WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.899 Welcome everyone to another deep dive. I am so 00:00:02.899 --> 00:00:05.919 glad you are joining us today because our mission 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:11.820 right now is to unpack a really profoundly dark 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:14.580 and frankly incredibly complex chapter of history. 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:16.620 Right. And it's one that I think a lot of people 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:19.300 feel like they already know, you know, the trail 00:00:19.300 --> 00:00:22.519 of tears. Exactly. Like most of us, we have this, 00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:25.960 uh, this compressed JPEG version of this history 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:28.940 in our heads. It's a blurry, low -resolution 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:31.739 image of a tragic march. We learn about it in 00:00:31.739 --> 00:00:33.619 grade school, file it away under dark chapters, 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:35.979 and that's kind of it. Yeah, it gets simplified 00:00:35.979 --> 00:00:39.380 into a single sad event. Right. But today... 00:00:39.359 --> 00:00:41.399 For this deep dive, we are looking at the high 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:43.679 -resolution file. We really want to look at the 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:46.119 actual gears of the machine that caused it. And 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:48.219 to set the stage for you, the visual backdrop 00:00:48.219 --> 00:00:50.359 we're working with for this deep dive features 00:00:50.359 --> 00:00:52.960 a constant rotation of shifting historical maps 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:54.920 and fading treaty documents. This is very fitting. 00:00:55.130 --> 00:00:57.450 Yeah, it gets right to the heart of our sources 00:00:57.450 --> 00:01:00.149 today. We're pulling from a really comprehensive 00:01:00.149 --> 00:01:02.950 source detailing the forced removal of the five 00:01:02.950 --> 00:01:06.030 civilized tribes. So that's the Cherokee, Muskogee, 00:01:06.230 --> 00:01:08.530 Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations. Moving 00:01:08.530 --> 00:01:11.230 them to Indian territory. Right. And we are looking 00:01:11.230 --> 00:01:14.269 at how an entire geographic and cultural landscape 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:17.189 was just completely rewritten between 1830 and 00:01:17.189 --> 00:01:19.790 1850. I mean, we are talking about the displacement 00:01:19.790 --> 00:01:25.890 of roughly 60 ,000 Native Americans. over 4 ,000 00:01:25.890 --> 00:01:28.390 of their black slaves, which is a detail we will 00:01:28.390 --> 00:01:30.750 definitely get into. So, okay, let's unpack this. 00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:33.349 Yeah, let's do it. How does a tragedy of this 00:01:33.349 --> 00:01:36.609 sheer scale actually get set into motion? Because 00:01:36.609 --> 00:01:38.989 you don't just wake up one morning and mobilize 00:01:38.989 --> 00:01:41.090 tens of thousands of people across a continent 00:01:41.090 --> 00:01:43.790 without a massive engine driving it. No, absolutely 00:01:43.790 --> 00:01:46.290 not. You need a combination of intense economic 00:01:46.290 --> 00:01:49.909 pressure and a psychological justification. You 00:01:49.909 --> 00:01:51.469 have to make it palatable to the general public. 00:01:51.510 --> 00:01:54.909 Or the PR campaign, basically. Exactly. The physical 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:57.969 marching was just the final step. The groundwork 00:01:57.969 --> 00:02:00.129 was laid in the minds of the American public 00:02:00.129 --> 00:02:02.209 through something historians call the myth of 00:02:02.209 --> 00:02:06.280 the vanishing Indian. Wow. Just that phrase alone 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:09.099 does a lot of heavy lifting. It sounds like like 00:02:09.099 --> 00:02:11.300 an inevitable force of nature or something Which 00:02:11.300 --> 00:02:13.699 was entirely the point our sources highlight 00:02:13.699 --> 00:02:16.219 how writers like James Fenimore Cooper played 00:02:16.219 --> 00:02:18.419 a really crucial role here I like with the last 00:02:18.419 --> 00:02:21.319 of the Mohicans Yes, exactly that the cultural 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:23.860 narrative being pushed was that indigenous populations 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:26.919 were naturally destined to fade away as white 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:30.199 quote -unquote civilization advanced across the 00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:32.759 continent, so it wasn't just ignorance it was 00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:35.680 like a calculated psychological cover story. 