Most of you are familiar with the phrase “the Trail of Tears.” Perhaps many of you, though, don’t remember hearing anything about the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Only recently did I learn that that was the name of the first removal treaty that initiated the trail of tears for Native Americans.
Andrew
Jackson instigated the removal of Indians from the
eastern U.S. states. One of the major events of the War of 1812 was the Battle
of New Orleans in 1814, led by General Andrew (“Old Hickory”) Jackson. He was
then regarded as a war hero, and 14 years later, he was elected the seventh
POTUS.
As
I noted in my June 2012 blog post about the War of 1812 (see
here), the greatest losers in that war were the Native Americans.
Jackson fought against the “Indians” then, and subsequently, in his first State
of the Union address (in December 1829), he asked Congress to pass Indian removal
legislation.
In
April 1830, the Senate passed the Indian Removal Act, and then on May 26, the
House of Representatives passed the Act by a vote of 101 to 97. Four days
later, it was signed into law by President Jackson. Then the Treaty of Dancing
Rabbit Creek was enacted 195 years ago, on September 27, 1830.
Dancing Rabbit Creek was the name of a small geographical
area in what is now Noxubee County, Mississippi. The Choctaw Nation occupied
more than 2/3 of what became the state of Mississippi. The 1830 treaty was with
those living in the northern part of the Choctaw’s land. Their removal began in
1831.
The 1831~33 journey westward was marked by hunger, exposure,
disease, and death. During that terrible time, the Arkansas Gazette reported
that a Choctaw chief lamented that his people’s removal from Mississippi resulted
in a "trail of tears and death."*1
The
Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek continued genocidal actions of
the U.S. against Native Americans. Even though most USAmericans have not
usually considered the nation’s treatment of Indians as genocide, that seems to
be an apt description of what has gone on for centuries.
The
1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts “committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
But
according to Claude (whom I have repeatedly called my AI buddy), many genocide
scholars now argue that the cumulative effect of European colonization,
including disease, warfare, and deliberate policies, constitutes genocide even
if individual components were initially unintentional.
For
the Native Americans who lived in the northeastern part of what became the USA,
a large percentage of the Native Americans in “New England” had already died
before 1621 from diseases (mostly smallpox) brought by the Europeans who had
come in the previous decade.*2
So,
whether intentional or not, European colonists caused the genocide of Native
Americans.
Much
more needs to be done to correct past genocidal activities.
Fortunately, it is generally said that the “Indian Wars” ended in 1890. But
mistreatment of Native Americans continued long after that.
I
was delighted that Deb Haaland became the first Indian Cabinet secretary in
U.S. history in March 2021. But her maternal grandparents suffered under
government regulations.*3
Currently, up to 20% of Native Americans live on reservations. That represents several
hundred thousand people out of a total Native American population of around 6-9
million. Many of those living on reservations suffer from poverty, unemployment,
alcoholism, and relatively low life expectancy.
Native
Americans have the highest poverty rate of any major racial group, and unemployment
rates have averaged 50% for decades on many reservations. Alcoholism death
rates among young Native Americans is over ten times the national average of
the general population.
Further,
Indian communities experience higher rates of suicide compared to all other
racial and ethnic groups, and Native Americans have the lowest life expectancy
among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.
These
negative considerations are all largely rooted in the shameful Treaty of
Dancing Rabbit Creek. And they are all issues that need to be addressed more
fully by the federal government, seeking liberty and justice for all U.S. citizens.
_____
*1 It
should be noted that the term “the trail of tears” is most often associated with
the removal of the Cherokee Nation from northern Georgia and bordering areas beginning
in 1838.
*2 This
was mentioned in my Thanksgiving blog post made in November 2009: The
View from This Seat: What About the First Thanksgiving Day?
*3 A
January 2021 blog
post was titled, “A Notable Nomination: Haaland for Secretary of the
Interior.” That was certainly notable, for she became the first Native American
to serve in a President’s Cabinet. Considerably after 1890, her maternal
grandparents were, in Haaland’s words, “stolen from their families when they
were only 8 years old and were forced to live away from their parents, culture
and communities until they were 13.” They were forced to go to a federal Indian
boarding school, and such schools continued until the 1960s.
