Addresses the different options that could be taken to settle the dispute between the Cherokees and the Georgians. Examines what role the federal government can serve to settle the issue.
The conflict between The Cherokees and The Georgians has been escalating for far to long and has reached a boiling point, as the Federal Government it is our obligation to do something. The Georgians have started taking matters into their own hands. The state legislature has passed acts discriminating against the Indians. For example " "no Indian or descendant of Indians residing within the Cherokee nation of Indians shall be deemed a competent witness in any court of this state to which a white person may be a party." This means the Cherokees are not aloud to testify against whites, leaving the whites free to harass, assault and steal from the Cherokees. Georgia has also declared all gold mines to be property of the sate and has started a lottery to distribute the Cherokee land. Meanwhile the Cherokee national council has forbidden Indians to give up their land and move west, threatening death to anyone who negotiates to sell their land and burning the house of whites that do try to build on their land. Tensions are building, quickly. As President of the United States of America I must make a decision.
There are two conflicting promises on the table. One to the Cherokees saying that we would recognize Cherokee ownership of a large area of land including parts of Georgia. But we also promised Georgia in 1802 that if they sold their western lands to Federal government we would remove the Indians from their territory. If we were to leave the Indians where they are they would be eventually be slaughtered by the Georgians. Though moving the Indians seems necessary, it cannot be the action taken by the federal government. The Cherokee people are not some savage society any more, they have assimilated into whit culture, developing a written language, a constitution, and their own newspaper. They even helped U.S. soldiers battle against the Creek Indians. Forcefully moving these people would be an unjust action and an empirical action, breaking past treaties made with the Indians and hurting our credibility.
Putting pressure on the Cherokees to sell their land in exchange for new lands west of the Mississippi seems like a nice option, if it would work. The Cherokee National council has forbidden the selling of their land and has threaten death on their own people if they try to sell their land. There is no way we could negotiate with the Cherokees to buy their home land.
Morally, sending in our own troops to protect the Cherokees would seem like the right thing to do, but logistically it isn't feasible. In order to protect them we would have to patrol the entire border of there, roughly 7 million acres of land. WE just don't have the manpower for this. Additionally, sending in National troops to take land away from one of our states would be considered treason. As president I can't take action against a state that is a member of the country that I represent.
The only way to fulfill both promises is to Negotiate with Georgia and seek accommodation between the state and Cherokees. It would be treason, and impossible, if we were to send troops in to protect the Cherokees from the Georgians. Buying the land from the Cherokees just won't happen due to the stubborn convictions of the Indians. And expelling the Cherokees buy force would be illegal and morally wrong. In order to settle the conflict we must negotiate to buy the Cherokee's territory from the Georgians. If the Georgians receive compensation for the land they won't be bitter about losing the land and their will be no need for our army to protect the Indians. By buying the land from the Georgians we give ourselves the opportunity to personally work out a solution with the Cherokees in a less hostile environment. It would also allow us to create programs bringing together Indian and white communities.
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