00:02:35.900 --> 00:02:37.860 Yeah, it really was. Because if the public can 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:39.740 be convinced that this is just, you know, nature 00:02:39.740 --> 00:02:42.099 taking its course, then nobody's hands are dirty. 00:02:42.580 --> 00:02:44.620 You completely evade the moral responsibility 00:02:44.620 --> 00:02:46.719 of actively destroying these nations. Right. 00:02:46.780 --> 00:02:49.419 It framed a deliberate policy of human engineering 00:02:49.419 --> 00:02:53.460 as a tragic but unavoidable law of nature. But 00:02:53.460 --> 00:02:55.939 beneath that ideological cover story, there was 00:02:55.939 --> 00:02:59.599 a very real, very aggressive economic engine 00:02:59.599 --> 00:03:02.340 running hot. And that engine is the cotton gin. 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:05.139 Right. You got it. Because suddenly, processing 00:03:05.139 --> 00:03:08.139 short staple cotton is wildly profitable. And 00:03:08.139 --> 00:03:10.300 that just drives this explosive expansion of 00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:13.219 the plantation economy and chattel slavery in 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:15.300 the Deep South. They need land. And they need 00:03:15.300 --> 00:03:18.960 it immediately. Yeah. And then to add literal 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:22.240 fuel to the fire, in 1828, you have the Georgia 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:25.099 Gold Rush. Which is a huge catalyst. The discovery 00:03:25.099 --> 00:03:28.860 of gold meant that thousands of white prospectors 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:32.400 and squatters just violently rushed straight 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:34.819 into Cherokee territory just completely ignoring 00:03:34.819 --> 00:03:38.520 the borders totally and the pressure on the local 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.020 and federal government to open up this land was 00:03:41.020 --> 00:03:43.560 just immense but and I think this is where the 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:45.860 textbook version fails us the Cherokee didn't 00:03:45.860 --> 00:03:48.620 just roll over they fought back using the American 00:03:48.620 --> 00:03:51.000 legal system they did very strategically I was 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.840 looking at this 1832 Supreme Court ruling in 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:56.419 our sources war streamy Georgia and it is just 00:03:56.419 --> 00:03:58.979 blowing my mind it's a landmark case wait so 00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:00.979 the The Supreme Court actually rules in favor 00:04:00.979 --> 00:04:03.879 of the Cherokee. The highest court in the land 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:07.300 explicitly says the Cherokee Nation is a distinct 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:10.340 community and that the laws of Georgia have absolutely 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:13.280 no legal force on Cherokee land. Yeah, the ruling 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.339 under Chief Justice John Marshall was, on paper, 00:04:16.540 --> 00:04:19.399 a definitive legal victory for indigenous sovereignty. 00:04:19.939 --> 00:04:22.300 But they get marched out anyway. So what happens 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:24.399 when the executive branch just looks at the Supreme 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:27.300 Court and says no? It's like holding a winning 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:30.670 lottery ticket. but the bank just legally refuses 00:04:30.670 --> 00:04:33.189 to cash it. That's a great analogy. How does 00:04:33.189 --> 00:04:35.430 a democracy just ignore its own highest court 00:04:35.430 --> 00:04:37.649 without collapsing? Well, if we connect this 00:04:37.649 --> 00:04:39.810 to the bigger picture, we really have to look 00:04:39.810 --> 00:04:42.370 at the immense political pressure President Andrew 00:04:42.370 --> 00:04:44.790 Jackson was under at that exact moment. Right, 00:04:44.910 --> 00:04:46.329 because there's a lot going on in the background. 