Man found chained to wall in home

There were also some very good lawyers. They won the Supreme Court case but Andy Jackson made his own law.

He is considered a hero of American history but not Cherokee history. I have found him a man without character and he is always been a source of conflict for me. My teachers were not biased in any way, they gave us the facts and we dealt with them as we wanted. We were taught to love our country.

Yet, when I heard that Tsunaluska had saved his life by killing an enemy when he had Jackson at his mercy and then knowing how Jackson treated Tsunaluska when he came to plead for his people; I could never see him as a hero. I refuse to spend a $20 to this very day.

Like you said, they certainly did it then, mainly because a child found a nugget of gold. It sure seems like they could do it now that a whole lot more is at stake than a nugget of gold.

Oh, my goodness, you have quite an understanding. These Cherokee were superb lawyers and statesmen. Did you know they were Free Masons? You are going to enjoy what I did on my 2 year hiatus from FR.

http://jesusweptanamericanstory.blogspot.com/

First about Jackson:

From CHAPTER 8 - War, War, and More War - Indian Territory

[snip]To understand the dynamics of the players and the loyalties they held at this less known battle at Hominy Creek, we have to return to another conflict in the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend. In the war of 1812, the Cherokee supported the United States government against England. On March 27th, Cherokee leader, The Ridge with eight hundred volunteers fought the Creeks to submission beside General Andrew Jackson and his militia. A Cherokee brave, Junaluska, was said to have saved Jackson’s life from the knife of a Creek during battle and the title of ‘Major’ was bestowed to Chief Ridge by Jackson.

At age fifteen, Opothle Yahola was one of the survivors among the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, in what is now Eastern Alabama. History tells us after the defeat he swore never again to take up arms against the United States of America. When that war ended, large land concessions were taken from the losers, the Creek. And the loyal Cherokee? Land was also demanded and taken from them in subsequent treaties by Jackson, not to mention the Cherokee removal act pushed by Jackson in 1830. It is not difficult to believe that the alliance with the Confederacy by Ridge Party Cherokee families began nurturing itself shortly after the conclusion of those conflicts.

[snip] from Chapter 3 Law, Law understood, Law Executed

President Jackson passed his Indian Removal act into law. Settlers were moving into Cherokee homes and it became apparent to the sensible leaders of the Cherokee Nation that removal would happen. Their protests and their Supreme Court victory which stated the Cherokee Nation had all the rights of any state of the union and was by any legal definition, sovereign, did not matter. Jackson’s position was that he would not enforce the ruling of the court to stop the incursion. Prominent Cherokees in the community were made examples of to further the ends of white settlement of the Cherokee homes. Others were held long enough for their property to be siezed if they were perceived as troublesome.

An 1832 edition of the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper in New Echota tells of the arrest of the twenty-six year old son of John Bell, Jr. and Charlotte Adair. He was also the grandson of John Bell, the earlier mentioned Scottish immigrant and his Cherokee wife. For decades, four generations of this family occupied their homes in Georgia as did their native ancestors before them.

“We understand on Wednesday morning Mr. John A. Bell of Coosewaytee was arrested by a detachment of the Georgia Guard. Mr. B. is a native. What the charge was we are unable to say; and in fact it is impossible to know, for these law officers go to work without a written precept.”

Subsequent issues of The Phoenix contain letters from other citizens stating that weeks later Bell and others had not been charged, but were still held in custody, not allowed representation or visitation. No ‘crime’ was necessary. The only prerequisite was having something the ‘powers that be’ of Georgia wanted or to be eloquent and bold enough to speak against them. Such treatment would explain why Cherokees like John Adair “Jack” Bell signed the Treaty of New Echota in December of 1835 and chose to accept the offer by the U.S. Government to remove voluntarily beyond the Mississippi. To escape living with the daily persecution by the State of Georgia Militia and its citizens must have seemed logical. To them, it was a choice of having life and home somewhere with dignity or to lose it all.

Some historians contend Congressman David Crockett’s political career ended because of his support for the Cherokee against President Jackson’s removal plans. Crockett explains his position in 1834:

“.......His famous, or rather I should say infamous, Indian bill was brought forward, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favourite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this I wouldn’t go for him, or any other man in the whole creation.
I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment.”

Other popular voices of reason and compassion of the time appealed to the powers of the government on the Cherokees’ behalf, only to be ignored. One such advocate was Ralph Waldo Emerson. The unwelcome duty of Cherokee removal fell to President Martin Van Buren who succeeded Jackson. From Concord, Massachusetts on April 23rd, 1838, Emerson wrote Van Buren with his concerns.

“Sir, my communication respects the sinister rumors that fill this part of the country concerning the Cherokee people. ...... Even in our distant State some good rumor of their worth and civility has arrived. We have learned with joy their improvement in the social arts. We have read their newspapers. We have seen some of them in our schools and colleges. In common with the great body of the American people, we have witnessed with sympathy the painful labors of these red men to redeem their own race from the doom of eternal inferiority, and to borrow and domesticate in the tribe the arts and customs of the Caucasian race.

[Rumors are]…you are contracting to put this active nation into carts and boats, and to drag them over mountains and rivers to a wilderness at a vast distance beyond the Mississippi. And a paper purporting to be an army order fixes a month from this day as the hour for this doleful removal.

In the name of God, sir, we ask you if this be so. Do the newspapers rightly inform us? Men and women with pale and perplexed faces meet one another in the streets and churches here, and ask if this be so. We have inquired if this be a gross misrepresentation from the party opposed to the government and anxious to blacken it with the people. We have looked in the newspapers of different parties and find a horrid confirmation of the tale. We are slow to believe it. We hoped the Indians were misinformed, and that their remonstrance was premature, and will turn out to be a needless act of terror.

In speaking thus the sentiments of my neighbors and my own, perhaps I overstep the bounds of decorum. But would it not be a higher indecorum coldly to argue a matter like this? We only state the fact that a crime is projected that confounds our understandings by its magnitude, - a crime that really deprives us as well as the Cherokees of a country. For how could we call the conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians our government, or the land that was cursed by their parting and dying imprecations our country, any more? You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world...

I write thus, sir, to inform you of the state of mind these Indian tidings have awakened here, and to pray with one voice more that you, whose hands are strong with the delegated power of millions of men, will avert with that might the terrific injury which threatens the Cherokee tribe. With great respect, sir, I am your fellow citizen,
Ralph Waldo Emerson”

Elias Boudinot, as Editor of The Cherokee Phoenix, which was published both in English and Cherokee and read in the East and Europe, captured the Cherokee situation in just a few words.

“Perhaps Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were only tantalizing us when they encouraged us in the pursuit of agriculture and government. Why were we not told long ago that we could not be permitted to establish a government within the limits of any state? The Cherokees have always had a government of their own. Nothing, however, was said when we were governed by savage laws. Others say it is time for the Cherokees to submit to inevitable destiny.
What Destiny? To be slandered and then butchered? Yes, this is the bitter cup prepared for us by a republican and religious government. We shall drink it to the dregs.”

Just and afterthought. Have you ever seen this quote? I’m not a Roosevelt fan, but he got this right:

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” - A letter written by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Colonel House, November 21st, l933

And, our elected officials could not care less.

...time to change who is elected. No easy task; but surely there are those that care. . .if not; we ARE doomed.

Live in Atlanta as well; it's changes for the better and for the worse are stunning. And many good people putting their 'money and their faith in what they believe are and will be 'good communities'. This City had better honor their faith - if only because they like their money.