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John Ross's Impact On Native Americans

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To be a Cherokee in the 1820s it meant constant pressure and encroachment from settlers and farmer as well as rising tension and pressure from the state of Georgia. To the Cherokee Chief John Ross the encroachment threated his people and their lands. The collected letters and statements of Chief John Ross showed glimpses of a people devastated by the Western world discovering America. Ross described what him and his ancestors lay witness to since the arrival of the Europeans, in 1824 Ross sends a letter to John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War under President Monroe. “By tracing the situation of our Ancestors for two Hundred year back, we see nothing desirable, but much to deplore – the happiness which the Indians once enjoyed…was now poisoned …show more content…

That’s not saying that life in America pre discovery was ideal. The people who traveled from the East brought nothing but war, dislocation, diseases and epidemics. The description Ross gave was that the effects these things had on the Native American people was obscured because the Natives were seen as barbarians and heathens by the Europeans. ”Let us now for a moment, seriously reflect on the true causes, which have universally produced the extinction of Indian tribes, it is their land having been swept from under their feet by the ingenuity of the white men, and being left destitute of a home, ignorant of the arts and sciences and possessing no experience in the employment of a laborious & industrious …show more content…

Which proved for their security and steps to take against trespassers on their land, the enforcement of these laws was nowhere to be found. The lack of enforcement of these laws was seen as silent consent that it was indeed ok to take the lands from the Cherokee people. Ross wrote to John C. Calhoun in 1822, “Brother, we have repeatedly complained to your Government of the injuries done to our nation by our white Brethren of the frontier states, in direct violation of the good faith solemnly pledged by your Government. There appears to be a great relaxation in enforcing those obligations. Ross related that it was more than just the taking of their land. Those expanding the frontier were acting like barbarians, destroying and pillaging, while the federal government, that had pledged to protect the Indian in exchange for severe limits on their military forces and their foreign relations.” Ross was also pointing out that it was not just encroachment with people attempting to take their land but it was much bigger than that when people were stealing Cherokee property and destroying their stuff. The representatives of the Cherokee complained on a normal basis they were just asking for the US to uphold its part in the many treaties that they signed with the Cherokee

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