00:04:46.629 --> 00:04:49.230 Exactly. Jackson was dealing with the nullification 00:04:49.230 --> 00:04:52.399 crisis. South Carolina was threatening to completely 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:55.500 ignore federal tariffs. Jackson was staring down 00:04:55.500 --> 00:04:58.319 the barrel of a literal civil war over federal 00:04:58.319 --> 00:05:01.259 power. Yeah, he feared that if he sent federal 00:05:01.259 --> 00:05:04.160 troops into Georgia to enforce the Supreme Court's 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:06.759 ruling and protect the Cherokee, the Georgia 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:09.529 militia would just fire on them. Meaning the 00:05:09.529 --> 00:05:11.310 Federal Union would fracture right then and there. 00:05:11.829 --> 00:05:14.930 Exactly. So he prioritized national unity, he 00:05:14.930 --> 00:05:17.610 chose to avoid a war with the states, and he 00:05:17.610 --> 00:05:19.970 paid for that unity by sacrificing indigenous 00:05:19.970 --> 00:05:23.089 sovereignty. Jackson simply refused to enforce 00:05:23.089 --> 00:05:25.110 the ruling. And because the highest court in 00:05:25.110 --> 00:05:27.949 the land failed to protect them, the legal backstop 00:05:27.949 --> 00:05:30.589 just vanished. Completely vanished. And that 00:05:30.589 --> 00:05:32.829 is when the physical machinery of removal spins 00:05:32.829 --> 00:05:36.790 up. Which brings us to 1831 and the Choctaw. 00:05:37.550 --> 00:05:41.509 The sources frame this as the blueprint for removal. 00:05:41.810 --> 00:05:44.050 Yeah, they were the first to sign a removal treaty 00:05:44.050 --> 00:05:46.209 following the Indian Removal Act. It was the 00:05:46.209 --> 00:05:49.290 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. And the implementation 00:05:49.290 --> 00:05:51.769 of that blueprint was an absolute logistical 00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:54.129 catastrophe. Honestly, calling it a disaster 00:05:54.129 --> 00:05:57.050 almost feels too generous. The government organized 00:05:57.050 --> 00:05:59.660 this crack in the dead of winter. The Choctaw 00:05:59.660 --> 00:06:02.139 immigrants were battered by flash floods, freezing 00:06:02.139 --> 00:06:05.060 sleet, and snow. The conditions were unimaginably 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:07.980 bad. And the logistics completely fell apart. 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:11.509 The food rations... plummeted to starvation levels. 00:06:12.189 --> 00:06:14.449 The sources note that at one point, people were 00:06:14.449 --> 00:06:17.449 surviving on a handful of boiled corn, a single 00:06:17.449 --> 00:06:20.529 turnip, and two cups of heated water a day. Just, 00:06:20.529 --> 00:06:23.170 yeah, horrific. And the sheer misery of it was 00:06:23.170 --> 00:06:25.050 actually witnessed by the French philosopher 00:06:25.050 --> 00:06:27.389 Alexis de Tocqueville. Oh, really? He was there? 00:06:27.490 --> 00:06:29.949 Yeah. He happened to be in Memphis as the Choctaw 00:06:29.949 --> 00:06:32.089 were crossing the Mississippi River. He wrote 00:06:32.089 --> 00:06:35.889 about this air of ruin and destruction that hung 00:06:35.889 --> 00:06:39.110 over the entire scene. Wow. And there's a farewell 00:06:39.110 --> 00:06:41.490 letter mentioned in the text from Choctaw chief 00:06:41.490 --> 00:06:44.209 George W. Harkins addressed to the American people. 00:06:44.730 --> 00:06:46.829 It's just devastating to read. It really is. 00:06:46.930 --> 00:06:49.230 He wrote that they quote, rather chose to suffer 00:06:49.230 --> 00:06:52.170 and be free than live under the degrading influence 00:06:52.170 --> 00:06:55.250 of laws. Like they were completely lucid about 00:06:55.250 --> 00:06:57.089 the systemic violence being done to them. And 00:06:57.089 --> 00:06:59.250 we have to remember this didn't happen in a vacuum. 00:06:59.490 --> 00:07:01.589 The other indigenous nations were watching this 00:07:01.589 --> 00:07:04.779 unfold. Cause and effect. The Choctaw removal 00:07:04.779 --> 00:07:07.720 was the tragic beta test for a broken system. 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:11.439 If you are the seminal down in Florida and you 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:14.060 watch this beta test turn into a freezing death 00:07:14.060 --> 00:07:16.420 march, you don't just sign a paper and pack your 00:07:16.420 --> 00:07:19.420 bags. No, you pick up a rifle. Exactly. The Seminole 00:07:19.420 --> 00:07:22.480 resistance was incredibly fierce. Following a 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:24.759 highly disputed agreement called the Treaty of 00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:27.220 Paine's Landing, they just refused to leave. 