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History of the Trail of Tears, Part I · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry and the air Conditioner.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: So it's stuff you should know. This is a little
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: loud today from the Dank Bowels Bar Bowels. Oh I'm
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: glad you laughed, because it's probably gonna be the last
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: one that you folks are gonna hear. Yeah, this one's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: heavy over the next two episodes. Not a lot of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: great ways to inject humor into the trail of tears.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: If it comes up and it's tasteful, we'll put it
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in there. Sure, But I mean, you know, come on, yeah,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and I said two parter, Uh, you just spoiled it. Well,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be a two parter for Thursday. This is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a dense topic and um yeah, so we'll do it Tuesday,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Thursday on this right. Yeah, not a thirsty day next Tuesday.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: That'd be weird because people would sit around all weekend
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: without access to the internet. When how it all ended?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: You know, Um, it's funny. It is a very dense topic. Choking.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I never I was a history major man, and I
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: didn't realize how dense this topic was background, there was
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: how many things that came together to lead up to it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Because everything I knew about the Trail of Tears wash
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: what I think most people know about the Trail of Tears.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It was you know, the Cherokee people were forced onto
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this trail to move out west, and it wasn't fun. No,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: it was very sad. And one of the long standing
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: urban legends or myths or I don't know what you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: call it, um, but falsehoods that I always had heard
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: was that it was called the Trail of tears because, um,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: despite all the hardships, that Indians were so stoic that
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: it was the white sailors who came out to watch
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: them leave that we're crying. I don't think I ever
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: heard that. I heard that for years, starting in grade
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: school going up to college. So it's not called an
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: urban myth. It's called public school in America in the eighties,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I guess, so, yeah, But I mean that was overall though,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: aside from that big falsehood, like my conception of the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the Trail of Tears was fairly correct, but it was
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: limited narrow. It was such a much bigger event. It
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't just one migration. It was actually multiple migrations. It
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: involved more than just the Cherokee. Um, it involved even
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: more than just the southeastern tribes. Just about every tribe
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that was around west of the Mississippi was in the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: about the eighteen thirties forced east of Thesa was forced
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: west of the Mississippi against their will, which as we'll see,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: there were other tribes west of the Mississippi were like,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: what's going on here? Yeah, well you didn't invite you. Yeah.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Uh And then you know, and not just Native Americans
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: were affected by this, but this this forced migration had
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a huge impact on the African Americans who have been
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: brought here are slaves were being forced into slave labor
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: on these lands that the Indians were forced to migrate from. Yes,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: there was a huge, huge thing that happened, and it
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: all happened in about a decade. Yeah, and I think
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: this is one of those that, uh, you know, you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: don't know your past, you don't know your future type
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of thing like that should be a song leric. There's uh,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you know, you look at stories like this and you
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: can apply certain aspects of it too modern times even um,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you know, that's all I'm gonna say. But it's true.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, like it is true. There's a probably a
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: different um. It's its own reasoning. The trail of tears,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: what what began and kicked off, the trail of tears
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is its own thing that we don't really run into anymore.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: It's almost like inconceivable in the United States because we
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: have so much land. But at the time the United
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: States was the Thirteen Colonies, and it ran from Georgia
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: up to oh basically Canada. What was the northernmost thirteenth
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: colony or colony was in Massachusetts. Maine wasn't around, was it, Well,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: it existed. They were weird manners even back then. But
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: it would have been under probably like French control or
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: something in part of Canada, maybe, I would guess, I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: don't know well. At any rate, the colonial America was
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a in the early United States, was a strip of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: land along the eastern seaboard, the west of that west
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  Speaker 1: of the Appalachians. Basically, there were a lot of people,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of Native Americans. The French were running around.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: The British were out there as well, but for the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: most part there was a lot of land elsewhere. But
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: it was a lot of it was under Indian control
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: native American control, and so when the United States said
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: we want to push out, as a matter of fact,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: let's just take over the whole continent, what they ran
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: into was that this land was already on or Indian control.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And they had two choices either say, okay, we're gonna
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: stay here or go to war with the Indians, and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the United States chose the ladder at every turn. Yeah,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: because like, uh, and you put this one together a
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: very nice job. Um, but you astutely point out that
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: by the late eighteenth century people white European settlers have
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: been co mingling for a couple of centuries. This wasn't
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: like a brand new thing. Um. And there was a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: big there was a big push for more land because
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: ostensibly what would happen is white settlers would eventually say,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: you know, we think that you people, it's very cute
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that you're not claiming ownership and you just kind of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: share and share alike mostly right, you don't recognize property rights. Yeah,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Louis k has a very funny little bit about that.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: By the way, Um, you can look that up on YouTube.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: But um, we think we can use this better than
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you have been using it since the dawn of time.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And uh so we're gonna well, like you said, there's
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a couple of choices. You can stay here and become
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: more like us, or you can get the heck out. Well,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: those were the two. Those were the two, um, the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: two ways of dealing with what came to be termed
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: as the Indian problem in the early United States. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: from the beginning there there was this problem where white said,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: we need more land. Indians had the land, so the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Whites wanted it. And so there were those two two
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: ways of doing it. It It was either you can stay
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and become one of us, or you can move. And
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: George Washington was actually a proponent of the first one
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: called in culturation, Yeah, which, uh, you know, depending on
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: what tribe you were in, and even within the tribe,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it varied greatly on how much you were in cultured.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: But a lot of Native Americans really kind of jumped
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: on board that. And you know, and this is something
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't really know to what degree it got to,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: but you know, some of them gained great wealth and
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: changed their names to Anglo names, and had kids and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: gave them Anglo names. Some of them married white settlers. Uh,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: they formed I think it was at the Cherokee, who
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: established their own alphabet and had a bilingual newspaper by Yeah,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the Cherokee Phoenix. Yeah, they owned. There were slave owners.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know that. So a lot of them,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: well a portion of them really took to this uh
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and culturation aspect and said, you know what, I'm on
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: board the shore beats the alternative, which is getting the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: heck out of Dodge. Plus check out the steamship I
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: just bought, you know. Yeah, And I guess I shouldn't
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: say get the heck out of Dodge because it was
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the means Dodge City, right. Okay. So there was the Cherokee,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Seminole, and the Creek, and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: they were considered there were many more tribes obviously around
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the United States than that, but those five were considered
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  Speaker 1: what we're known to white people as the five civilized tribes.
