The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1370: The Road to Civil War Pt. 11 - Jackson and Indian Relations - w/ George Bagby

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

79 MinutesSafe for WorkGeorge Bagby is a content creator and publisher of long-forgotten books. George joins Pete to continue a series detailing the long lead up to America's Civil War.George's Twitter AccountGeorge's Pinned Tweet w/ Links George's YouTube ChannelPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekino Show. George Bagby is back, and we jump right back. into America's lead up to its civil war. How are you doing this evening, Mr. Bagby? I'm doing well. I've had another day to hit the books with our material, and I enjoy doing it every time. I learn more detail and fill out more of my own knowledge of the subject.

So I've been really enjoying the process. Awesome. Awesome. Well, jump right in, please. Well, we've got a unit this evening about the first thing that most people call to mind in regards to Andrew Jackson, and that is the totally unfair characterization, laying the blame on Jackson for the military removal of the southeastern Indian nations, which he bears some responsibility for, but is certainly not

responsible for. He never pulled the trigger on that, and that was averse to his own thoughts on the subject, as we will see, but also was not actually the reform he accomplished. The reform that he accomplished was one of the more enlightened kinds of solutions to these problems, and it is a particularly modern and western solution that we still have to this day. Andrew Jackson invented the Indian reservation. And even the most radical, I don't believe, would propose the abolition of these things. The population, or large portions of the population that depend on these Indian reservations, are domestic dependent nations today as they were then.

And they are of less consequence to the integrated. And I suppose there are many more that fit that category today. But nevertheless, this institution is something that we see around the world. I was just trying to learn a bit more about it. The most interesting example are the Russian autonomous regions, which are ultimately due to Bolshevik reforms after the Russian Civil War. But our elements of the Russian Federation today, the most famous of those regions that were organized around national minorities in the Russian Empire became independent countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And we all know their names.

Ukraine, Belarusia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and places like that. they all peeled away and it reveals something of the danger in that kind of organization, something that the Americans did not go so far as to create themselves, but the Russians actually copied us in a way. And there are autonomous ethnic zones in Russia today built on the same kind of justification. And we could trace the origins of those political reforms back to Jackson, reforms. It's not something that's been given up. So we'll get into the matter here. The state of Georgia figures very prominently in the lead up to this, and there are special reasons for that.

Georgia was a particularly exposed and unpopulated, undeveloped, frontier area. It was the last of the the states to be organized as a colony by the British in the early 18th century. It was the least populace of the original 13 states. And it was exposed on the north, on the south, and in the west by hostile Indian nations. And so they had a particular interest here. They had a very long and violent history with these nations. The Cherokee, the Creek, and the Seminole nations that bordered it to the north, to the west, and to the south had all been at times at war with the colony and later state of Georgia, or just subjecting the area to violent raids and pillage attacks, basically for cattle rustling and the provision of tribes that were

frequently suffering from famine. So we can understand why they would go on a cattle rustling operation in Georgia, because if they didn't, they would likely starve. And that was one of the typical justifications or explanations given for these rates. But the people in Georgia had been subject to Indian. invasion and pillage in the French and Indian War, which started in 1754, all the way up to the physical removal of these nations, which begins in the 1830s. So this is a particular concern of theirs, and that's one of the reasons why our story begins with them. So because Georgia has such a long

history of these violent attacks with these hostile nations, mostly the creeks. The creeks bear most of the blame for this. In 1802, Georgia entered into a compact with the federal government to cede all of its westward claims in areas that are now Alabama and Mississippi in exchange for the federal government to ensure Georgia's legal sovereignty inside her own territory. And this was specifically in relation to Indian nations, the creeks and Cherokee, who claimed portions of Georgia, the Cherokee having the largest and most important area, most of North Georgia. The federal government was very slow to enforce this compact. And this is a element in the talks about these Indian matters for generations to come.

So the dispute was about title to hunting lands primarily in the north of Georgia. And this is a particular concern of the Indian nations because of their hunter-gathering. mode of life. They require very large frontier areas around their bases of settlement for hunting, for for for foraging, and such. And this is a supplement to them, especially in times of famine, which they frequently experience. They have a very low and inefficient level of agricultural production. They are growing vegetables and such. But they, They're very slow in developing domestic livestock. None of them have traditions of keeping livestock at the time of European encounter.

Yet they have a hunger for them. They want to eat beef. They want to eat bacon. They want to have eggs and everything. But they don't cultivate these animals or they cultivate them very inefficiently and remain dependent on the Anglo-American settlers. And that's an important thing to consider. You know, it's one thing for them to be, to claim to be an independent people, but when they're economically dependent on the largesse of the Anglo-Americans, on their ability to settle debts with merchants and farmers with land sessions,

when they are dependent on the federal government to come in and pay their outstanding debt. to merchants, something that threatens a much more serious intervention, war with the Anglo-American community. The federal government would step in and arrange a new treaty, settle all the debts with the merchants, and claim some more of these hunting grounds. This was the process by which most of these nations lose their claims to their frontier lands. There is a major cultural conflict here because the tribes in Georgia and elsewhere, they claim a political status inside the territory of Georgia. So they have this tribal organization. There's no central government at this point in any of the native peoples. They all have personal authority

vested in a local chieftain who is the head man for somewhere between one and 200 individual Indians. And at no point in their history is there a thorough record of just how many chiefs there are or where they are in a region. So they grow in their dependency on the Anglo-Americans, and this is a cause for serious conflict. It's also a cause of legitimate worry among those with humanitarian concerns, which kind of typifies the Anglo-American mindset then, as it does now. Anglo-American elites then were very concerned about the fate of the Indian nations. Our educated people today share the same concerns. They don't want to see these people oppressed or put upon.