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:29.740 Couture for them. Right. And warriors like Osceola 00:07:29.740 --> 00:07:32.379 led a massive armed resistance in the Florida 00:07:32.379 --> 00:07:34.720 swamps, kicking off the Second Seminole War. 00:07:35.199 --> 00:07:37.819 They famously ambushed U .S. troops in what became 00:07:37.819 --> 00:07:40.860 known as the Dade Massacre. And the sources state 00:07:40.860 --> 00:07:43.120 the United States government spent roughly 20 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:46.060 million dollars fighting this war. Which is astronomical 00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:49.449 for the time. In the 1830s. Twenty million dollars 00:07:49.449 --> 00:07:51.970 is a staggering economy draining amount of money 00:07:51.970 --> 00:07:55.430 and they fought for a full decade So if the Seminoles 00:07:55.430 --> 00:07:57.850 cost the US government that much blood and treasure 00:07:57.850 --> 00:08:00.810 Did the military actually win that conflict or 00:08:00.810 --> 00:08:03.110 do they just exhaust themselves? They absolutely 00:08:03.110 --> 00:08:06.319 just hit a wall. The US military struggled so 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.699 immensely against the guerrilla tactics of the 00:08:08.699 --> 00:08:10.560 Seminole and the black Seminoles fighting alongside 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:12.779 them, by the way. Right. They eventually just 00:08:12.779 --> 00:08:15.439 gave up trying to subjugate the fighters deep 00:08:15.439 --> 00:08:17.800 in the upper glades. They withdrew and left a 00:08:17.800 --> 00:08:20.970 few hundred Seminoles unconquered. That's incredible. 00:08:21.209 --> 00:08:23.709 Yeah. In fact, the surviving Seminole ban in 00:08:23.709 --> 00:08:25.870 Florida proudly points out that they never signed 00:08:25.870 --> 00:08:28.029 a formal peace treaty with the United States. 00:08:28.250 --> 00:08:30.509 So military force in the swamps was incredibly 00:08:30.509 --> 00:08:33.309 expensive and ultimately a failure for the U 00:08:33.309 --> 00:08:35.970 .S. government. They needed a cheaper, quieter 00:08:35.970 --> 00:08:38.629 weapon to displace the remaining nations. And 00:08:38.629 --> 00:08:40.610 they found it in bureaucracy. Let's look at the 00:08:40.610 --> 00:08:43.269 Creek. Yes, the Creek signed the Treaty of Cuseta 00:08:43.269 --> 00:08:47.820 in 1832 and on paper. the treaty offered a compromise, 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:50.559 right? It supposedly allowed the creek to keep 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:53.399 individual land allotments if they agreed to 00:08:53.399 --> 00:08:55.940 submit to state laws. Right, but that's where 00:08:55.940 --> 00:08:58.360 the weaponized bureaucracy comes in. Wait, how 00:08:58.360 --> 00:09:00.559 does weaponized bureaucracy actually work here? 00:09:00.799 --> 00:09:03.840 Don't just say fraud. What were the speculators 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:06.299 actually doing to steal these specific allotments? 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:09.980 It was a highly organized systemic feeding frenzy 00:09:09.980 --> 00:09:13.539 by land speculators in Georgia and Alabama. They 00:09:13.539 --> 00:09:17.019 would use rampant fraud forging documents, using 00:09:17.019 --> 00:09:19.620 impersonators to sign away deeds, and the state 00:09:19.620 --> 00:09:22.120 authorities would just completely ignore the 00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:24.480 illegal white settlement. Just turned a blind 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:27.360 eye. Worse than that. When a Creek family pointed 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:29.740 out that squatters were on their legally allotted 00:09:29.740 --> 00:09:32.440 land, the complicit state courts would actually 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:35.580 uphold the fraudulent paper claims of the speculators. 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:38.179 Unbelievable. Think about the bureaucratic red 00:09:38.179 --> 00:09:40.379 tape you deal with today. Now imagine a government 00:09:40.379 --> 00:09:43.659 using that intentionally as a literal siege tactic. 00:09:43.740 --> 00:09:45.820 It's exactly what it was. They used paperwork 00:09:45.820 --> 00:09:48.039 and state complicity to completely impoverish 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:50.279 the Creek on their own land, which eventually 00:09:50.279 --> 00:09:53.059 sparked the Creek War of 1836 and gave the U 00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:55.460 .S. the perfect excuse to force them out militarily. 