” The whole point was to establish their credentials as good citizens to prevent just the sort of tragedy the 1838 Trail of Tears became. Sort of like the old white guys in ObaMao’s America who paid their taxes, fought our battles and kept our noses clean only to be told to get in the back of the bus because we are now a threat. “
YOU get it!
[snip] 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.”
Jackson's opinions were colored both by his youth in the Carolinas where they were seen as British collaborators (even though there is no evidence of the Cherokee participating) and in his later years fighting them in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana.
Even though the situation had changed entirely by the time Jackson was president, his opinions did not change.
Interestingly, the one tribe which did collaborate with the British was the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, which provided soldiers for both the Tory and the Colonial side. Due to the later fact, they were excluded from the expulsion order. The government also withheld tribal recognition until 1956 and said recognition included only recognition, no federal payments. The reasoning is that the Lumbee are more wealthy than their peers. They own banks, businesses and real estate.