They don't want to see them go extinct. They hate to see them suffering. They don't like to see them dependent. They want them to be more independent. This description, it describes the sentiments of Andrew Jackson as well as us. Just by and large, this is the way most people feel then and now. And President James Monroe gives us. speeches to Congress, beginning in 1824, on the question. Monroe says that the tribes are in danger

of extinction. He says their populations are declining. They've become entirely dependent on manufactured goods that they have no ability to produce for themselves. They are not feeding themselves adequately. They're chronically indebted to us. He says the government policy has been to promote the civilization of these tribes, especially the permanent practice of agriculture, and to reduce the need forage and consequently the need for hunting frontiers that they depend on in times of stress. Monroe says the forceful ejection of these tribes is, quote, revolting to humanity and utterly unjustifiable. Now, this is 1824. This is six years before the Indian Removal Act, and we see this is a presidential concern. And indeed, in Washington's administration,

Back at the beginning of the federal period, Washington establishes the Indian Bureau, or he asks Congress to grant this. He wants to start this as an executive department, and they oblige. And the goal is to monopolize trade with the native tribes so that private individuals would not prey on their needs. and also that the federal government would be able to settle its own debts with the nations and not have to go through third parties. The states wouldn't get involved. Private interests wouldn't get involved. This was an interesting idea. It did not work practically, and there never was a means to enforce it. But it does set up the Indian agencies, and this is a major civil service arm of the executive, where the official, policy of the federal government is conducted through these men who are on the ground,

who typically marry in the tribes where they serve, live most of their lives and spend their careers among these people. They know several of the native languages, and they're the ambassadors with the federal government or from the federal government to those nations. They also are supposed to conduct all the trade with those nations. So this is actually a mercantile role. They're unable, interestingly, by law, unable to sell whiskey to the tribes. The tribes always find another way to get it or, you know, private individuals in those tribes.

They find other ways to get the whiskey from private sources. And also, they're not supposed to be able to take land as security for any of the trades. And so the goal there is that the tribes will not lose any more of their land because of indebtedness to merchants. And that was George Washington's initiative. So it shows the incentives of the leadership in regards to relations with the nations. So Monroe, he says that Congress must develop a plan to settle the nations on federal. territory across the Mississippi somewhere. And, pardon me. Monroe, he says that the competition of the Indians with the Americans, the

economic competition, the competition for land is degrading to the Indians. Over time, the Indians lose everything they lay claim to. They are so dependent on these articles of trade. They have lost the ability to fend for themselves. They no longer make their own clothes. They no longer make their own tools. They are incapable of making their own clothes. They're incapable now of making their own tools.

They're incapable of surviving without the beneficence of the federal government, which is their paternalistic protector. this point. And increasingly, we see the relationship spoken of in those terms. Interestingly, during the Monroe administration, we see the very first effort I am aware of, the first effort I have found in my research on this, to establish an Indian reservation. This takes place in the territory of Florida, just recently acquired from Spain. It's still a territory in this stage. It is not a state, which is a very important note. It's federal territory. So the federal agents, the Indian agents, sign a treaty with the Seminoles and Muskogee or Creek

of Florida to establish a reservation. This is the treaty of Moultrie Creek, and it delineates most of central Florida. So from the inland by Jacksonville, Florida, down south towards Fort Lauderdale and the interior over towards Tampa, it would have encompassed Gainesville and modern-day Orlando and point south. So it was a very large territory. And the idea was that the natives in Florida would remove themselves to that area. And in exchange, they would get provisioned by the federal government and a kind of sovereign autonomy in the region. So they would be subsidized to remove themselves there. They would have provision there. And there would be enough territory in theory for them to rest on for hunting and gathering.

really are very few Indians in Florida at this stage. This does not work. The Treaty of Moultrie Creek is a bust because those that agree to the treaty don't remove themselves to the agreed area. So there isn't any settlement there ultimately, and the whole thing is a bust. But it's an interesting example of what American authorities have in mind at this stage. So there are several failed bills in Congress during the Monroe and Adams administrations. In 1827, the Cherokee surprise everyone by organizing a central government and proclaiming a constitutional union of the Cherokee nation. So they establish a president, a legislature, and a Supreme Court in imitation of the Philadelphia Constitution. This is quite alarming to the Georgians. Once again, the Georgians,

they have had decades of invasion, murder, arson, rape on their frontiers, mostly with the creeks and the Seminoles in the South on the border with Spanish Florida. They've been deeply invaded by these raids coming out of Florida. This was actually the impetus for Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida. Following the war of 1812, Jackson goes into Florida in 1818. It's called the First Seminole War, even though no Seminoles were ultimately involved in the conflict. Jackson just goes down there and executes the British arms dealers who are selling the natives' weapons.

for their raids and then removes. John Quincy Adams then makes an ultimatum to Spain, and this results in the acquisition of Florida in 1819. So the United States actually buys Florida. Interestingly, the United States buys the whole of Florida for $5 million. Remember that figure, because it's going to come up a bit later. So the Cherokees, they proclaim a constitution. This is part of the Cherokee gambit for sovereignty.