00:09:55.610 --> 00:09:58.309 Dispossession by a thousand paper cuts. Yeah. 00:09:58.750 --> 00:10:01.309 Meanwhile, the Chickasaw took a highly pragmatic 00:10:01.309 --> 00:10:03.710 approach to their own impending removal. They 00:10:03.710 --> 00:10:06.269 experienced what our sources call a monetary 00:10:06.269 --> 00:10:08.549 removal. Right. They saw the writing on the wall 00:10:08.549 --> 00:10:11.090 and negotiated financial compensation for their 00:10:11.090 --> 00:10:13.779 lands east of the Mississippi. But the detail 00:10:13.779 --> 00:10:15.899 that really highlights the absurdity of this 00:10:15.899 --> 00:10:17.820 whole system is what they had to do with that 00:10:17.820 --> 00:10:20.200 money. Oh, this part is wild. Yeah. They had 00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:24.360 to take $530 ,000 of their payout and hand it 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:26.899 over to the Choctaw, who had already been forcibly 00:10:26.899 --> 00:10:29.820 removed just to buy the westernmost part of their 00:10:29.820 --> 00:10:33.039 new territory. It's insane. Displaced people 00:10:33.039 --> 00:10:35.759 having to purchase land from other recently displaced 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:38.799 people using the funds from their own dispossession. 00:10:38.980 --> 00:10:40.679 It's like a twisted shell game. And when the 00:10:40.679 --> 00:10:42.779 Chickasaw made that journey, They traveled with 00:10:42.779 --> 00:10:45.700 their assets, their livestock, and over 1 ,100 00:10:45.700 --> 00:10:49.080 enslaved black people. OK, that detail. The sources 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:51.720 explicitly mentioned the tribes bringing slaves 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:54.860 with them. That completely complicates the standard 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:57.240 simplistic victim narrative we usually hear. 00:10:57.419 --> 00:10:59.960 It really does. When we hear Trail of Tears, 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:02.639 the presence of enslaved black people being forced 00:11:02.639 --> 00:11:04.740 along the same route by indigenous enslavers 00:11:04.740 --> 00:11:09.000 is almost never mentioned. How deeply integrated 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:11.399 were these nations into the southern plantation 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:13.879 economy? What's fascinating here is that the 00:11:13.879 --> 00:11:16.700 US government's earlier assimilation policies 00:11:16.700 --> 00:11:19.679 had actually been incredibly effective. How so? 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:22.220 Well, going all the way back to figures like 00:11:22.220 --> 00:11:25.639 George Washington, the federal push was to encourage 00:11:25.639 --> 00:11:28.580 these nations to adopt Anglo -American economic 00:11:28.580 --> 00:11:31.320 and social systems. The goal was to make them, 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:34.320 quote, civilized. Right. As a result, many within 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:36.919 these nations became deeply embedded in the southern 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:40.179 capitalist structure. And tragically, assimilating 00:11:40.179 --> 00:11:42.799 into the economy of the Deep South meant adopting 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:46.440 the horrific practice of chattel slavery. It 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:50.700 just shatters this monolithic idea. of a single 00:11:50.700 --> 00:11:53.860 uniform indigenous experience. Absolutely. All 00:11:53.860 --> 00:11:55.460 of these different mechanisms we've talked about, 00:11:55.779 --> 00:11:58.080 the legal failures, the military exhaustion, 00:11:58.279 --> 00:12:01.320 the financial fraud, the deep economic assimilation, 00:12:01.700 --> 00:12:04.080 they all converge on the most infamous removal 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:07.639 of them all. The Cherokee. Right, and the Cherokee 00:12:07.639 --> 00:12:10.259 removal is incredibly well documented, particularly 00:12:10.259 --> 00:12:13.159 the severe internal political fracture that preceded 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:15.200 it. Reading through the sources, it's like a 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:17.059 family being forced out of their generational 00:12:17.059 --> 00:12:19.559 home by a corrupt developer and tearing each 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:21.960 other apart over whether to take a terrible buyout 00:12:21.960 --> 00:12:24.340 offer or just wait for the bulldozers to arrive. 00:12:24.570 --> 00:12:27.970 A very accurate, if heartbreaking way to describe 00:12:27.970 --> 00:12:30.330 the Treaty of New Dakota. The Cherokee Nation 00:12:30.330 --> 00:12:33.250 was deeply divided. A minority faction known 00:12:33.250 --> 00:12:36.090 as the Treaty Party, led by figures like Elias 00:12:36.090 --> 00:12:39.190 Boudinot and Major Ridge, believed removal was 00:12:39.190 --> 00:12:41.990 absolutely inevitable. They saw what was happening. 