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  Speaker 1: They were the ones who had enculturated the most, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: from what I understand, out of all of them, the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Cherokee was the most inculturated of even the five civilized tribes. Right,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: unculturated or uncultured, I don't know, I I have a thing.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I've noticed people instead of saying like oriented, they're they're
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: adding like an aided there, So orientated. Yeah, there's a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: lot of words like that I've noticed lately. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know where this is coming from. Why it's oriented is fine,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Well you gotta add a syllable. Yeah, it's not just oriented.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: It seems it's we're losing our language. Well that's that's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: a prescriptive ist thinking. No, I'm not like that a
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: long champion. The other which is language evolves. That's descriptive ist. Yeah,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: but I also don't think you should say orientated. I agree.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So that's just specific. That's just that's just heavn something
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: stick in your crawl. So, um, what comes along with
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: uh in culturation is adopting this European materialism and said, hey,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I like I like having this nice stuff, right, and
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  Speaker 1: not only that it shows other people, uh that I'm wealthy,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: that I mean something. Yeah, I've got some status here.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And once uh, these Native Americans bought into that, these
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: European settlers like, well, now we've got them. Yeah, this
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is kind of just what we hope for. Not that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it was some evil plan, but it kind of worked
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: in their favor basically. Yeah, because if you were a
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: leader in a Native American tribe, most of the Native
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: American tribes, one way to consolidate your power and basically
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: turn your position into an official chief to them, like
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: become an actual chief of your tribe um was to
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: basically be a patron to a large group of people, right,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: and especially among the five civilized tribes, the the demand
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: for white produced European produced goods, it was pretty high.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So if you get your hands on a lot of
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: those and turn around and redistribute him like a patron
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: to your folks. Yeah, they were gonna say, hey, man,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: we'll follow you into battle, We'll go up against your
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: political enemies on your side. You're our chief. And if
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you could do that with enough people, you could become
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: chief of the whole tribe. Right. So early on the
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Native Americans who were undertaking this process of becoming chief
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: through distribution of wealth, they were just trading like pelts
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and stuff at trading posts. Yeah, they had it was
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: supply and demand that the European settlers had these, you know,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: fancy new things that the Native America has never seen.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They wanted a piece of that and the European settler said, boy,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you folks are really good at hunting and skinning animals,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and the fur trade is is lucrative, and so why
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: don't we scratch each other's backs here we set up
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: these officially sanctioned trading posts and you can come. Uh.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I was about to say bye, but I guess it was.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It was swapping stuff, swapping the swapping post, right, and um,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it sort of worked out for a little while until
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the fur trade started to decline because they wanted so
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: much for these animal populations started to dwindle a bit, right,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: So the Europeans still had all the stuff that the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Native Americans wanted. The Native Americans were having a harder
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and harder time getting their hands on pelts to trade.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: What they found was that at the trading post, which
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: by the way, was the only place that they were
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: legally around allowed to trade, I think you have to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: say trading post though the trading post. Um, they found
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that they could be extended lines of credit there. Yeah,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: and that was kind of the beginning of the trouble. Right. So,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: if you were a Native American leader who was trading
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: at a trading post and you went into debt from
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the understanding, the customary understanding between Anglos and Native Americans
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: was that you were in debt on behalf of your
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: whole tribe. It wasn't just you, wasn't just your family.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Your whole tribe was the people who didn't like you,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: people who would fall you into battle, didn't matter. Everybody
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: was in debt now because of you. So all of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a sudden, the the Native American leaders who had gotten
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: into this credit trap would say, you know, how can
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I repay you? And they tried every way they could.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: The first thing they didn't they they basically went to work,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: started growing crops, just did everything they could pay it back.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: What they found was at the government at the trading post,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: said we don't want any of that. We don't want
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: any money, we don't want any pelts anymore. We want
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: your land. That's how you repay this debt. That's the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: only way. Yeah, there was kind of a general thing
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I picked up on throughout this whole thing that that
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: was either it was probably both a lack of understanding
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: generally and a lack of caring about how these tribes
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: functioned and worked before they got there. Yeah, like you know,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: these tribes were huge groups of people over wide swaths
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: of land, and they weren't all like one huge nation
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: with one central leader, like it was a regional many times.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And like you said, when they went to make these trades,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the Indian chief might have thought, and by the way,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I did look up like Indian, Native American, American Indian,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: and in terms of discussing history, they say, it's kind