They want to be recognized as a people separate from the American people. They don't want to be considered a domestic people, like inside the authority of the American government. They are not counted in the census. They are not taxed. They fall into this curious category that's very difficult. difficult to define at this point in time. The state of Georgia is very upset about this, and so are the original Democrats, the people that come to back, Andrew Jackson. They are outspoken that this is Imperium in Imperio. This is a foreign country inside of one's own country, and it cannot be

tolerated. This is a fundamental conflict of political authority. There has to be a single sovereignty. It's not something that can be divided. It's not something can be shared, especially with a foreign power. John Quincy Adams, in his farewell address to Congress in December 1828, so Jackson's already been elected. He says to Congress about the natives. The end of had been considered as children to be governed, as tenants at discretion, to be dispossessed as occasion might require, as hunters to be indemnified by trifling concessions for removal from the grounds from which their game was extirpated. In changing the system, it would seem as if a full contemplation of the consequences of the change had not been taken. We have been far more successful

in the acquisition of their lands than in imparting to them the principles or inspiring them with the spirit of civilization. But in appropriating to ourselves their hunting grounds, we have brought on ourselves the obligation of providing them with subsistence. Then he goes on to say, they are now claiming, though, Though they cannot support themselves, though they remain dependent on us for goods they cannot produce, to settle their debts they cannot pay, they are proclaiming their sovereignty inside of our own territory. And this is Adam's reference to the Cherokee Constitution in particular.

He commands Congress, some remedy is needed for this problem. And moreover, he says, our chief question is how. How are the Indians to be preserved? And this is most certainly the consensus. There are those, maybe particularly in Georgia. We see a lot of very outraged people in Georgia at this stage, but we must remember these people do have an excuse that we should be able to sympathize with on some level. The people of Georgia are very outspoken.

They do not want to be around these native tribes any longer. And this becomes an occasion of a test of the rights of the state, which is of particularly importance for our series. And that's one of the reasons why I've zoomed in on this issue. The Georgians have for decades, you've got to remember going back to the 1850s, they have had multiple wars in every generation with the tribes that surround them. These are people in a state with a particularly small population, a particularly rural population, that have friends, have family members who were the victims of Indian violence, were victimized by having their homes burned,

by having their cattle stolen. They are embittered by this. And normally this is not something that people get over. Your children are stolen away from you and carried into slavery in Florida. Your women have been brutalized and scalped, and you've seen it happen, and you were unable to stop it. Or perhaps you, you know, you're a family member. you come across your family homestead and you see it's all been burned and everyone that you loved

is dead. This is not something that people normally get over. And it's not something even with a Christian ethic that we can really expect people to get over. This is something that makes people very vindictive typically. And this is one of the reasons why Georgia was so very outspoken about these issues. They did not want these nations living in a tribal mode of life and maintaining their own laws and authorities inside the territory of Georgia. This is, this was their outspoken point. No doubt there were many of them that wanted them forcibly expelled at an earlier date. And we can hardly, we need not imagine very much to know why. So, There's reason to understand.

In 1828, so the same year Jackson is elected, the same year Adams makes the speech, the state of Georgia passes a law adding Cherokee hunting lands to existing counties. So they're bypassing the tradition of respecting tribal title to those frontier hunting and foraging areas. This is preliminary to adding or to applying Georgia law to all Cherokee held areas, even though tribal law and the rights of tribal chiefs in their tribal bands has not been surpassed here. This is a preliminary to that. So Georgia is really pushing the envelope on the issue. And this puts them in conflict with federal enforcement to a degree. It's important to note this all takes place before the discovery of gold in tribal lands in North Georgia.

Georgia actually adds the hunting frontier lands to their counties before gold is discovered. That is frequently used as an excuse when people investigate this period and they say, oh, well, Georgia just wanted the gold. They were all greedy, willing to steal tribal lands to get rich and such. That is no explanation for the lead up to this point. And Georgia also justifies the 28 law by the 1802 compact with the federal government. They are contending that the federal government never did what they said they were going to do in relation to the Cherokees in particular. Now, the federal government has its hands tied when it comes to the tribal lands. There are those in the federal government particularly related to mission societies devoted to the Native Americans who have been lobbied by them and they are a powerful lobby at this point in history.

they want to see a sovereign state carved out of Georgia for the Cherokees, perhaps as a member state of the Union. Now, this is forbidden explicitly in the Constitution. This is not viable. In Article 4, Section 3 of the Constitution, the Constitution says that the federal government may not divide a state. There's a means to do it. They have to do it with the state's consent and with the ratification of the measure by Congress. So it's a high bar. And Georgia certainly is in no position here to, or that they have a position, but they have no will at all.

