During President Jackson's presidency many of his duties seemed to be quite controversial. One of the most infamous charges was his action taken towards Native Americans. He destroyed many cultures by forcibly removing the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Creeks. Jackson forced the to leave the land they had lived on for many of years, to benefit to the new white settlers. This proved to be devastating to the Natives cultures and population, and led to the demise of the rich Native American culture.
The first action that was forced upon the Natives was the Treaty of New Echota. Before this treaty was signed, John Ross, knew that the white settlers were going to take over the Cherokee Nation, so he devised a plan in 1835, to sell a portion of the land to united states for an amount to be determined, with the rest of the property would go to Cherokee owners. The reason why this was not passed is because the deal required that the United States and the state of Georgia would have to recognize the Cherokees as citizens, which would give the right to vote and to hold political office. Neither the state nor the country agreed to this. So he devised another plan and came up with the amount of 20 million dollars for their land, which was only one fourth of what the land would go for. For this amount 17,000 Natives agreed to relocate the Indian Territory. But before it could be accepted a small group of radicals devised a corrupt treaty, which gave up the Cherokee lands for about one twentieth of what the land was worth. In fear of receiving nothing one hundred Natives fled one by one to sign the document that was not approved by the Cherokee council. This led to the U.S. government using this as justification to force all the Cherokees from their homeland.
After the ratification of the Removal Act, Ross tried to petition to the government since the treaty was illegally signed.