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: of okay to use all three. Yeah, so I just
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: wanted to c a there, that's a good one, thanks. Uh.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: But like the Native American chief might come in and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and in his mind he's thinking, I'm just sort of
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: making this deal for our little regional section of the Cherokee.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But to the white settlers they were like, I can't
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: tell the difference you get. You're all one big tribe
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to me, right, you all got feathers on, yeah exactly.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You know, that was sort of the attitude. Right. So
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: when they went to debt, and when they couldn't repay
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the debt, the the tribe would be forced to seed
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: land to the government to repay that debt. So in
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that is one way that massive amounts of land were
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: seeded from Native Americans in the Southeast and the east
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: um ceded land to the federal government because the government,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: again was in the business of collecting land from Native
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Americans and redistributing it to white settlers. Yeah, and and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: some of them kind of uh, smartly and naively at
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the same time, said, you know what, they're coming for
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: our land, so maybe we can we can give them
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: some of this land in exchange to be able to
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: keep some of it ourselves. And so they tried this
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: this process at first, and like an accommodation basically, yeah,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: like you let us keep some you can have this.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: We got some swamp land we don't care about where.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: We're not going to tell you that you can have
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the swamp land. You've got to protect this and the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and the settler said, sure, that sounds great. Well, the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: fed the federal government would say that, but what the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: problem was the settlers, the white settlers who would encroach
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: on that land, were like, we didn't sign any treaty
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: with you, and who's going to stop us. The federal government. No,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you're not going to lift a finger. They may tell
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you one thing, but nobody's stopping me from coming on
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: your land and hunting, growing crops or building a barn. Uh,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: killing your livestock, maybe killing you. There were squatters with
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: basically yeah, but with impunity. Yeah, and they they either
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: didn't get the message or they didn't care, or both.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: It was probably both. So then what happens and throughout
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: this whole process, it's very cyclical. It happened over and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: over again in regions all over the original well basically
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: everywhere east of the Mississippi River. So this would happen.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: These people would spot encroach, didn't care what deal they
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: had made with the federal government, and so then there
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: would be retaliation by the Native American tribes and they
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: would they would fight each other. They would go, you know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: into battle, not huge wars, yet you know, these skirmishes
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: basically would take place, skirmishes and massacres on both sides
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: for sure. I mean, you gotta you have to say
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: it like. It was very bloody and very brutal on
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: both sides. So when white blood was spilled, the federal
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: government would arrive and say, probably shouldn't have done that. Uh,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: maybe there would be a battle with the with the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the tribe that was being subdued at the time. Maybe
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: maybe not, But either way, the treaty that the government
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: hadn't been enforcing before now was officially out the door.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: A new treaty had to be established that would include
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: seating even more lands to the federal government, which would
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in turn be given to white settlers who would come
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: in and would then further encroach on the the Indian
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: land and the cycle would start over again. Alright, so
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: let's take a break. That was sort of the uh,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the setup for in culturation. We're gonna come back and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: talk about the other side of the coin separation proposed
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: by one Thomas Jefferson right after this. All right, so
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: you got George Washington saying, assimilate into our society. Maybe
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: we can work this all out. It'll be great. There
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: won't be any problems. Do you have, Thomas Jefferson. George
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Washington was a used car salesman. Uh. Then Thomas Jefferson
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: comes along and said, you know what, here's what we
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: should do. It's pretty clear that what will become our
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: United States. You didn't use those words, is like the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: western borders is gonna be the Mississippi River. Who needs
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: anything west of the Mississippi, right, what's out there? Uh?
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: So here we have this Louisiana purchase. We just bought
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty seven thousand square miles. Uh, a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: lot of square miles. There's a lot of squy. We
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: should do one on that, by the way. At some point, um,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: we did one on the Lewis and Clark expedition. They
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: had a lot to do with the Louis. Yeah, that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: was one of my favorites do. Um. So he said,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you know, here's what we'll do. Why don't why don't
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you we just relocate you folks west of the Mississippi.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: That way, we've got our little country over here. You're
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: out there where we you know, you won't be bothered
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: by us anymore. Trust me, I'm Thomas Jefferson. Uh. And
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: it'll it'll work out for everyone. And then the Plains
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Indians were going, what about us, We're already out here?