That idea would be extremely unpopular in Georgia. So there's just no way to go forward with that. Now, Jackson takes office in 29. and he mentions the problem with the tribes in his inaugural address. And I have an extended quote here. He says, Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were,

makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force, They have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve. For a while, their once terrible names, surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which, by destroying the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay. The fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking, the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states, does not admit of a doubt.

Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them in their territory within the bounds of the new states whose limits they could control. That step cannot be retraced. So note here, Jackson says, the states are already there. We cannot redraw the territorial boundaries of the existing states. The Constitution forbids it. we can look back and ask the historical question, should we have drawn the boundaries around the nations, where they would exist inside the state's territory? But that bridge has been burned. There is no going back to that. He says, a state cannot be dismembered by Congress or restricted in the exercise of a constitutional power.

But the people of those states and of every state, actuated by feelings of justice and regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question whether something cannot be done consistently within the rights of the states to preserve this much-injured race. Now, coming from Andrew Jackson of all people, this is very extraordinary. This is a man who has seen the brutalities of frontier warfare with the nation's first-hand. He has seen the massacre of civilians. Memorably, he's spurred into action in the Creek War in Alabama by the largest massacre in American history at Fort Mims. Over 500 soldiers and civilians killed by surprise by the Creek.

in the middle of the day. A man who has witnessed what Andrew Jackson witnessed has sincerely, and we have every reason to believe this, we have a tremendous amount of private correspondence where he's offering the exact same sentiments. He wants federal policy and tax dollars to conserve not just these nations, but their traditional laws and customs, their tribal mode of government, even by a government, extension, the culture that bred that brutality because he finds it in some sense valuable. He doesn't want to see it go extinct. This is quite a testimony to the power of liberal ideas even at this stage in American history. So Jackson insists no foreign and independent government is allowed

in American territory. That is not surprising at all. So he puts the cabash on the Cherokee Constitution and their claim of sovereignty. He proposes to Congress that they be allowed to immigrate to federal territory or submit to the laws of the states where they now reside. This is an interesting choice. They can stay where they are currently so long as they give up their traditional laws and their tribal form of government. No longer can the Indian chiefs be appealed to whenever there is a dispute, whenever there is a crime, whenever there is an Indian suspect of a crime. Formerly, the chiefs were the intermediaries for all of this, and it was extremely cumbersome. So the federal government had to go through the Indian agent. The Indian

agent would contact the chief. Then the chief would decide about, about, I'm sorry. identifying the perpetrator, submitting him to tribal courts for justice. And then there's this aggrieved party outside the nation who says, well, this Indian stole from me or has committed a felony. And this is all very dissatisfying. And this is a really serious problem. It's extremely upsetting, especially in Georgia, that the laws of Georgia, are not applied equally to all of the people in Georgia. And it seems to give the citizens of Georgia a disadvantage where they are parties.

There's constant conflict between the tribes and American authorities. He says, Andrew Jackson says, about his proposed legislation for the Indian question. quote, the immigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel and unjust to compel the Aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. So he says to Congress, there should not be a mechanism in the legislation to force them to leave. They should be able to stay, but if they stay, they have to submit to the laws of the states where they reside. Interestingly, after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, Andrew Jackson is the only president in American history to assemble a tribal council and to attend in person. He goes to Tennessee.

He assembles a council of Choctaw's and Chickasaws. Interestingly, these are his very same allies in the Creek War in 1814. These are some of the exact. same people that marched all the way to New Orleans and fought at his side against the British and New Orleans. He is the only president to actually go and attend a tribal council. And he makes this appeal to them. He says, preserve your people and your nation. That's his quote. He says, Old men lead your young men to a land of promise. Preserve your people and your nation. Alternatively, he does say, to the laws in the state where you now reside, you must submit there is no alternative if you stay. So he makes the choice very clear.

And at the end of the council, the chiefs that attend from the Choctawas and Chickasaws elect to go to the territory. They elect to follow the leadership of Jackson, their old comrade. Now, the state of the nations at this juncture deserves a bit of investigation. We have an interesting fellow. His name is Thomas McKinney. He is a Protestant missionary who has traveled across the country on a mission of religious enlightenment and also encouragement to adapt the arts of civilization. So he's an educator as well as a missionary and has served in the north and in the south.

He is widely traveled, and he writes a lot about the state of the nations in the 1820s. So McKinney, he says, of the nations in the northwest, this is just a picture of the situation. He says, the Northwest Indians pretend to nothing more than to maintain all the characteristic traits. of their race. They catch fish. They plant patches of corn. They dance, paint, hunt, get drunk, when they can get liquor, fight, and often starve. He says of the Seminoles of Florida, he says they're in a truly deplorable state in all respects. It is not known that they have advanced a single step in any sort of improvement. And as to the means of education, when offered to them, they refuse.

So he's quite frustrated. And he makes the rounds because the missionary societies devoted to the Native Americans, in particular, the Dutch Reformed Church of New York. They seem to be very involved with this. I'm not quite sure why that is. But they're one of the more outspoken groups. McKinney speaks to their conferences and offers his opinions in their newspapers. McKinney is a very unlikely supporter of the Indian Removal Act.

