Was Andrew Jackson important to the Trail of Tears?

Answer 1

Yes, he was the president that forced the Cherokee to go on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.

From Wikipedia:

The Cherokee Trail of Tears resulted from the enforcement of the Treaty of New Echota, an agreement signed under the provisions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which exchanged Native American land in the East for lands west of the Mississippi River, but which was never accepted by the elected tribal leadership or a majority of the Cherokee people. Nevertheless, the treaty was enforced by President Andrew Jackson, who sent federal troops to round up about 17,000 Cherokees in camps before being sent to the West.

Answer 2

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jackson.htm

http://www.usa-presidents.info/jackson.htm
http://www.suite101.com/reference/andrew_jackson
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=43382

He was responsible for the notorious Indian Removal Act of 1830 and thus the Trail of Tears in unconstitutional defiance of a Supreme Court ruling

Answer 3

Yes. He is the one who forced the Cherokee and Choctaw off their traditional lands and forced them to move west. The route they took to their new lands became known and the "trail of tears".

Answer 4

"Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act"

"Andrew Jackson had been an Indian fighter, and he continued the struggle as president. His new weapon was the Indian Removal Act, which would force Eastern tribes to relocate west of the Mississippi."

"The great Cherokee Nation that had fought the young Andrew Jackson back in 1788 now faced an even more powerful and determined man who was intent on taking their land. But where in the past they had resorted to guns, tomahawks, and scalping knives, now they chose to challenge him in a court of law. They were not called a "civilized nation" for nothing. Many of their leaders were well educated; many more could read and write; they had their own written language, thanks to Sequoyah, a constitution, schools, and their own newspaper. And they had adopted many skills of the white man to improve their living conditions. Why should they be expelled from their lands when they no longer threatened white settlements and could compete with them on many levels? They intended to fight their ouster, and they figured they had many ways to do it. As a last resort they planned to bring suit before the Supreme Court."

"But they figured without Andrew Jackson -- the man the Cherokees called Sharp Knife -- and the authorities of Georgia. In late December 1830, the state passed another law prohibiting white men from entering Indian country after March 1, 1831, without a license from the state. This move was obviously intended to keep interfering clergymen from inciting the Indians to disobey Georgia law. Eleven such missionaries were arrested for violating the recent statute, nine of whom accepted pardons from the governor in return for a promise that they would cease violating Georgia law. But Samuel A. Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler refused the pardon, and Judge Augustin S.J. Clayton sentenced them to the state penitentiary, "there to endure hard labor for the term of four years." They appealed the verdict and their case came before the Supreme Court."

"With the annoying problem of the two missionaries out of the way, both Georgia and Jackson continued to lean on the Cherokees to get them to remove. "Some of the most vicious and base characters that the adjoining states can produce" squatted on their land and stole "horses and other property" and formed a link with as many "bad citizens" of the Cherokee Nation "as they can associate into their club." Missionaries decried what was happening to the Cherokees. If only "whites would not molest them," wrote Dr. Elizur Butler in The Missionary Herald. They have made remarkable progress in the last dozen years and if left alone they can and will complete the process toward a "civilized life." "

More at : "Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act", TheHistoryNet : http://www.historynet.com/magazines/american_history/3026206.html

"The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation in 1838 of the Cherokee Native American tribe to the Western United States, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees affected.[1] This was caused by the "Indian Removal Act of 1830". In the Cherokee language, the event is called nvnadaulatsvyi — "the Trail Where We Cried." The Cherokees were not the only Native Americans forced to emigrate as a result of the Indian Removal efforts of the United States, and so the phrase "Trail of Tears" is sometimes used to refer to similar events endured by other Indian peoples, especially among the "Five Civilized Tribes." The phrase originated as a description of the earlier emigration of the Choctaw nation."

"The Cherokee Trail of Tears resulted from the enforcement of the Treaty of New Echota, an agreement signed under the provisions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which exchanged Native American land in the East for lands west of the Mississippi River, but which was never accepted by the elected tribal leadership or a majority of the Cherokee people. Nevertheless, the treaty was enforced by President Andrew Jackson, who sent federal troops to round up about 17,000 Cherokees in camps before being sent to the West. Most of the deaths occurred from disease in these camps. After the initial roundup, the U.S. military played a limited role in the journey itself, with the Cherokee Nation taking over supervision of most of the emigration."