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And then what, yeah, who are you? We don't recognize you. Uh.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And like you point out, there were some real problems,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: one of which was it wasn't theirs to uh, to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: resettle or to resettle other people, right because what would
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: become in the American's mind, Indian territory was already Indian territory.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It was just different. India but it also, I mean
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it displays not like a lack of comprehension on the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: part of the federal government, it displays a lack of
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: caring about what happened. It was like, there's already Indians
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: out here, there's not white people out here. We're probably
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: never gonna want to go out here. So get off
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of this land and go out here. And how about this,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: We'll say that the War Department will protect you. Yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And another big problem was these these eastern uh Native
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Americans were like, well, we don't want to go out there.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: We're used to the lush South and I don't know
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: how to succeed out there. Really, Yeah, have you read
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: our newspaper. We've been talking about this for years now.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: We don't want to move. What was it called the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Cherokee Phoenix, which is kind of confusing. It wasn't at
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the time because Phoenix didn't exist yet. But now Cherokee
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: or Phoenix, make up your mind what town. I don't
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: think they met the town, I know, because it didn't
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: exist yet. I get the joke. And did Phoenix burn
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: or something? Is that why it's called Phoenix? That I
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: don't know? Someone will tell us from Phoenix and then say,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: why haven't you toward Phoenix yet? We'll come to Phoenix
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: at some point, right probably, or Tucson or Yuma. Didn't
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: He used to do time in Yuma. Yeah, I did
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: some hard time in hum. I don't know if we
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: could fill a small restaurant in Yuma. Okay, that's just
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: not a lot of people there. That's fine. Maybe you
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: never know, we'll do an intimate storytellers show an evening
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: with Josh and Charge at my former restaurant, Julietta's Patty
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: O Cafe. Nice. That's some buzz marketing right there. Yeah,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I assume they're still around. So I think ultimately we
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: were talking about far through a soft track was um,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the Plains tribes were like, we're here, please don't send
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: anyone out here. And the Eastern tribes were like, we
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: don't want to move. What are you guys not kidding
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: about this? And so the federal government said, oh, this
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: is a real pickle. Where are we gonna do? Oh
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: we'll just ignore both. Well. Yeah, and also they were
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know how a where they were this, but
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: what was going on where these factions were being created
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and within tribes they were being split into people who
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: wanted to kind of stay and defend their homeland and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: people that were like, oh, maybe we should just pack
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: up and go and try and resettle somewhere else. Uh.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And this factionalism, it was kind of a recurring thing,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: part of this big cycle and would end up in
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: many ways being their undoing I think. Yeah, and a
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: lot of tribes basically split into like in eighteen seventeen, um,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: it's a group of Cherokees said, you know what, forget it,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: where is this gonna move to Indian territory? And they did.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: They were called the old settlers, will move from Indian
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: territory to Indian territors, right, and they call his Indians
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, they ended up in Arkansas and then Oklahoma,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and basically we're the factionalism was already deep enough, but
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the separation then following that factionalism effectively split the Cherokee
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: into two separate tribes, the Eastern and the Western. But
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: they were no longer like it wasn't like the Eastern
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: was the satellite division or the Western was the satellite
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: division of the whole tribe. They were like two different
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: tribes as a result of that, and that happened with
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: more than just the Cherokee as well. This this whole
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: idea of should we stay in fight or should we
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: just say forget it and and move It was a
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: big problem. It was a big discussion that had a
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: tough a tough solution because if you said we need
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to move, well, then you needed to negotiate a treaty
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: so you could get as much land as possible out west.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: But if you wanted to stay, you needed as many
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: people as possible to stay because there's strength and safety
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in numbers. So the fact that it was split was
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a real problem for the tribes themselves. I wonder if
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the tribes had not split up, and in fact, if
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the tribes, all the different tribes had banded together, well,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: they tried that. Well. I guess what I'm asking is
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: what what was the total population east of the Mississippi
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: River of Native Americans compared to white people. I don't know,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: but I think it was significantly less, so they probably
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't have mattered. No, but if you want
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to get into alternate histories, if the if Native Americans
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: had had an immune I need a smallpox may not
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: have been a United States because many more people, Yeah,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: something like a hundred million or something like that, as
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: much as Europe, all of Europe so had small bands
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of European colonists coming. Even if they'd sent like armies
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and stuff, they would have had a much harder time.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: But the fact that the North American continent had been
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: effectively decimated um by smallpox, meant that there were far
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: fewer people and that their cultures had had been hit
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in large part already by this breaking up of of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: these epidemics. All right, so I gave the world or
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Hollywood um shark Nado okay um, a TV show on
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the alternate history where smallpox never happened and Native Americans
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: ended up enslaving the white man. Make that into a
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: show kind of like Man in the High Castle. But
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: but you know, rewrite it for Native Americans coming out,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: that'd be pretty good. Yeah. The white sellers are like, well, okay,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: we we get it. We've upset. You were just gonna leave.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And the New Americans were like, you're not going anywhere.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: You see that boat, it's on fire. That's our boat.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: We need that to escape, all right. So uh for
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the people that uh said, you know, we're gonna stay here.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: We're going to resist. One. There was a big thing
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that happened, well, a couple of things that happened that
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: kind of set the course of history in one direction
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that would never return. Right here in Georgia's particularly North Georgia,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: particularly Delonica, Georgia and other places. Um, there was gold discovered,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and whenever there's gold discovered triggers a gold rush. A
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: lot of people moved there, which means you need, you know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: sort of supporting economy. You need guys named Cookie just
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to come out and cook the beans. Right. See, I
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: knew there would be humor in this everyone lats at Cookie. Uh.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So that couple huh I know. Um that coupled with
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the invention and widespread availability of the cotton gin from
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: one Eli Whitney. Um, it lowered the barrier to getting
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: into cotton farming. And so you have these people moving
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: south to get in the gold rush. Then you have
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: people moving south for this land that was now super
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: super valuable. Uh yeah. It went from like just being
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: coveted to being like it's done, Like like playtime is over.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Where Like if you thought we were being nice before,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: we're going to war with you guys. Now yeah, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and violence really kind of ramped up at this point,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: um because of the value of the land all of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a sudden because of cotton and and white settlers were
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: basically like, we're taking this land. Yeah they were, they