He speaks publicly about this. He said that if all power was given to him to make a decision on the matter, he would kindly but firmly demand the removal of the nations. from the states where they then resided and the removal to federal territory. His reasoning for that was because they're in conflict with a fundamentally different culture that puts them at a disadvantage in every respect. Therefore, it degrades them. It causes unnecessary suffering with them. And this corresponds to federal policy. Also, it corresponds to the constant pleas of the chieftains themselves that the access their people have to whiskey is

incredibly detrimental to them as a people. This is one of the reasons why McKinney says, if we remove them far enough from our centers of population, they'll have a chance. Jackson, after he is president in 1929, or 1829, forgive me, he writes in a letter, If the nations go west, there is every probability. They will always be free from the mercenary influence of white men. Here, his references to their chronic indebtedness to American merchants. And they will be undisturbed by the local authority of the states. Under such circumstances, the general government can exercise a parental control over their interests.

So what we get on May 28, 1830 is the Indian Removal Act from Congress. There is, it's contested, it's a very passionate contest. It does pass with minorities, or minority in excess of what's required. I should say majority, of course. It passes with majorities in both houses. Interestingly, there are a couple of dissenters. Davy Crockett of Tennessee dissents says there's going to be force involved inevitably, even though there's nothing about force in the bill itself.

Another dissenter is Sam Houston, who is himself an Indian agent at this stage, living out in what is now Oklahoma. Sam Houston descents and says that there's going to be incredible incentives for fraud, therefore it shouldn't happen. And that is maybe a better sort of prophecy about where it all eventually goes, but curious that two of Jackson's former colleagues back in Tennessee dissented from him on this. Now, we get to the Supreme Court cases, and this is a really interesting matter. This is touching more directly on our theme for our whole series here. In 1831, the Supreme Court hears a case, the Cherokee Nation

versus the state of Georgia. So this is the Cherokee contesting Georgia's 1828 annexation of tribal land and a proclamation of legal authority over the Cherokees in the territories of Georgia. The Supreme Court hears the case, and then Chief Justice John Marshall rules that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear it, because it does not originate properly. So it's kind of a technical reason to dismiss the case. But nevertheless, in Marshall's opinion, he says, he memorably calls the nation's domestic, dependent, nations. And this is very important because the Cherokee were contending in their case that they were a foreign nation, a separate and independent political power. Marshall dismisses the case

for technical grounds about its origination. However, in his statement, he dismisses the actual grounds of the suit by saying they are not foreign nations. This is not. not a foreign sovereign power as they contend. They are actually under independence on the federal government. And this is a statement of fact and not of theory. Without the beneficence of the federal government, without the annuities, the supplies, the cash payouts from the treaties with these nations in their collaboration with the federal government. These people would have been starving in larger numbers. There is no doubt about it. Their existence where they were was because of the largesse of the federal government. They were not economically independent. They had pretensions

to be politically independent. And the Cherokees, by the way, had more grounds for pretensions on both of those accounts. The Cherokees were more adaptive to permanent agriculture, more adaptive to adopt industry, had famously developed with their own people a written language and had started publishing books, had started publishing newspapers with their own indigenous alphabet. They had ratified a constitution. They had come a very long way. Another way that they'd come along is they had adopted plantation agriculture with African slavery.

And this is a very long-running problem. When the Cherokee are expelled in the later 1830s by the federal government, the ones that are still there anyway that get expelled, they are expelled with their slaves. And this has been a modern legal quandary with the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation, the modern Cherokee Nation out in Oklahoma, they've contended for a very long time that the slaves that they took with them were not members of the Cherokee Nation, which is not surprising. But recently there is a court ruling because there are lots of suits about this. It turned out the Cherokee that went to Oklahoma were put on land that had a lot of oil resources. So there is a lot of communal wealth that's at stake. And the litigants, descendants of the slaves of the Cherokees got a ruling from the court that they are, in fact, entitled to tribal resources against the will of the Cherokee.

So that's an interesting new development. So we get that line, domestic dependent nations from John Marshall. In 1832, we have another interesting case, very interesting for us, Worcester versus Georgia. Now, Mr. Worcester, I think his name was Samuel Worcester. He's another one of these Anglo-American missionaries on the tribal lands. He's from New England, and he's also a political radical. And he wants a test case for charity. sovereignty. So he has financial backing to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, and he does

deliberately provocative things to get the case that he wants to get. There are great many examples of this kind of case in history. So Worcester was a white man on tribal land without a license. The state of Georgia prohibits Even after the 28 Act, there are still tribal lands. The state of Georgia prohibits any white man from going on tribal lands without a license. Now, why might they do that? To control access to the tribes. To make sure that no one squats on Indian land. And there aren't any unauthorized merchants going on Indian land.

