Jacksonland: A Great American Land Grab (29 page)

S
ome Cherokees did not wait until the May 1838 deadline to take their leave of their homeland. Major Ridge joined a party that departed more than a year early. Four hundred sixty-six people, half of them children, converged on Ross’s Landing for their departure. A few inevitably got drunk among the liquor shops of the riverside settlement, but finally tumbled with the rest of the party into a dozen flatboats that had been gathered for them on the Tennessee River.
They cast off from the Cherokee Nation on March 3, 1837.

The water was low, and they made slow progress, sometimes only a few miles a day. At Decatur, Alabama, they could travel no farther; Muscle Shoals loomed ahead, its water too low for navigation. The emigrants hoisted their belongings through the town of Decatur and were taken to a set of iron rails. They heard a clattering in the dark.
A steam locomotive arrived, pulling a string of open freight cars: the first railroad to be chartered west of the Appalachians had now completed a set of tracks that ran parallel to Muscle Shoals, and the Cherokees now climbed into the freight cars to continue their migration. Hands on the sides of the freight cars,
watching the countryside blurring past in the dark, they rode across the landscape south of the river. The rocking cars bypassed Jackson’s former
plantation at Melton’s Bluff before creaking to a halt at the bottom of Muscle Shoals, at Tuscumbia, near the square mile of land Jackson had bought at auction in 1818 and across the river from Florence, where his onetime real estate partners James Jackson and John Coffee still lived. Here the emigrants descended the bluffs to the Tennessee, its waters smoother now. They transferred back to boats, for their route was the same one taken back in 1812 by young John Ross in his keelboat—down the Tennessee to the Ohio, then southward down the Mississippi, then westward up the Arkansas. Major Ridge’s party reached its destination by the end of March. It had taken less than a month and resulted in
no reported deaths.

There were also parties traveling by land to the Arkansas country, and their experience was a better indication of what future emigrants would face. On October 13, 1837,
365 emigrants loaded their wagons to begin the land route, which like the water route led well to the northwest before angling back southwestward. Slowed by terrible roads, over which the elderly and children had to walk—for even those who had seats in wagons climbed down to lighten the load on steep slopes—it took them two weeks to travel the first two hundred miles or so to Nashville, where they stopped to wash clothes, repair wagons, and shoe horses. Some took advantage of this pause to visit the Hermitage. They stood before the house, with its two-story white columns, and
paid a call on white-haired General Jackson. No doubt Jackson treated his guests with courtesy and respect now that they were doing what he expected of them.

The War Department had hired a “conductor” to guide the Cherokees, one B. B. Cannon, who kept a terse daily journal. In the early weeks he remarked on the worsening condition of his charges (“the Indians appear fatigued this evening—road extremely rough”), but not until after leaving Nashville did he record the first death.

Nov. 1st 1837

Marched at 8 O’C A.M. buried Ducks child, passed through Hopkinsville Ken . . . issued corn & fodder, Flour and bacon. 19 miles today.

By November 8, Cannon was describing stragglers who could not continue “without endangering the lives of their children.” As the party crossed the Ohio River, southern Illinois, and the Mississippi, the reports of mortality became frequent.

Nov 29th 1837

Remained in camp. Sickness still increasing. Buried Corn Tassle’s child today.

 • • • 

Dec. 4th 1837

Marched at 9 O’C A.M. Buried George Killion, and left Mr. Wells to bury a waggoner (black boy) who died this morning. Scarcely room in the waggons for the sick.

 • • • 

Dec. 8th 1837

Buried Nancy Big Bear’s grandchild. Marched at 9 O’C A.M. . . . Several drunk.

On December 15 Cannon’s record of bacon distributed, miles marched, and bodies buried was punctuated by news from a woman who had walked or ridden hundreds of miles in recent weeks:

Joseph Starr’s wife had a child last night.

On December 17 they buried two people as it snowed. The entry for December 25 recorded a march of fifteen and a half miles and made no mention of the holiday. On December 28 a child born the day before was buried. The survivors reached their destination in time for the New Year, having been two and a half months on the road.

