As the White settlement expand west, the Cherokees were threatened that their land will be taken away from them. To the Cherokees, the land has been passed down from their forefathers. If Cherokees leave their territory it would means that they would have to get use to a new environment, and leave where their ancestors have lived there for years since anyone can remember. However, if they stay and resist, they might be forced to follow the rules of the white or being forced out of their home. The path that offer a better survival chance is to move.
To move voluntarily, the Cherokees can have a better moving condition if they prepare their own supplies, it would greatly reduce the number of deaths. The Cherokees can settle somewhere else and adopt in the new environment and start a new life. In the early 1800s, the Cherokees start to learn the white culture, but the white settlers grew eager for their land and their resources that is available on the only left land of the Cherokees. Even though the white had promise the Cherokees to protect their land and their nation, but they had broken their promise for dozen of times.
Adopting the White culture didn’t help the Cherokee to communicate or to negotiate with the White. State Georgia even announced that it is legal to take over the Cherokee’s land. They are forced to leave their land and many died during their trip to the designated territory. However, leaving offers a better survival path for the Cherokees. Leaving voluntarily can allow the Cherokees to have better supplies when they move instead of being forced to leave. Many of the Cherokees died of food and supplies shortage, if the Cherokees provide their own supplies, the number of death would be greatly reduced.
According to a document written by John G. Burnett in Document C,” I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged out from their home, and driven at at the bayonet point into the stockades. ‘” If the Cherokees leave, they won’t have to encounter this situation and can prepare for themselves during the harsh winter. When the Cherokees travel through the harsh winter many of them died of coldness, disease, and hunger. When the Cherokees move voluntarily when the U. S. negotiate with them, they can have a better condition that they can ask for in return of the land given to the United State.
With the better supplies that they prepare for themselves and from the U. S. government, there won’t be as many Cherokees who will died on the way to the West since they are forced to leave anyways. Another reason why moving offer a better survival chance for the Cherokees is because if the Cherokees stay and resisted, they would be be similar to the Creeks, who are captured and took to the west many in chains. However, another possibility of not moving is that the Cherokees might be forced to follow to rules of the White. According to “Boudinot Pamphlet,” it state that” Here they will be ruled by laws that they did not help make and which they do not understand.
In this quote, they referred to the Cherokee people. This quote shows that in the middle of the white population, the Cherokees might be forced to follow the laws that doesn’t provide them the best benefit for them. However, if the Cherokees move, they can live with their own laws and stay how the way they live. Another perspective to look at this is that the Cherokees cannot leave the land that their ancestor have been living for years. People who argued that the Cherokees should stay because the Cherokees are attached to their land, if they stay, they would have a chance of gaining it back.
However, in the movie” We Shall Remain,” it shows that when the Cherokees moved to the western territory, they found the land similar to the ones they have been living for years, they have the similar mountains, climate, and land. So even when the Cherokees leave, they can find a place similar to their homeland and resettle there. It also showed in the movie “We Shall Remain,” that when the Cherokees resettled in the western territory, they flourished and double the size of their population.
Moving offered a better survival chance for the Cherokees than staying. Leaving voluntarily reduced the amount of deaths while they travel because they can provide their own supplies instead of having supplies shortage. Leaving also lessen the conflict between the Cherokees and the white when the Cherokees are forced to follow the U. S. laws. The Tail of Tears was a great disaster for the Cherokee nation, many of them died on the way to the designated western territory. However, the Cherokees flourish as they resettled in the West doubling the size of their