So the state is regulating contact with the Indian nations, specifically out of paternalism. Okay. It's conservation policy. That's why they don't let Worcester on the land without a license. Now, people doing missions work get licenses for this all the time. Worcester deliberately did not get a license and then let it be known that he was breaking the state law. So Worcester is now contending against the Georgia law at the subpoena. at the Supreme Court, Marshall rules that Georgia laws concerning Indian lands are unconstitutional.

So Marshall is ultimately ruling against the 28 annexation by the Georgia legislature. Andrew Jackson responds to this. Now, obviously, this is contending more for Indian sovereignty than Marshall's first decision in the Cherokee Nation versus Georgia. Marshall is playing for the Cherokees in this decision. Now, this is where Andrew Jackson has memorable lines about the Supreme Court power. And I'm sure that we've all heard the quip. Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.

This is perhaps an apocryphal quote. The very first instance of that quote from Andrew Jackson was made by Horace Greeley of all people, the editor of the New York Tribune, and kind of a crackpot. He hired Karl Marx as his European correspondent. He was also a presidential candidate later on. He's at odd times an adherent of all sorts of crackpot, socialism, things, vegetarianism. He promotes all sorts of weird ideas. So it's not at all, it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

He invents this. We don't have other sources for that quote, even though it's a very famous quote, we attribute to Jackson. Jackson has made his decision, or Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it. Curiously, the Supreme Court under Marshall does not make an attempt to use federal resources to enforce this ruling. So it doesn't come to that. There isn't an actual conflict between the executive and the judiciary here, other than the judiciary makes an opinion the president disagreed with. It isn't enforced. Marshall made his opinion. He couldn't enforce it.

And the president had no need to push the issue here. What we do have is Jackson on the record private correspondence with his lifelong friend and military subordinate in the Creek War, the dashing Colonel Coffey of Tennessee, Jackson's great lieutenant who is with him on his greatest campaigns. He says the Supreme Court decision fell stillborn. They find they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate. So Jackson has been, from the start, the advocate of the state's prerogatives in regard to these nations. Jackson has contended for Georgia's stance here.

And Jackson knows better than anyone in Washington at this stage, what Georgia has witnessed in preceding decades, the constant Indian warfare in the area, the violence that. results from it. It's a curiosity in relation to Worcester versus Georgia. Marshall certainly is thinking of previous Supreme Court rulings against Georgia. Back in 1793, a private man from South Carolina sued the state of Georgia, and it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, under John Jay ruled in favor of Mr. Chisholm of South Carolina in the case Chisholm versus Georgia. The Georgia legislature immediately responded to this ruling, which was for a half million dollars because of Georgia laying claim to territory and selling it off that Chisholm had previously made some title to. That was the matter of the case. Georgia says they have sovereign

an immunity. They cannot be sued by a private individual, and they are not going to abide by the Supreme Court decision. So the Georgia legislature passes a bill and says if the Supreme Court attempts to enforce this law or this ruling of the Supreme Court in Georgia, any federal marshal that enters the state to affect that ruling will be executed without benefit of clergy. That is a law in the state of Georgia. was certainly on John Marshall's mind when it came to attempting to execute his Worcester versus Georgia ruling. One of my teachers on this matter, the late great Ross Lentz of Houston, he said, you might call these people lunatics to say they'll execute the federal

marshal in such a way, but you know, they're my kind of lunatics. And I, I much agree. This is what it means for a people to assert their sovereign power. There are no half measures here. Someone wants to subvert your sovereignty. You're at war with them. That's what it comes down to. And that's a long tradition there in Georgia. So the Georgia situation, they all out go for the confiscation of all tribal lands in 1832. In 1835, there is an interesting treaty because the Cherokee are still there. There have been outliers among the Cherokee that have elected to go west. They have a long presence in places like Texas and the Indian territory. what becomes Oklahoma. The Cherokee are actually out there before the Indian Removal Act in the organization of the territory. But most of the Cherokee are still in North Georgia.

In 1835, we see the Treaty of New Itchota, and the Cherokee are divided into two major parties at this stage. They still have a national government. They have a legislature. They have a president, but there are two major parties in the Cherokee Nation. There's the national party which says we want to preserve our tribal customs, our national sovereignty, our constitution, our legislature, and we will resist federal force. Well, that's a big problem. If you say, okay, we have a collective here, we are public about this, and we will contend against federal authority, the FBI comes down on your head if you say that. You can't make that, I guess, unless you're Antifa or something, right?

But this is a challenge to federal authority. So the fact that they're still there and they're still able to convene and make proclamations of this sort and publish it in their newspapers is kind of extraordinary. This is five years after the Indian Removal Act. And remember, the Indian Removal Act, it's only two pages long. It's easy to find. It's easy to read. There is no provision in it for the forcible removal of the nations.

But the Treaty of New Ichota, the National Party, which is urging resistance of the federal government, is up against the Treaty Party. The Treaty Party is led by a very interesting fellow named Stand Wattie, who is a chief of the Cherokee. Stan Wadi says the federal government, according to the Indian Removal Act, they have to assess our lands for improvements, and then they'll offer us a payout. They have negotiated through back channels with federal agents. The federal government is willing to give them $5 million. Now, remember, that's the price that was paid for Florida, for all of Florida. This is a much smaller territory, probably more valuable. because it's Georgia and not Florida without air conditioning.