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: were provoking, Um, the Native Americans are assing them just
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: basically undertaking a terrorist campaign against the Native Americans on
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: their land. Uh. And then the federal government was being
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: called the task for not doing more about the Indian problem.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: So for a lot of the um Native Americans east
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi, they basically saw this writing on the wall,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: like this is never going to stop, and we're gonna
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: have to go to war or we're gonna have to leave.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: And so that factionalism started to lean a lot more
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: towards people who were prepared to leave. There was still
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: plenty who were prepared to stay as well. It just
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: made that wedge even deeper, this understanding that like whites
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: were never gonna let up. Yeah, Like we've given them
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: some land and asked to keep some of it, right,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: and they say sure, but then they don't let us
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: keep that land. So this is not going to end
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: well for us. Yeah, I mean, plus a lot of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: us are dying, they're killing our livestock, they're burning our
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: our farms and houses. It was just a pretty horrible situation. Yeah.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I think early on this, in this piece you wrote,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you called it possibly the darkest decade in American history,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: which is what like eighteen to eighty. Yeah. Alright, so
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the federal government does get involved in their first um
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: go at. This was saying in eighteen twenty four officially, like,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: how about we have this voluntary relocation thing and it's
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: up to you. It's pretty nice out west, you know there,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: you know, an Indian territory. And again they said, but
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: we're in Indian territory. And they said, well, we don't
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. It's pretty nice, so why
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: don't you just pack your bags and get out there?
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: And then along came a man, uh who it's fairly
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: controversial through the lens of history still today. Yeah, well
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: more than ever probably today. Uh named Andrew Jackson from
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. Yeah, he was born in South Carolina. He
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: made his name as a frontiersman lawyer, you know, which
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: is what does that even mean? I defend people for
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: like squirrel related charges, they think? And he uh, he
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: also was a wealthy planter, slave owner. But more than anything,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: he was elected president because he was the people's candidate,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and he was the people's candidate because he was a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: war hero and very famous Indian fighter is what he
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: was known as. Yeah, and weirdly uh an Indian fighter,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: but also had which was at the Choctaw that fought
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: with him alongside him at the Battle of New Orleans. Yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: So this which he kind of forgot or didn't forget
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: but didn't care much about. Right, this is the factionalism
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: also resulted in tribes splitting and actually going to civil
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: war with one another, and so some that were in
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: favor of accommodating um the whites or the federal government
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: would actually fight alongside them against the other members of
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: their tribe, and some of them did fight directly under
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. So yeah, he
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: was like that was years ago. Who cares. So he
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: had a nickname the sharp Knife for the long knife,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: because one of the things that he advocated for was genocide. Basically, um,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: kill all the women and children once we're done and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: we've had our victory, and that will really kind of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: take care of this area. Yeah, which is it's really
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: surprising that I looked all over it didn't find any
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: specific like this instant or this incident really characterizes that mentality.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: He seemed to advocate it rhetorically, and he was he
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: he was a vicious um commander, military commander as far
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: as fighting Indians went. But I didn't run across anything
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: where he actually did just exterminate a whole village. And
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: he had plenty of opportunities too, So I guess he
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: thought he was a good idea, but never really pulled
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the trigger or something like that. But I was really
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: surprised because I've always heard he was basically genocidal, but
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I never found any specific instance him carrying out what
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: amounted to genocide. He just advocated did it well, they
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: didn't have cell phone cameras, that's true. Who knows what
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: would have happened. Um. So you also bring up a
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: good point, which is that this, uh, this practice of
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: of massacre was happening on both sides. When the American
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Indians would win a battle, um many times, they would
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: also have a massacre of women and children, burned down
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: an entire fort. Perhaps, um what was it fort? The
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: massacre at Fort Mims in Alabama or what would be
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Alabama in eighteen thirteen is one of the prime examples. Yeah,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the so the Creeks were became a very deeply divided
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: tribe with um accommodationists fighting with the federal government against
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the resistance groups which basically came to be known as
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the Red Sticks. And the Red Sticks were basically a
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: an Indian army in the War of eighteen twelve. It's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: prior to the War of eighteen twelve, some of the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: northern front tier tribes had kind of come down led
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: by to come say, I think, had come down and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: basically rallied everybody they could and said we need to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: like stop this white encroachment once for all and go
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: to war and all just come together for good our
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: differences and come together and beat back the federal government
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and these white settlers. And when the War of eighteen
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: twelve broke out, these groups sided with the British and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: this gave the federal government license to basically declare war
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: on the frontier UH tribes, including the Red Sticks. And
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: at the Battle of Fort Mims, the Red Sticks surrounded
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Fort Mims and inside where a bunch of white settlers
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: um some African American slaves, some accommodation ast Creeks, and
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: then some federal troops and they set the fort on
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: fire and killed almost everybody, including women and children. Yeah,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: but interestingly, they spared the lives of most of the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: slaves and took them hostage. So I like how you
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: kind of brought in the the how slaves factored into
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: this whole thing, because I think a lot of that
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: is sort of brushed aside, you know, pretty interesting stuff.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And then you said, Chuck that Jackson kind of forgot
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: any alliance with Indians that fought with them. This is
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a great example of that. After this, this war with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the Creeks, there was a second war with the Creeks
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: um shortly after, and after that the Creeks as a
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: whole were forced to see um their land. In fifteen
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: thousand of them were forced to move out west after
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: this battle, despite the fact that that included plenty of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: them who had fought alongside Jackson's federal troops. It's just,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, no a lotman whatsoever. It was from what
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I understand that Jackson, you're an Indian. That was that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it didn't matter what you did, you were an Indian.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: You needed to go. Yeah, and it's important to point out,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: like um you did here that there were massacres on
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: both sides. And while you can never justify the killing
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of families and women and children in such a like
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a vicious way, the white people were the invading force here.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: You know, Um, that's kind of a pretty big factor here,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: is I mean, I yeah, I think it is. Yeah. Um,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: all right, well let's take another break and we're gonna
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: come back and talk about Florida. Al right, Florida, Florida seventeen,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the Sunshine State. Um boy, I used to love when
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I would go to Florida as a kid. Imagine they
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: still do this. You would get free orange juice at
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the state line. Did they still do that? That's great?
