In 1813, at the request of the American government, the Cherokee nation was requested to join the Georgia and Tennessee militias in actions against the Creek Nation called the "Red Sticks", an Indian nation who opposed both land cessions and assimilation into the Anglo-American culture. The Cherokee Nation voted to join the Americans and under Chief Major Ridge, 200 Cherokee fought with the Tennessee Militia under General Andrew Jackson. In August of 1814, with the help of the Cherokee, Jackson and his men won a decisive battle at Horseshoe Bend.
After the war in 1816, a delegation of Cherokee including Chief Major Ridge met with U.S. government officials to discuss compensations for damages done by American soldiers during the Creek war. At this meeting, the Cherokee traded their South Carolina land for $5,000, while the United States agreed to recognize the Cherokee's claim of four million acres of land in Georgia and Alabama that was originally part of the Creek tribe. The delegation met with President James Madison at his residence which at the time was the Octagon house (the White-house was still under renovations after damages from War of 1812). At this meeting, the President promised that any of the tribesman that had been permanently disabled by the war would receive the same benefits as white soldiers. He also promised to pay for the damages. By 1817, additional talks resulted in a volunteer removal of Cherokee from old lands in the east for new lands west of the Mississippi. Major Ridge and many of the eastern Cherokee tribes were strongly against moving west since they feared that it would encourage the United States to continue moving the Cherokee nation even further West.
President James Madison viewed these treaties and the purchasing of land from the tribes as benevolent. Madison stated that in some cases, the clashing tribes had conflicting titles to the land, and it was the "benevolent policy" of the United States to do a "double purchase" of the land rather than risk doing injustice to either tribe. The victory of the Creek wars, and the War of 1812 had given the United States the upper hand, and could have easily taken the land by force. But the fact that we purchased the land from "a feeble and untutored people" rather than threaten them with war, was in Madison's view sign of our benevolence, never mind that the Treaty of Ghent, required us to return the land of the Indians back to what it was prior to the war. At any rate, the lands were being purchased, and the Indians were voluntarily moving to the west and Madison was happy to announce that "tranquillity which has been restored among the tribes themselves, as well as between them and our own population". Furthermore, this tranquility provided us with the opportunity to return to the work of civilizing the tribes. Thomas Jefferson had started this "Civilization program" in 1801 and now Madison was going to continue it. Madison believed now was the time to complete the work of transitioning the Indians from the "habits of the savage to the arts and comforts of social life".
"The Indian tribes within our limits appear also disposed to remain at peace. From several of them purchases of lands have been made particularly favorable to the wishes and security of our frontier settlements, as well as to the general interests of the nation. In some instances the titles, though not supported by due proof, and clashing those of one tribe with the claims of another, have been extinguished by double purchases, the benevolent policy of the United States preferring the augmented expense to the hazard of doing injustice or to the enforcement of justice against a feeble and untutored people by means involving or threatening an effusion of blood.General Andrew Jackson was at odds with the President regarding the treaty and met separately with a group of Cherokee chiefs in Alabama. According to Journalist Stanley Hoig, in his book The Cherokees and Their Chiefs: In the Wake of Empire, Jackson used bribes to convince the tribes to give up most of their land for an annual payment of $5,000 for 10 years. This was the beginning of the era of Indian removal culminating in 1830s when then President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act forcibly removing the Cherokee between 1836 and 1839 (see Trail of Tears). Chief Major Ridge had long opposed the U.S. government proposals to sell their lands, but later came to believe that the best way to preserve the Cherokee Nation was to establish good terms with the U.S. Government and on December 28, 1835 signed the Treaty of New Echota which ceded the remainder of the Cherokee tribal land east of the Mississippi river. After signing the treaty, Major Ridge was reported to comment that he had signed his own death warrant. In 1839, Major Ridge along with his son and nephew were executed in accordance with the Cherokee Blood Law of the Ross Faction. Pictured above is Cherokee Chief Major Ridge.
I am happy to ad that the tranquillity which has been restored among the tribes themselves, as well as between them and our own population, will favor the resumption of the work of civilization which had made an encouraging progress among some tribes, and that the facility is increasing for extending that divided and individual ownership, which exists now in movable property only, to the soil itself, and of thus establishing in the culture and improvement of it the true foundation for a transit from the habits of the savage to the arts and comforts of social life."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29458
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creek_War
http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/2068
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Ridge
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