Winfield scott's address to the cherokee nation answer key

Based on your reading in the webtext, respond to the following prompt in two to three paragraphs:

Consider the following statement: "In preparing for the Cherokee Removal, state and federal officials were motivated solely by desire to seize the Natives' land."

Does this statement present the full picture? In two or three paragraphs, explain how you would revise this statement to present a more complex explanation of the motivations that drove state and federal officials, as well as white citizens of Georgia, during the years immediately preceding the Cherokee Removal.

The Tragic Journey West
In 1835, about 400 supporters of the Treaty Party—a small fraction of the 16,000 Cherokee then living east of the Mississippi—met with a federal negotiator in the Cherokee capital of New Echota. On December 29, the group's negotiating committee approved the Treaty of New Echota*, under which the Cherokee would relocate to Indian Territory in return for $5 million (along with another $500,000 in educational funds), and land equal to the amount they were giving up. To see the text of the treaty, click on this link.

The original treaty also contained a clause that would have allowed individual Cherokee to remain east of the Mississippi and become American citizens if they gave up claims to their land, but President Jackson rejected that provision. (Perdue and Green, 2004)

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The Cherokee Removal was dramatized in a 2009 documentary, "We Will Remain: The Trail of Tears." To see all or part of this documentary, click here. You can watch as much of the documentary as you'd like, but the part relevant to the Trail of Tears consists of Segments 18 - 28. You will have to log into Shapiro Library with your SNHU credentials to access this streaming video.

John Ross promptly denounced the treaty and the Cherokee National Council declared it a fraud, but the U.S. Senate ratified it in 1836 by a single vote. Under terms of the treaty, Cherokee had two years to move west voluntarily, before the U.S. Army would begin a "forced removal." Relatively few Cherokee, virtually all of them supporters of the Treaty Party, relocated willingly.

In 1838, Jackson's successor, President Martin Van Buren, ordered General Winfield Scott to begin forcibly removing the Cherokee. But the initial removal operation, involving about 3,000 Natives, resulted in hundreds of deaths and desertions; Scott suspended the operation and placed the remaining Cherokee in 11 internment camps. Eventually, Principal Chief John Ross—bowing to the inevitable, but also hoping to safeguard his position as leader once the Cherokee arrived in Indian Country—signed a contract with the government to oversee the relocation plan. (Prucha, 1984)

Ross arranged for 12 wagon trains, each with roughly 1,000 Cherokee, to make the thousand-mile trip west. (Ross and other National Party leaders traveled in greater comfort aboard the steamboat Victoria.) Starting out in October and November, the wagon trains endured harsh winter conditions during the three- to four-month journey, and hundreds more perished. This is the phase of the Cherokee Removal commonly known as the Trail of Tears*.

Estimates for the total number of deaths during the Cherokee Removal vary widely, from a low of 2,000 to a high of 6,000. The most commonly cited figure is 4,000; this number takes into account those who died during the initial Army removal operation; in the internment camps; and on the wagon trains. (Prucha, 1984; Anderson, 1991)