00:12:42.149 --> 00:12:44.870 Exactly. They saw Jackson ignoring the Supreme 00:12:44.870 --> 00:12:47.509 Court. They saw the squatters. And they decided 00:12:47.509 --> 00:12:50.590 to sign a treaty agreeing to move in exchange 00:12:50.590 --> 00:12:53.570 for financial compensation and Western land. 00:12:53.870 --> 00:12:56.529 But Principal Chief John Ross and the vast majority 00:12:56.529 --> 00:12:59.830 of the Cherokee people vehemently oppose this. 00:12:59.830 --> 00:13:02.110 Like to the point where they gathered over 16 00:13:02.110 --> 00:13:05.429 ,000 signatures on a petition begging the U .S. 00:13:05.610 --> 00:13:08.230 Congress to void the fraudulent agreement. 16 00:13:08.230 --> 00:13:10.549 ,000. And Congress just ignored them and ratified 00:13:10.549 --> 00:13:13.230 the treaty by a single vote. One vote. Just one. 00:13:13.429 --> 00:13:15.649 And that provided the legal veneer the military 00:13:15.649 --> 00:13:18.059 needed. When the removal deadline hit in the 00:13:18.059 --> 00:13:21.519 winter of 1838, the roundup and the march began. 00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:24.299 And the logistics of the march are just harrowing. 00:13:24.659 --> 00:13:27.059 The extortion alone is sickening. It's hard to 00:13:27.059 --> 00:13:29.649 read. When starving Cherokee refugees reached 00:13:29.649 --> 00:13:32.710 the Ohio River in the dead of winter, local ferry 00:13:32.710 --> 00:13:35.389 operators charged them a dollar ahead to cross, 00:13:35.549 --> 00:13:38.509 and the normal rate was 12 cents. Yeah, a massive 00:13:38.509 --> 00:13:41.090 markup. And because they couldn't afford those 00:13:41.090 --> 00:13:43.149 extortionate prices, or because the operators 00:13:43.149 --> 00:13:46.370 simply prioritized white travelers, massive groups 00:13:46.370 --> 00:13:49.070 of Cherokee were forced to wait in freezing temperatures. 00:13:49.110 --> 00:13:51.549 Just stuck there. They huddled for shelter under 00:13:51.549 --> 00:13:54.669 a rock formation known as mantle rock, and many 00:13:54.669 --> 00:13:56.980 died right there just waiting for a ferry. We 00:13:56.980 --> 00:13:59.220 focus so much on the physical death toll, which 00:13:59.220 --> 00:14:03.879 is staggering, obviously. But the sources also 00:14:03.879 --> 00:14:07.080 highlight a massive, invisible cultural cost 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:09.899 to all of this. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.299 The Cherokee historically had a matrilineal society, 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.320 right? They did, yes. Prior to this intense colonial 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.919 pressure, Cherokee society was matrilineal and 00:14:18.919 --> 00:14:21.740 matrilocal. Clan identity was passed down through 00:14:21.740 --> 00:14:24.740 the mother. Women owned the homes and the agricultural 00:14:24.740 --> 00:14:27.559 property. In the event of a divorce, the woman 00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:29.700 kept the children and the property. They held 00:14:29.700 --> 00:14:32.879 significant political sway. But the sources explain. 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:36.500 that to appease Anglo -American lawmakers to 00:14:36.500 --> 00:14:38.480 look more like a civilized nation in the eyes 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:40.700 of the US government that was threatening to 00:14:40.700 --> 00:14:45.039 erase them, they actively shifted to a patriarchal 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:47.299 system. That's right. They systematically stripped 00:14:47.299 --> 00:14:49.179 their own women of their traditional political 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:52.100 voice and property rights as a survival tactic. 00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:55.720 It is a profound cultural amputation. They had 00:14:55.720 --> 00:14:58.779 to carve away a fundamental part of their societal 00:14:58.779 --> 00:15:01.580 identity just to negotiate with the United States. 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:04.379 And that amputation extended to their relationship 00:15:04.379 --> 00:15:06.679 with the physical environment, too. The research 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:09.000 in our sources points out that the removal forced 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:12.860 these tribes to abandon a deeply ingrained relationship 00:15:12.860 --> 00:15:15.360 -based approach to land management. Well, yeah, 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:17.259 because you can't have a relationship with an 00:15:17.259 --> 00:15:19.340 ecosystem you've never seen before. Precisely. 