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I just thought, like, oh my gosh, like anything free.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I still have that mentality. Have state prisoners lined up
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: and they just pull over on the shoulder and the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: your cup of orange juice? Did you drive off? I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: used to love the official I still do. I just
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: don't take a ton of road trips the official like
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: rest stations instead of you know, just hitting the gas station,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: go to like the official what are they called rest
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: rest areas? Yeah, rest area. Man, it's like a gas
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: station without gas. Yeah, and I had no idea how
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: many crimes are being committed, like behind the outhouse. Yeah,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: there's what was it? What was the movie where that had?
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Was it? There's something about Mary? Oh yeah, we're Ben
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Stiller was He's like to take a leak in the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: woods and he got caught up in something, some sting operation. Um, alright,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: so it's eighteen seventeen. Uh, Jackson says, you know what,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Florida's kind of nice. I might like to take it
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: for my own. Uh. They have orange juice on the yeah,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the state line. But there was a problem. It was
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: under Spanish rule at the time, and the Florida was
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: kind of a crazy place back then. It was a
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: safe haven for militant Indians, runaway slaves, anyone who basically
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: was an enemy of uh Americans. Yeah, the Seminole tribe
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: was like, you hate America, to come join us? And
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: uh there were Yeah, there were maroons is what they
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: were called. But runaway slaves who had found uh safety
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: living amongst the Seminoles in Spain would arm them, right
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: they because they were they would harass the United States
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and the federal the federal army and the plantations along
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the border. Right, so the fact that there were runaway
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: slaves down there with the Seminoles gave Jackson just enough
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: of a uh reason to invade, not a legal reason. No,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: he basically waged in illegal guerrilla war in Florida, Spanish
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Florida against the Seminole and then when he whenever he
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: came across the Spanish fort, he just take that out
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: and then he claimed that land as um American. Yeah,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and this was under the order the secret order of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: President James Monroe. Meaning Jackson went to Monroe and said, hey,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: we should stage a guerrilla war down there in Florida
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: so we can grab some land. And Monroe said, are
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you crazy? And he said crazy like a fox. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Monroe basically said, yeah, go go do your thing, and uh,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: it's illegal, but who cares, right, Just don't don't implicate
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: me if you get caught. And he I mean, the
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Congress knew what was going on. There are people calling
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: for him to be recalled to uh Jackson, that is right, right, yeah,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: no one I I you still run across historical documents, um, well,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: not not first first or primary sources or anything, but
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: like analysis of of this era, and Monroe does not
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: get mentioned. Only find him like here or they're um.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: So he kept his cover pretty well. But Jackson was
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: more than happy to take the fall. And when he
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: came back finally after the first Seminole War, Um, he
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: came back to hero. He carved out large portions of
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Florida for the United States. He had fought the Seminole
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: He had lost, but he still had gained enough ground
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: against the Spanish at least that he was considered a hero. Yeah. Boy, this,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, this was the first Seminole War. Will get
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: to the others, but they were. They were a tenacious group.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you don't mess with the Seminole. I think
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that was her motto. I think. Uh so Jackson was
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a hero such that he was elected president in and um,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: who how do you call his followers? Um, you say
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: backwoods frontiersman. Yeah, that's a good way to say it.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: But his inauguration party was so wild that these visitors
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that came to see the inauguration trash the White House
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and they said, moved this party outside. You you folks
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: are out of hand. And so it depending on what
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: who you read, either it was great that Jackson opened
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the White House up to the American people for his
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: inauguration party, and the Washington elite got the vapors and
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: fainted or uh it was just a bunch of brutes
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: just trashing the White House who didn't know how to
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: conduct themselves because they were all drunk on whiskey and
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: wearing raccoons on their heads, some of which were still alive. Really.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Uh So, Jackson, needless to say, was a divisive figure
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: in American history, so much so that his party was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: split during his candidacy. Think about that. Yeah, the candidate
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: for the Democrats was so divisive that the Democratics party
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: party split in two during the election year. Imagine such
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: a thing. That's crazy, it is. And this also made
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: me want to do a show on the history of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: political parties in the United States and how they have
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, two major times. And which is why when
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: you I don't know, if you do too much social
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: media uh stuff so at all and you see people,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you know, harping about like, well, the Democrats were in
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: favor of this and the Republicans were in favor of this,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: It's like, we'll do a little research. These are names
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: that can't be applied, as you know, for three hundred years,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: as one single, solitary set of values. No, they s
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: which sides A couple of times switched hats. So what
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: were the two? Uh, the Democrats and the Whigs. Yeah,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: the Whigs banned one of my favorites. Oh yeah, Afghan Wigs. No, no, no,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: the Whigs inspiral carpets. But the Whigs athens in Atlanta's
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: own oh hey wigs with an h uh. Yeah, we
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: were the old Man band covers a few of their songs,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: probably too many, Okay, I'd just be like, oh, I
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: guess this is an original of el chiepos if I
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: heard it, well, there are no originals. Well, then I'd