No one really wants to do anything in Florida. And there are major natural resources there in North Georgia, the gold, for instance. But that's a big payout. There is a vote on this. This is a really tumultuous period. And it's really hard to make out just how all this stuff works. Wadi is up against another chief. the leader of the national party, his name is John Ross. Ross decides to not attend the vote

for the treaty of Nuwichota because it would lend it credibility. He's hoping to discredit it by denying them a significant number of the convention for the treaty ratification. This leaves Wadi in charge, and they vote unanimously for the treaty. The treaty then goes to the Cherokee legislature where it narrowly passes. Then John Ross brings huge petitions to the legislature, urging them to reconsider. These petitions are suspect because they claim they've received the outcry of over 16,000 people. that's more people than in the Cherokee territory. That's men, women, and children.

So that doesn't make any sense. What are all these petitions supposed to be? Is this fraud? We don't know. There probably was fraud there. But there's so many things going on in this period. People are wrecking each other's newspapers in the Cherokee Nation because of this matter. People are being assassinated who are leaders in both of these.

factions in the Cherokee Nation. But the Treaty of Nui Chota means that Wati removes himself and his party to the Indian territory. They take the payout. It's going to be equally divided among the faction. And they go to the Indian territory, which means that John Ross and those that stay don't get a payout for the seized lands. And this is what they end up opting for politically. And this is part of what is celebrated perversely when people talk about the Trail of Tears later on. So let's get to that. I know we've gone over an hour here, but I'm going to wrap this up here shortly. So there's something comparable going on down in the South a couple years previous. In 1832, the Treaty of Moultrie Creek,

The initiative to, or the initiative, I should say, to set up the first Indian reservation in the center of Florida is a failure. In 1832, there's another attempt to do this with the Seminoles. It's called the Treaty of Paines Landing. And it's trying to get the Seminoles to voluntarily remove themselves to the federal territory, the Indian territory in the West. So they can only get nine chiefs together for this. The nine chiefs agree to go and survey the lands in the Indian territory and then make a decision about voluntary removal. They go, they survey. It takes them quite a while to get this done.

It takes them a couple of years to actually assemble and then go and then survey. And then they go to Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory and they sign a treaty saying, we've surveyed the land, we like it, this is a good deal. Let's take the buyout. Congress has appropriated funds in the Indian Removal Act to purchase our lands from us. Let's take the buyout. Let's take the moving aid. And let's settle on these lands.

As soon as they get back to Florida, they encounter their people face to face. And all nine chiefs reneg. And they say, that wasn't me adhering to the Treaty of Fort Gibson back in Oklahoma. I didn't sign onto that. I didn't say that. I disagree with what you say, I said. We want to stay in Florida. In 1833, there are raids in Georgia again, Creek and Cherokee raids.

This renews the outcry in Georgia. The Georgians are so upset about this and they see this as a federal dereliction of duty. Their congressmen are saying, we are members of the American Union in the United States Army is not defending us against these domestic nations who keep attacking us. We want them out of here or they must submit to our law. And we can imagine plenty of people in Georgia, much preferred the removal of the removal of the the total removal of these people. They don't want them around. They don't trust them. In 1836, we see the outbreak of the Seminole War. Now, this is the second Seminole War. This stems from the dissatisfaction

with the Treaty of Pains Landing, the reneging of the Seminoles. The United States Army does not attack these people. What happens is the Seminoles actually launch a raid on the United States Army. They massacre Colonel Dade and his men. This is like 300, 300 soldiers north of Tampa. They ambush them. They massacre them. And this begins the second Seminole War. This is the longest and most costly Indian War in American history. It's beginning right at the end of Jackson's second term. But in 1836, Allied creeks in the territory of Georgia start raiding the interior of Georgia off of the Chattahoochee River, where the creeks are still settled in the area. Now, something interesting happens. General Winfield Scott goes in to protect Allied Creek

villages who were not party to the attack on the Chattahoochee. They have removed themselves to Florida, presumably. However, the Georgia militia has assembled in the region. And Scott, General Scott, puts himself in between the Creek villages and the Georgia militia. He then intercedes with the Creek chiefs at these villages. And he says, the time has come. You have maintained a tribal mode of government in contradiction to federal law.

Remember, this is six years later. You have not accepted a buyout. Now there's a war. Now there are creeks raiding in your area. You are creeks. Georgians are not going to make any distinction between you and the creeks that have been murdering their civilians lately. You must leave.

Or the militia is going to wipe you out. So this is the first instance. This happens in the context of war, but Scott actually creates the circumstances that lead to the removal of the creeks on the Chattahoochee. So there's this strong arm negotiation in the midst of fighting, which is important. And that the Georgia militia was there is also important because these are very aggrieved people at this point. Now, Martin Van Buren takes office in 1837. The Second Seminole War continues. It lasts like seven years, I believe.

Martin Van Buren is president when we see the organized military removal of the creeks that stayed behind with Chief Ross in North Georgia. They continue to publicize. They're going to resist the federal government. They're going to stay there. But the key is, it'd be one thing if they said, we're going to stay here and we're going to abide by the laws of the state of Georgia where we live. The state that we're inside the state of Georgia. The state of Georgia has jurisdiction over us. If they had said that, they could have stayed.

