Five Civilized Tribes within the Limits of the U.S., till the Removal Act of 1830

Abstract

The article is the description and tentative estimation of the attempts to assume the achievements of the whites, and to establish self-government/statehood, made by Five Civilized Tribes – Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creeks, and Seminoles – in the areas of their settlements within the States, from 1776 till 1830. The influence of certain events for relations between those tribes and the whites are examined: of the War for Independence; the adoption of the U.S. Constitution; of “the Indian Rebirth” due to activity of Tecumseh; the prevailing of certain political parties – Federalists, Democratic Republicans, and National Republicans – in federal and local politics. Certain outstanding chiefs, like Alexander McGillivray, John Ross, and others, tried to establish certain models of modus vivendi with Anglo-Saxons, and the difference between those models is also described. The author believes that the possibility to integrate the tribal communities – esp. of Cherokees, Chickasaw, Choctaw, less of Creeks and Seminoles – into political bodies of States actually existed. But the status of States before the Civil War was so high that certain States, esp. Georgia, caught Indian lands, encroaching guarantees given to Indians by the Federal power: for example, by President John Quincy Adams, and by Chief Justice John Marshall. This sort of “scissors” provoked regular conflicts between Indians and whites, and eventually prepared the Removal Act of May 28, 1830