00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:21.360 When they were dumped into Indian territory in 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:24.389 the West, They had lost centuries of ancestral 00:15:24.389 --> 00:15:26.850 knowledge about the local plants, the seasons, 00:15:27.029 --> 00:15:30.129 the wildlife, all of it. So they were forced 00:15:30.129 --> 00:15:33.450 to rapidly pivot to resource -based capitalism 00:15:33.450 --> 00:15:36.509 just to survive. They started mining coal and 00:15:36.509 --> 00:15:39.590 cutting down timber for railroads. Scholars refer 00:15:39.590 --> 00:15:43.149 to this as environmental deprivation. Environmental 00:15:43.149 --> 00:15:45.990 deprivation. Yes. It is the deliberate severing 00:15:45.990 --> 00:15:49.090 of a people from the specific life -giving landscapes 00:15:49.090 --> 00:15:51.669 that shape their cultural wisdom. Looking at 00:15:51.669 --> 00:15:54.470 the sheer overwhelming scale of this, I mean, 00:15:54.549 --> 00:15:58.809 we are talking about up to 16 ,700 lives lost 00:15:58.809 --> 00:16:01.470 across the five nations. It's a staggering number. 00:16:01.610 --> 00:16:03.649 We are talking about the destruction of ancient 00:16:03.649 --> 00:16:06.889 matrilineal systems, the forced shift to resource 00:16:06.889 --> 00:16:10.450 extraction, the expansion of slavery. When modern 00:16:10.450 --> 00:16:12.409 historians look at this entire machine, how do 00:16:12.409 --> 00:16:15.240 they actually classify it? Well, it is the subject 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:18.679 of intense, ongoing academic debate. And to understand 00:16:18.679 --> 00:16:20.620 the historical weight, we really have to look 00:16:20.620 --> 00:16:22.759 impartially at how different scholars frame it. 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:25.700 On one side, scholars like Jeffrey Osler, Roxanne 00:16:25.700 --> 00:16:28.379 Dunbar -Tease, and Patrick Wolfe argue forcefully 00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:31.259 that the Trail of Tears had clear genocidal dimensions. 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:33.159 They aren't just looking at the body count, though, 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:36.350 are they? No, they point specifically to structural 00:16:36.350 --> 00:16:39.529 and cultural genocide. Their argument is that 00:16:39.529 --> 00:16:41.789 the explicit goal was the deliberate destruction 00:16:41.789 --> 00:16:44.909 of native relations to the land, the dismantling 00:16:44.909 --> 00:16:47.330 of their sovereign cultures, and their permanent 00:16:47.330 --> 00:16:49.970 replacement by a white settler society. So the 00:16:49.970 --> 00:16:52.490 deaths on the trail were a mechanism of that 00:16:52.490 --> 00:16:55.590 broader erasure. Exactly. But the sources show 00:16:55.590 --> 00:16:58.629 there is pushback on applying the specific label 00:16:58.629 --> 00:17:00.690 of genocide. Right. There's another side to the 00:17:00.690 --> 00:17:03.690 debate. Yes. Conversely, historians like Robert 00:17:03.690 --> 00:17:06.269 V. Remini and Francis Paul Peruccia argue against 00:17:06.269 --> 00:17:09.230 using the genocide label. They focus on the intent 00:17:09.230 --> 00:17:12.490 of policymakers like Andrew Jackson. They argue 00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:15.609 that Jackson, while operating from a deeply paternalistic 00:17:15.609 --> 00:17:18.549 and racist mindset, actually had what he believed 00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:21.069 were benevolent intentions. It's jarring to hear 00:17:21.069 --> 00:17:23.529 the phrase benevolent intentions attached to 00:17:23.529 --> 00:17:26.349 a forced death march. But their argument is essentially 00:17:26.349 --> 00:17:28.990 that Jackson viewed removal as the only alternative 00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:31.509 to complete extermination by local militias and 00:17:31.509 --> 00:17:34.190 squatters. That is the core of their argument. 00:17:34.430 --> 00:17:36.910 They contend that Jackson genuinely believed 00:17:36.910 --> 00:17:39.289 that if he did not geographically separate the 00:17:39.289 --> 00:17:41.509 tribes from the lawless white settlers pouring 00:17:41.509 --> 00:17:43.930 into the South, the indigenous populations would 00:17:43.930 --> 00:17:47.069 be completely annihilated. In this academic view, 00:17:47.589 --> 00:17:50.769 there was no conscious top -down desire for mass 00:17:50.769 --> 00:17:53.589 murder, but rather a catastrophic policy aimed 00:17:53.589 --> 00:17:57.789 at preservation through forced separation. Does 00:17:57.789 --> 00:18:00.589 the specific label genocide versus ethnic cleansing 00:18:00.589 --> 00:18:03.230 actually change how you, the listeners, should 00:18:03.230 --> 00:18:05.210 understand the historical weight of the event, 00:18:05.329 --> 00:18:08.130 or is that just academic semantics? This raises 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:10.529 an important question about how we judge history. 