The fact of the matter was they insisted on keeping their tribal mode of government. We remember the warrior culture of the Indian people is the thing that. the Anglo-Americans cannot trust inside of their own territory. The tribal mode of government means the chief is in between the Indian malefactor and any American authority. This is a conflict of authority, and it's very dissatisfying. The Anglo-Americans also connect the tribal government with the warrior culture, and that's the right of passage of the young man who has to be a child.

to kill an enemy in battle to be accepted in his tribe. This is a rite of passage into manhood, and this is the origin of customs like taking scalps. So you can prove that you have felled your enemy in battle, and now you can get married because you've taken a scalp. I have people coming to me very regularly, because I talk about this a lot. They say, I thought scalping was this barreness. barbarous European custom introduced in the American nations. And that's not to say that no one in Europe ever scalped anybody, but this is a preposterous notion. This is something that was widespread among the Native Americans, and there are many

different customs relating to it. Some of them hung the scalps of their victims in their wigwams, and these were like signs of their prowess, their leadership, and so on. Mighty chiefs typically had a row of scalps that they had on display. But you go to the Southwest, the Apaches took scalps. But according to Geronimo, of all people, great Apache warrior, it was considered to be bad magic to keep a scalp. So they would return to their community with the scalp, and then they would get rid of it. But they still displayed it, which is very interesting. But in 1838, the Cherokee that insist on keeping their tribal form of government insist that they have their own tribal laws, and they are not under

the jurisdiction of the laws of Georgia. They are put into camps and they are forced down to the Indian territory, what is now Oklahoma. And this is the start of the famous event we call the trail of tears. But we see in all of this the drama between the state authorities and the federal authorities of various dissatisfactions with the state authorities and also those compelling Supreme Court cases related to the powers of the states. We see interestingly John Marshall once again ruling against the state sovereignty and even potentially, you know, leading to some argument about a divided sovereignty inside the territory of Georgia. So the Supreme Court tempting fate proposing to divide a state against its will in the matter of the Indian question.

So all that to say, Andrew Jackson, in his creation of the reservations, he is, he sets up a system that survives to this day. He should get credit for the imagination that goes into this. His reason for it was the conservation of the traditional mode of life, the tribal customs and political structure. He wants to conserve these ethnic minorities. and he wants to conserve them at public expense. They are dependent on American resources. And so Jackson codifies this through the Indian Bureau and their administration of the reservations. They are sustained at taxpayer expense on federal territory outside the jurisdiction of American states. The goal remains to teach them the arts of civilization,

to incline them towards permanent agriculture and increased economic independence. That is not entirely the case with the nations even now, but he does this purely from liberal convictions concerning these ethnic minorities. And this is so ironic that he is so maligned for that, blamed as brutal and heartless and all the rest, when he does not actually deserve any of that blame. In fact, he should be lauded as a visionary for such considerations. And these are things that Americans care very deeply about. And so it deserves explaining at some length, as I've done here. And this is also the principal point on which

people malign Jackson today. Jackson also adopted a Creek orphan. I believe I've mentioned that before, raised him as his son, had these Native American allies, the Cherokee, the Chaktaos and Chickazazaz who all fought under him in the Creek War and at New Orleans. He's the only president to attend a tribal council. That is an oddity, and it shows his sense of honor towards these people. This man who had seen these people at their most brutal, at their most ruthless, and towards innocent American civilians. It's so extraordinary. It really deserves consideration. So that's my syllabus for this evening. Forgive my occasional coughing. I've been a little congested lately. It's nothing serious. But it's been a real pleasure to join you

again tonight. And thank you for the opportunity. Of course. And thank you for giving us the anti-Judeo-American Howard Zinn history of this country? We've got to contend it. We have to tell these stories. Who else is going to tell these stories? Yeah. And people come to us preloaded with Howard Zinn today. They may not have ever heard of Howard Zinn, but it's so ingrained.

It's been so consistently used to indoctrinate. It's a radical communist view of American history. And it's actually technically wrong. So it's something we ought to push back against. Whenever you hear this kind of story, you need to come back with the real thing. And don't let people malign people like Andrew Jackson about his treatment of the Indians. We don't need to look far around the world after. all to understand why some people have concluded they simply cannot live in proximity to those

other people who are always attacking them and murdering them and leveling their cities. We should be able to understand that. That's a very consistent facet of human history. All right. Let everybody know where they can find your books. Yes. You can find my books at www. Tallmenbooks.com. And there I have a work about Andrew Jackson. It's called The Reign of

Andrew Jackson by Frederick Aug. I included in that book an appendix containing a number of excerpts from Jackson's administration, including letters he wrote to various Indian nations. You can also find there my series on famous Indian leaders. I've got a book about Tacumse the great leader in the War of 1812 and his attempt to form an Indian Confederacy. And I also have a book about the Creek War called Red Eagle and the Wars Among the Creeks. And that much concerns Jackson in 1814. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. And we will talk again soon. Have a good evening. You too.