More at : "Trail of Tears" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trails_of_tears

Answer 5

Andrew Jackson was a mass murderer. He was elected USA President. Tells you something.

Answer 6

Yes.

Answer 7

These tensions between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation were brought to a crisis by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1829, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the first gold rush in U. S. history. Hopeful gold speculators began trespassing on Cherokee lands, and pressure began to mount on the Georgia government to fulfill the promises of the Compact of 1802.

When Georgia moved to extend state laws over Cherokee tribal lands in 1830, the matter went to the U. S. Supreme Court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Marshall court ruled that the Cherokees were not a sovereign and independent nation, and therefore refused to hear the case. However, in Worcester v. State of Georgia (1832), the Court ruled that Georgia could not impose laws in Cherokee territory, since only the national government -- not state governments -- had authority in Indian affairs.

President Andrew Jackson has often been quoted as defying the Supreme Court with the words: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" Jackson probably never said this, but he was fully committed to the policy of Indian removal. Jackson had no desire to use the power of the national government to protect the Cherokees from Georgia, since he was already entangled with states' rights issues in what became known as the nullification crisis. With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U. S. Congress had given Jackson authority to negotiate removal treaties, exchanging Indian land in the East for land west of the Mississippi River. Jackson used the dispute with Georgia to put pressure on the Cherokees to sign a removal treaty.
With the landslide reelection of Andrew Jackson in 1832, some of the most strident Cherokee opponents of removal began to rethink their positions. Led by Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie, they became known as the "Ridge Party", or the "Treaty Party". The Ridge Party believed that it was in the best interest of the Cherokees to get favorable terms from the U.S. government, before white squatters, state governments, and violence made matters worse. John Ridge began unauthorized talks with the Jackson administration in the late 1820s. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Cherokee removal, the state of Georgia began holding lotteries in order to divide up the Cherokee tribal lands among its citizenry.

However, elected principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokee people remained adamantly opposed to removal. Political maneuvering began: Chief Ross cancelled the tribal elections in 1832, the Council impeached the Ridges, and a member of the Ridge Party was murdered. The Ridges responded by eventually forming their own council, representing only a fraction of the Cherokee people. This split the Cherokee Nation into two factions: the Western Cherokees, led by Major Ridge; and the Eastern faction, who continued to recognize Chief John Ross as the Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

In 1835, Jackson appointed Reverend John F. Schermerhorn as a treaty commissioner. The U.S. government proposed to pay the Cherokee Nation 4.5 million dollars (among other considerations) to remove themselves. These terms were rejected in October 1835 by the Cherokee Nation council. Chief Ross, attempting to bridge the gap between his administration and the Ridge Party, traveled to Washington with John Ridge to open new negotiations, but they were turned away and told to deal with Schermerhorn.

Meanwhile, Schermerhorn organized a meeting with the pro-removal council members at New Echota, Georgia. Only five hundred Cherokees (out of thousands) responded to the summons, and, on December 30, 1835, twenty-one proponents of Cherokee removal, among them Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot, signed or left "X" marks on the Treaty of New Echota. John Ridge and Stand Watie signed the treaty when it was brought to Washington. Chief Ross, as expected, refused. The signatories were violating a Cherokee Nation law drafted by John Ridge (passed in 1829) which had made it a crime to sign away Cherokee lands, the punishment for which was death.

Not a single official of the Cherokee Council signed the document. This treaty gave up all the Cherokee land east of the Mississippi. Despite the protests by the Cherokee National Council and principal Chief Ross that the document was a fraud, Congress ratified the treaty on May 23, 1836, by just one vote. A number of Cherokees (including the Ridge party) left for the West at this time, joining those who had already emigrated. By the end of 1836, more than 6,000 Cherokees had moved to the West. More than 16,000 remained in the South, however; the terms of the treaty gave them two years to leave.

Answer 8

becuase he was the president at the time

Answer 9

sure was