00:18:11.029 --> 00:18:13.849 Does a horrific outcome, the deaths of thousands, 00:18:14.089 --> 00:18:16.569 the theft of millions of acres, and the erasure 00:18:16.569 --> 00:18:19.769 of cultures override the debated intent of the 00:18:19.769 --> 00:18:22.490 policymakers? Because for the individuals freezing 00:18:22.490 --> 00:18:25.230 at mantle rock, the bureaucratic intent of the 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:27.900 president likely mattered very little. Exactly. 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:29.700 That is the ultimate tension we are left with. 00:18:30.180 --> 00:18:32.779 The machine of removal was so complex and so 00:18:32.779 --> 00:18:34.940 layered, it wasn't just a single tragic walk 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:36.920 through the snow. Not at all. It was a multi 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:39.519 -decade machine fueled by the cotton gin and 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:42.119 the gold rush. It was built on the Supreme Court 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:45.579 being ignored, on $20 million swamp wars, on 00:18:45.579 --> 00:18:48.220 fraudulent paperwork in Alabama, and on a ferry 00:18:48.220 --> 00:18:51.059 operator charging a dollar ahead. And the shockwaves 00:18:51.059 --> 00:18:53.880 of that machine didn't stop in 1850. For you 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:55.839 listening today, it is crucial to consider how 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:58.099 the legacy of that environmental deprivation, 00:18:58.599 --> 00:19:00.660 the loss of cultural wisdom, and the breaking 00:19:00.660 --> 00:19:03.240 of treaties still impacts modern indigenous rights 00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:05.680 and land management. We are still living in the 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.180 geographic reality created by this machinery. 00:19:08.279 --> 00:19:11.559 We really are. So what does this all mean? We 00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:13.500 started this deep dive talking about trading 00:19:13.500 --> 00:19:16.000 that compressed JPEG of history for the high 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:17.880 resolution file We've looked at the gears of 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.380 the machine, but I want to leave you with one 00:19:20.380 --> 00:19:23.740 final incredibly human detail From our sources 00:19:23.740 --> 00:19:26.329 to mull over. It's a powerful one We mentioned 00:19:26.329 --> 00:19:28.670 the Cherokee resistance before the march. There 00:19:28.670 --> 00:19:31.049 was a Cherokee writer named John Ridge. He was 00:19:31.049 --> 00:19:34.109 the son of Major Ridge. Before his faction eventually 00:19:34.109 --> 00:19:36.569 gave in and signed the treaty, he wrote fierce 00:19:36.569 --> 00:19:39.170 resistance articles defending Cherokee sovereignty 00:19:39.170 --> 00:19:42.170 in the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper. And he used 00:19:42.170 --> 00:19:44.470 a specific pseudonym. He published under the 00:19:44.470 --> 00:19:48.529 name Socrates. A fascinating and deeply intentional 00:19:48.529 --> 00:19:50.710 choice. He used the name of the foundational 00:19:50.710 --> 00:19:54.160 philosopher of Western civilization. He extensively 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:56.480 quoted European history and Western literature 00:19:56.480 --> 00:19:59.380 to argue for Cherokee rights. Think about the 00:19:59.380 --> 00:20:01.859 profound psychological burden of that. Oh, absolutely. 00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:04.539 Imagine having to perfectly master the literature, 00:20:04.700 --> 00:20:07.779 the philosophy. and the history of the very culture 00:20:07.779 --> 00:20:10.500 that is actively destroying your homeland just 00:20:10.500 --> 00:20:12.900 to try and prove your own humanity to them. Having 00:20:12.900 --> 00:20:15.619 to weaponize the language of your dispossessor 00:20:15.619 --> 00:20:17.700 just to beg for the right to keep your own home. 00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:20.339 It brings all those vast numbers and shifting 00:20:20.339 --> 00:20:24.099 maps into a sharp, painful human focus. Thank 00:20:24.099 --> 00:20:26.099 you for joining us on this deep dive into the 00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:28.619 sources. Keep questioning the simplified versions 00:20:28.619 --> 00:20:30.880 of history, keep looking for the high -resolution 00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:32.500 files, and we'll catch you next time.