These were journeys of people who had agreed to move, chosen the timing for their departure, and prepared for it. Behind them in the eastern Cherokee Nation were thousands who had not agreed, had not prepared, and would not have a choice of time. For these thousands the
journey would be harder, physically and spiritually, should they finally be forced out on May 23, 1838. And they would be forced, according to a handbill circulating in the Cherokee Nation. “
We will not attempt to describe the evils that may fall upon you, if you are still obstinate, and refuse,” read the warning authored by federal commissioners and copied on a printing press at Athens, Tennessee. John Ross “may have deceived himself,” but must no longer deceive his people. Reality was about to arrive on the point of a bayonet.

Ross faced a choice in the spring of 1838. He could see his people sacrificed in a futile defense of their rights. Or he could admit defeat and attend to their survival.

Ross refused to do either. He decided that if his people were to be removed, they must at least get a better deal.

 • • • 

The last census of the eastern Cherokees before their emigration was conducted in 1835. It showed a people who, after being severely diminished by centuries of war and disease, were beginning to grow in numbers again. The total population of 16,542 was very small but very young, with a median age around eighteen. In other words there were at least as many minors as adults, as was also the case in the wider United States. A little less than one-third of the entire population was able to read in English or Cherokee. The Cherokee Nation had a relatively diverse rural economy—2,809 farmers growing corn and wheat, 339 mechanics, 3,129 spinners, and 2,484 weavers. There were 24 mills as well as the inexplicably precise number of 66.5 ferryboats. Nobody was listed as a “hunter” or a “warrior,” the activities that advocates of removal described as the sole occupations of the Indian. The census drew elaborate racial distinctions: about three-quarters of the nation were counted as “Fullbloods,” and the remainder were “Halfbloods” with one Cherokee parent, “Quarterbloods” with a Cherokee grandparent, or else people like John Ross who had less than one-quarter Cherokee ancestry. A few were “Mixed Spanish” or “Mixed Negro.” There were 1,592 slaves.

To evict them all, President Van Buren assigned the army’s ablest officer, Major General Winfield Scott. It was Scott who now assumed the command that had once been held by General Wool, overseeing all military matters in the Cherokee country. Scott was a hero of the War of 1812, a recent veteran of the Second Seminole War, and the author of an army manual on infantry tactics. He was a superb bureaucratic infighter who managed to keep his job even though he was a Whig with ambitions to succeed the Democratic presidents he served. An oversize man with a love of fine food, Scott also had an oversize ego, often vindicated by his ability.

General Scott received his orders in Washington at the start of April, less than seven weeks before the deadline. He heard that John Ross was in the capital and left his card at the Cherokee chief’s lodgings. As Ross recalled, they met later and “
had a long talk.”

Scott . . . says his object is avoid the shedding of blood if possible, and should it so happen that one drop of Cherokee blood be spilt that he will weep!

Scott nevertheless had his orders, and went southward to the Cherokee Nation prepared to use force if necessary to move Cherokees on May 23.
The War Department assured him that he would receive a regiment of infantry, a regiment of artillery, and six companies of dragoons or mounted soldiers from the regular army. Most of these soldiers would arrive late or not at all; the insurgencies in Alabama and Florida had stretched the army to the limit. Even
cadets at the military academy at West Point were being ordered that spring to prepare to be thrown immediately into active duty. Instead of regular troops, Scott would rely mainly on about three thousand volunteers raised by the affected states, especially the Georgians, whom he did not trust. He was convinced that every Georgia volunteer left home
vowing “never to return without having killed at least one Indian,” and feared the
Georgians might commit abuses that would trigger war. He issued orders that any soldier seen committing “acts of harshness” was to be immediately arrested, and decided to supervise the Georgians personally. He at least had help overseeing such men from a small staff of regular army officers—phlegmatic veterans such as his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Robert Anderson. In 1861, Anderson would become famous as the Union commander who defended Fort Sumter on the opening day of the Civil War, but in 1838 he was known as an Indian fighter; he was one of the men who had taken Black Hawk into custody a few years before.

