Mapping Indian Removal

Title of Map: Georgia and Alabama (1828)

Students Researchers: Ming-Ai Hii and Alex Willson

Source: Hargrett Library Rare Map Collection

Author: Knight

 

Introduction:

This particular map reveals the Cherokee and Creek Indians’ settlements two years prior to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Act initiated the Trail of Tears that, through militaristic means, forcefully removed and placed Indians west of the Mississippi River in what was supposedly their new and “better” home during the later parts of the 1830s. During this dark period of human history, many colonists’ greed for more abundant natural resources and expansion cost the lives of 4,000 Indians. One quarter of the Cherokees removed died as a result of the harsh climate conditions and the diseases that the climate brought about on the trail.

A speech made by senator Robert Adams from Mississippi on the proposition of the Indian Removal Act [speech can be found in the Southeastern American Indians Documents of the Digital Library of Georgia] elucidates the differing opinions of the citizens in the federal government's role in the intrusion of the Cherokee community. Some colonists express their views, “their lands should be allotted and the surplus sold for their benefit, they themselves to be invested with full rights of citizenship in the several states within which they resided” (Mooney 114). It is important to also understand that the Cherokees had their own system of government, which consisted of similar institutions to the colonists, including the Supreme Court, Congress, and a constitution. To impose the Removal act would be to go against another Nation’s system of government and to take other peoples’ land and alter their culture.

The importance of this map highlights the continuous expansion of Georgia westward, made possible by the Georgia Compact of 1802. In this compact, United States agreed to expulse Indians to the west, providing that Georgia would stipulate its western land, namely what would be known as Alabama and Mississippi. The U.S. proclaimed they would remove the Indian tribes in a “peaceable and reasonable manner,” which certainly was not the case, as evident through the Trail of Tears (Ibid).

The land areas occupied by the Indians during the time this map is drawn is comparatively more minute when one considers numerous other earlier maps in the Hargrett Library Rare Map collection. For example, one may observe that an earlier 1810 map of “Georgia, from the latest authorities,” only eighteen years before, highlight different Indian tribes’ vast inhabitation in the southeast. A later map, the 1838 map of Georgia in the Hargrett Library Rare Map collection, shows only appellation remnants of Indians’ existence in Georgia. The tribes are no longer apparent. Each cartographic artifact may therefore be viewed merely as a segment of a greater historical/political past. Mapping liquefies historical “facts” and allows us to make our own interpretation through research.

Key Points:

- It is important to note that even as the Cherokee and Creek were being pushed out of Georgia, many of their indigenous names remained. Examples of Indian names contained within the boundaries of this map are Tallahassee (FL), Tuskaloosa (AL), Chattohocie (GA)-all of which are prior to the Indian Removal Act and still existing today. These accessible appellations reflect that the culture of the Native Americans are still living and with us today and one should not overlook such a fact when tracing the history of a certain area.

- Settlers, like the Native Americans, also created names that appear on Knight’s 1828 map, different from the Caucasian names for their own settlements. The most notable example is the naming of the Creek Indians, which settler’s named such because of an "abundance of small streams in their country" (Mooney 498).

- Observing a later 1838 map of Georgia in the Hargrett Library Collection, it is interesting to note that the names of Indian tribes are no longer included during the time of removal, which is occurring around this 1838-1839 period.

- One must also note the marked differences in Native American control of land in 1796 and 1828. The American ideal of expansion led to a demise in the indigenous people's control of their land. In Tanner's 1796 map of Georgia one notes that the Creeks occupied land extending almost the entire width of Southern Georgia. Knight's map sketched in 1828, however shows the Creeks suffering from land loss as a result of American expansion, not to mention heavy losses to the Cherokee tribes. William G. McLoughlin notes that” [b]y 1776, [the Cherokees] had ceded 50,000 square miles, some of it hunting areas they had shared with other tribes” (McLoughlin 3). As Americans prospered and expanded, Native Americans suffered losses in both land and life.

- Knight's map is drawn two years prior the Indian Removal Act of 1830, thus there are still Indian settlements. It is interesting to note that in this map there are no county lines drawn for local Georgian governments, which suggests a lack of a strong, efficient state government. Boynton's map in 1838 however clearly outlines specific counties. One must note the rapid evolution of the Georgia state government after the removal of the Native Americans of the area.

- Before the Indian Removal Act of 1830, many believed the Indians to be advanced enough to remove government aid. James Mooney expresses many American’s ideas writing, “their lands should be allotted and the surplus sold for their benefit, they themselves to be invested with full rights of citizenship in the several states within which they resided” (Mooney 114). President Monroe approved the notion, however the states opposed it. Georgia, as well as North Carolina, “bought in all such reservations with money appropriated by Congress. No Indian was to be allowed to live within those states on any pretext” (Mooney 114). Although many, including the president of the United States, believed Native Americans should be allotted land, the refusal of the state governments led to the various tribes relocation.

Analysis:

Knight’s 1828 map suggests a transitional period in Georgia, directly before Indian removal and establishing institutions such as counties. Because of their nature, humans, in this case Georgia settlers, often use maps to advance their positions, regardless of the amount of truth they contain. Cartographer Joseph Knight's 1828 map of Georgia and Alabama shows the American's expansionist school of thought. Although they entered treaties such as the Treaty of Hopewell, with various Native American cultures, almost all of these were reneged upon. McLaughlin notes the importance of the treaty of Hopewell stating that “it accepted the Cherokee version of their current boundaries even though many whites had already settled within those boundaries” (McLaughlin 21). It is also important to note that while their lands were diminishing, there is still a Native American presence in Knight's map because it was drawn before the Indian Removal Act of 1830; while one notes that in Boyton's map of 1838 the Native Americans have been removed to the West.

While Native American's have been for the most part removed from the Southeastern United States, one can note the legacy of these peoples on the lands of current maps today. Whether it is the name of a city, such as Tallahassee, or a river, such as the Chatthocie, Native Americans still influence people's relationships with their terrain in the Southern United States through maps.

Although most Native American’s were relocated to the Midwest, there is still a sizeable population living on the Cherokee reservation in Snowbird, North Carolina. The Cherokee people have begun to prosper once again by building a very successful casino on their reservation, bringing in millions of dollars in revenue annually (48,270,351 last year alone), allowing them to purchase some of their land back including the Kituwah mounds. Although the purchases are minute in comparison to the amount of land the Cherokees lost in the nineteenth century, local publications around the reservation have ironically called the Cherokees “Land Grabbers” (Freeman Owl).

Bibliography:

McLoughlin, William G., Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton Univ. Press: New Jersey, 1992.

Mooney, James. History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Bright Mountain Books, Asheville, NC: 1992.

James Mooney, Cherokee Myths