33.8 America: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 31/31)

The Four Great Indian Nations of the southeast were Jackson's problems. The Chickasaw, Creek and Choctaw were all advanced civilized peoples, but the Cherokees were astounding. Spread over northwest Georgia into Alabama and part of Tennessee, the Cherokees had a printed language, which had been developed by George Gist, also known as Sequoyah, a Cherokee half-breed. Bibles, other books and even a weekly newspaper, "The Cherokee Phoenix", were printed. They welcomed Christian missionaries, built roads, houses and churches. In 1826 a Cherokee reported that his people possessed 22,000 cattle, 7,600 houses, 46,000 swine, 2,500 sheep, 762 looms, 1,488 spinning wheels, 2,948 plows 10 saw mills, 31 grist mills, 62 blacksmith shops and 18 schools. They were more civilized than the Georgia "crackers", who coveted their lands. The independence of that Cherokee nation had been guaranteed by the U.S. in a treaty of 1791, but the state of Georgia had been chopping away at their lands for 30 years and the discovery of gold in the area in 1828 was the last straw. The Indians had to be moved to Oklahoma Territory. The journey cost them 25% of their numbers but they retained their identity, government, language and alphabet to this day. (Ref. 64 ) There were several important landmarks in the approach to the American Civil War. Among these was the Dred Scott Decision. Dred Scott, a slave, having been taken temporarily into a free state, sued for his freedom and the Supreme Court decided against him on these grounds: (1) A Negro could not be a U.S. citizen and therefore could not sue. (2) As a resident of Missouri, the laws of Illinois (where he had been taken) did not apply. (3) In any event, Congress could not deprive citizens of their property - in this case a slave. This was in 1857. Another stepping stone toward war was John Brown's raid: John Brown, a long avid abolitionist, seized the federal arsenal at Harpers’ Ferry in October, 1859, as the first step in establishing a planned Negro Republic. He was later hanged. In the meantime, Lincoln, as a member of the new Republican Party, appeared on the scene. His party won the Congressional elections of 1860, combining solid policies of Hamiltonian Federalism with the hopeful, humanitarian outlook of the old party of Jefferson. Minnesota and Oregon were admitted as new states in 1858 and 1859, making 18 free and still only 15 slave states. Lincoln won the new presidential election as the Democrats fought and split over Douglas and Buchanan. (Ref. 39 ) The Navaho Indians have withstood the white onslaught better than most and this may be because they are cultural "borrowers" - learning agriculture, weaving and pottery from their early, settled, Pueblo neighbors, stealing horses from the Spanish and many social and religious ideas from the Mexicans. In 1863 Colonel Kit Carson subjugated the Navaho and imprisoned 8,500 of them in Fort Sumner. After three years they were released to a 16 million acre reservation in the southwest. While in prison some learned silver working and with this and their other skills they have survived as traders in the American market. (Ref. 151 , 8 , 39 ) Up to 1868 nearly 450 treaties had been signed by the U.S. government with various Indian groups and scarcely a one remained unbroken. With the end of the Indian wars an economic recession hit the West, for up to 1870 the federal administrations had been spending about $1,000,000 for every Indian killed. (Ref. 64 )