Arriving at Athens, Tennessee, fifteen days before the deadline, Scott wrote out an address to the Cherokees and had copies run off on the local printing press. His message was a mixture of bluster and grace. The general said his “
powerful army” was large enough “to render resistance and escape alike hopeless.” Dismissing his private misgivings about this force, Scott assured Cherokees that the soldiers were “your friends. . . . The desire of every one of us is to execute our painful duty in mercy. We are commanded by the President to act toward you in that spirit, and such is also the wish of the whole people of America.”

In surrounding white communities there was an atmosphere of anticipation. A North Carolina newspaper noted that “
a company of volunteers marched through Morganton on Thursday . . . toward the Cherokee service, in fine spirits and to the cheers of their friends.”
North Carolina also announced its plan to begin selling former Cherokee land. Among Cherokees there was anticipation of a different kind. John Ross’s brother Lewis, monitoring developments at the federal Indian agency near General Scott’s headquarters, sent a letter to Washington. “Dear Brother. . . .
Nothing but destruction stares us in the face. What is to be our fate
god only knows.
” The only people who seemed entirely unaffected by the crisis were ordinary Cherokees, who were supposed to be the focus of it. Early that spring, the federal Indian agent had made an observation so disturbing that the agent forwarded
his discovery to Washington.
He had seen Cherokees serenely planting their corn crops, as if expecting to be present for the harvest in the fall.

Unrolling maps on a table, peering into the mountains, General Scott reviewed the infrastructure for removal that was already in place. The previous commander, General Wool’s successor, had established
twenty-three military posts throughout the Cherokee Nation, most including stockades. From these posts, when Scott gave the order, troops would range out to round up local Cherokees until the stockades were filled. The troops would then send their prisoners under guard to one of three embarkation points, and afterward repeat the operation, refilling the stockades. To man these posts, the army had
enrolled so many volunteer soldiers that Scott was tempted to send some home. In particular there were too many Georgia horsemen, who moved too quickly to control and were no good for standing guard duty.

General Scott was writing a report to his superiors in Washington about his final plans when an officer asked to see him. The officer had come across some intelligence: a piece of paper. Scott read the paper and then, stunned, resumed his report to Washington: “
Whilst writing the foregoing, a letter has been brought to me,” Scott reported. It was a letter that was circulating among wildly excited Cherokees. “The letter is substantially credited by almost every body here but myself.” It came from Washington—from the Cherokee delegation that included John Ross. It said Ross and the government were on the verge of delaying the emigration for two years.

If the letter was accurate, then Scott’s address, the volunteers, and the stockades were all for nothing. If the letter was false, and the emigration must proceed, then Scott’s job would be infinitely harder, because no Cherokees would voluntarily leave if they believed their principal chief might have found a way for them to stay.

Scott had to treat this news as a rumor. He had no official word either way. He finished his own report with a request for the War Department to clarify the situation. It was May 18. It would take up to
two weeks for his letter to reach the capital. The deadline for emigration was five days away.

 • • • 

It may have been the corn planting that finally moved federal authorities to begin talking seriously with John Ross. There was something unnerving about Cherokees plowing the same fields that they had plowed for years. White men had said long ago that Indians “in a wandering state” could not really claim land simply because they passed through it while hunting. The way to claim land was to improve it—to build a house, to put up fencing, to work a farm. To become the owner of land in this way was a natural right of man. Indians failed to exercise this right, it was said—except that the Cherokees had done it for decades now, long enough that the one-half of the Cherokee Nation who were under eighteen could not remember any other way. Now in the spring of 1838 the farmers of the Cherokee Nation proved their ownership of the land one more time. White men who missed the philosophical depth of this act of peaceful defiance thought they instead detected madness. Calamity loomed.

Until news of the corn planting arrived, Ross had spent a frustrating winter in Washington. Federal authorities seemed to have lost interest in him. Then, early in April, a War Department official named Samuel Cooper met with President Van Buren; they apparently discussed the Cherokee corn crop. Soon afterward Cooper went to meet with John Ross. Ross reported afterward that Cooper brought up the corn planting, and said the Cherokees