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: have to correct myself. That's right. So Jackson had this belief,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: if you haven't picked up on it by now, that
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the right of discovery was more important than the right
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: of occupancy. Right and by discovery meaning oh hey, look
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: there's some Indian land we would like get off. Yes,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: that was basically the view that Jackson held. The thing was,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just Jackson again. He was a very popular,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: considered the people's president who came into power against the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: entrenched elite who were considered corrupt um, and he had
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of public support behind him. Yeah, like, like
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: we said earlier, we can use a land better than
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: you can, and you're getting in the way of our
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: ultimate prosperity. Right, So he had he gave a State
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: of the Union address in eighteen thirty that really sums
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: that up. His views on that. He said, what good
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: man would prefer a country covered with forests arranged by
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a few thousand savages to our extensive republic, studied with cities, towns,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: can devised or industry execute, occupied by more than twelve
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: million happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and religion. And every American Indian raised her hand said me,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and he well, not you. I mean, what white person
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: would prefer a country I should have qualified that, I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: see now, But like you said, he had. You know,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: that was sort of the popular opinion at the time
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: as we came over here, fought for our independence and
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: uh so, so you know, let's really grow this country. Right.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: We've got technology, that's right, so let's put it to use.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't everyone, though there was one Henry Clay. Uh,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: shout out to our old friends Joey and and Ecra
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: of the great band the Henry Clay People, which is
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: no more. They did a theme for this stuff you
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: should know TV show, that's right. Um. So, Henry Clay
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: was a candidate for the National Democratic Party, so they
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: were the Whigs right just before they were called the Whigs.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: That's right. And they said, what's a better name for
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: a band? Actually, National Democratic Party. Pretty good band name.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: It's okay, not bad. Um. There are quite a few
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: good band names in here, but I didn't say any
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of them because it would just be a bunch of
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: like white hipster dudes kind of ripping off some cool
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Native American name. So I'm not even going to mention them.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Indian Territory, there probably is a band
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: called that. Um. So, Henry Clay was running for the
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: National Democratic Party of the Whigs, and at two he said,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: you know, part of a big part of my platform
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: is to respect uh, they're the Native American claim to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: their own land and to oppose Jackson's Indian removal policies. Yeah,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and everyone, well not everyone. He lost pretty big. Yeah,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: but he basically dedicated his campaign to opposing Jackson. So
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: go Henry Clay. Yeah, there's a guy, a senator from
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: New Jersey named Theodore frayleng Using. Wasn't the German immigrant
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: at all? Was he? He? He gave a six hour
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: speech in opposition to Indian removal. He had a pretty
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: good quote. You want to take that one. Yeah, no
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: argument can shake the political maxim that where the Indian
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: always has been, he enjoys the absolute right to still
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: be in the free exercise of his own modes of thought, government,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and conduct. And the populace is like, no, screw that.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: We want to farm cotton and get gold. Have you
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: ever been gold mining up there in Delanaga? No, but
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: you know that's where that there's golden them our hills.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: That's where it comes from. Is the mayor of Delawaga? Really,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I should say gold Panning. They don't let you do
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: gold mining in there, but you can go up there
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: in gold pan They cut your arms off if you
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: tried to gold mine up there. They take it seriously.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Another big critic of Indian removal, and we should totally
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: do a podcast, Davy Crockett. We did know that we did.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Why was Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier. Wow,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: he said you may go to Hell and I will
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: go to Texas. Yeah, we talked about it. Yeah, just
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: in the last couple of years. No, I swear, all right,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna look that up. Well right now, you keep talking,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: all right. So Davy Crockett, who I completely forgot that
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: we podcasted on UM, was against his Indian removal and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: he actually, like you said, he threatened to leave the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: US for Texas if well, he was the first one
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: to do that. If Martin van Buren was elected and
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: he was basically Jackson's successor that was going to kind
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: of keep up this UM. No in the Indian removal
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: was the best path forward, and um van Buren was elected.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: So Crockett said, all right, I'm going to Texas and
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: he did so, yeah, he did. He lost his Senate
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: bid and he says, he said, you may go to
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Hell and I will go to Tech, which is Tennessee. Correct,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: this Senate bid. We did the episode in August two. Wow. Yeah,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: it's getting bad. Well that was almost like ten years ago. Yeah,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: big shout out to Jill Hurley. By the way, our
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: official stat keeper. Yeah, thanks Jill Um. She has really
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: done a good job with a spreadsheet that keeps track
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: of how many episodes we've done. She's basically the only
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: person on the planet who knows for sure how many
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: original episodes we've really Yeah, we have her locked away
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: at the Seed Vault in Norway. Um it is Norway, right,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: But Jill just wrote us and she said that I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: believe this November, November two will be somewhere. It will
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: be one thousand episodes. Crazy, it's crazy. They won't let
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: us leave. And all that is to say, please forgive
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: me if I forget that we did Davy Crockett just
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: three years ago. Yeah, if he was said three months ago,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I would have just got it been left this August,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: it will be four years ago. Okay, so you're fine, yeah,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: because I don't remember anything after one year. So they're
