the European settlers, they started to act more like them in many ways, they no longer had the law of blood revenge, they established a court system, and adopted a republic government. Even though the Cherokees had made all of these changes, the white population in Georgia, and many other southern states that had joining land with the Cherokees, refused to accept them even as social equals and urged representatives from the political side to seize the Cherokees’ land. In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase from France gave Thomas Jefferson, the President at the time the ability to apply the idea of the eastern Native American tribes relocating anywhere from the Mississippi River and resume wherever they pleased and live free from all the respasses of the American Settlers. When gold was found in Georgia, it was mostly upon the Cherokee land, which made tensions rise with the Cherokees. Sometimes prizes were given so much gold was found and the prize would then be 40 acres of Cherokee …show more content…
The Cherokees’ even had evidence, which was the Treaty of the Hopewell,that had shown that there was established borders between the American Settlers and the Cherokees’. This also said that the Cherokees’ were offered the right to send a “deputy” to Congress, and make Cherokee land subject to Cherokee law. The Cherokees government with certain leaders, one of them being John Ross, took steps to protect national territory. John Ross joined Charles Hicks and major Ridge in the “ Cherokee Triumvirate” and all were recognized for their efforts in negotiating the Treaty of 1819. John Ross then continued his work by making legal negotiations for the Cherokees’ as the President of the constitutional convention. In 1825 the Cherokee capital, New Echota was established by present day Calhoun, Georgia. As tensions were building the Cherokee National Council had advised the United States that the council would refuse any future session requests and enforced a law prohibiting the sale of national land. this in result would be death, in the year of 1827 the Cherokees’ adopted a written constitution, this act further antagonized removal proponents in Georgia. Between the years of 1827-1831 the Georgia Legislature had extended the state’s authority over the Cherokees’ territory, passed laws proposing to abolish the Cherokees’