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: also a lot of missionaries who had worked with especially
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the Five Civilized Tribes. Very interesting story there. They saw
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: it to oppose in your removal as well. Uh, and
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: the like we're trying to make these people Christians, right,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: you're messing up our bag. And the federal government was like, well,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: that's a really great point. But we don't care. And um,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: at first we should say we keep saying the federal government.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: The federal government was trying to figure out the best
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: way forward. What they finally settled on was Jefferson's plan
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: for UH separation, but that that removal, that separations should
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: be through a voluntary, peaceful removal. Right. The white settlers
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and then the states themselves were harassing the Indians on
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: the ground. Right, Whereas the federal government was like, hey,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: let's let's just try this or let's do that or
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: something like that wasn't the reality of what was really
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: going on there. And a good example of that is
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Georgia passed a law that said that, um, if you
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: are white, you have to apply for a license to
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: live with Native Americans missionaries. And then if you were
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: a missionary, they'd be like approval denied or application denied, yes,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: either way. Right. Um, So things were kind of going
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: along like this for a little while, and then finally
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: UH in eighteen thirty, the official stance was made into
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: law with the Indian Removal Act. Right, And this is
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: what really set into motion what would become known as
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the Trail of Tears, right, and the that all that harassment,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: all of the illegal activity, all the encroachment UM and
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: mistreatment by white settlers and the states was now enshrined
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: in federal law. It was now official policy under the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Jackson administration. Yeah, and that policy said broadly that, um,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the President can come in, they can negotiate these treaties
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: with tribes, these land deals. Uh. And we could grant
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: land um in the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and relocate you. We have legal claim to do so
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: right now some of if you're if any of your
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: people want to stay, they can stay. Uh. They will
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: become citizens of the state they live in. Not full citizens,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of citizens. Will call them. You can
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: get a little bit of land too, Yep. They'll be
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: given a parcel of land, but it's not going to
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: be their ancestral land. Will decide what land it turns
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: out to be. But they're basically just gonna be acclimated
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and assimilated. And then what's more, Uh, if you choose
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to move, the War Department will enforce the treaties that
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: we have with you. They'll keep people off of your land,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: native white or otherwise. Yeah, and they'll also help you
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: relocate to help you get settled out there on the
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: plains and make sure you're all taken care of. So
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: as we've seen, the Creeks and the Seminoles have both
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: said we're not leaving, and we're gonna fight you. Right.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: The Cherokee tried a different tax, They tried the courts.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Actually it was very smart, actually because what they did
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: was they went back and used the federal government's own
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: uh declaration against them because they said, hey, you know,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: a while back, in order to make these deals, you
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: had to official you they you made us a sovereign people, right,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: we made our land sovereign land. The federal government recognized
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: them as a sovereign nation in order to carry out
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: these treaties where they ceded land to the federal government. Yeah,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: said so you remember when you did that, Well, you
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: said that yourself, we're sovereign people. Yeah, and we just
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: drummed up this constitution. Were a sovereign nation with sovereign
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: soil within the borders of the US. And the Supreme
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Court actually affirmed that and said, you know what, sorry, guys,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the Cherokees at least are a sovereign nation and you
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: can't remove them. They said, you really didn't think this through,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and uhty one. They ruled against Georgia in favor of
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: that sovereignty. And um, you point out that's all well
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: and fine, but that requires a president that says, oh well,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said so, so I guess that's the deal. Yeah,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and Andrew Jackson was not that way. There's actually a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: quote he was talking about Justice John Marshall, who wrote
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the majority opinion siding with the Cherokees. He said, Mr
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: so called judge right. So, the the idea that you
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: have to have an executive branch willing to uphold or
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: respect the decisions of the judicial branch in order for
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: those those judgments to be carried out. If you don't
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: have that, and you don't have a Congress that will
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: check an executive that's that's not doing that, or a
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: public that will, then things like the Indian Removal process
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: are allowed to happen. And on paper, Indian Removal Act
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be beneficial to Native Americans. It was
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: supposed to be something that could be carried out peacefully
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: in actuality under the administration of Andrew Jackson. It was
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: a humanitarian travesty. Uh. So that's the end of part one.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I have no listener mail in our tradition of two parters,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: and in the tradition of those serious different stroke two
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: parters is where we got it. So yeah, we'll hold
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: off on listener mail, but you can you can send
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: us out traditionally. Oh yeah, okay, well, uh, stay tuned
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: for part two coming out on Thursday. And uh. In
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to get in touch with us,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast, join
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should Know.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: It's all good again. There by the way, sorry about
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the hacking. Technically it's not hacking. Send us an email
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: to Wow that is really somebody said that. Send us
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: com and has always joined us at our home on
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com.