A Christian Opposition to Indian Removal:
The Vocal Minority
Dave Woolsey
History 369
Professor Mays
December 4th, 2006
Opposition to removal 2
A Christian Opposition to Indian Removal
George Cheever, a strong abolitionist once said "How long shall it be that a Christian
people, freer than any other people, in an age too of such general civilization and intellectual
refinement... shall stand balancing the considerations of profit and loss on a national question of
justice and benevolence?”1 The government’s push to remove Indian tribes from desirable lands
in the first half of the 18th century was in fact fueled by the separatism and the economic
ambitions of a moneyed few that Cheever spoke of. The idea that all eastern Indians should be
moved to the west of the Mississippi had been first proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1805 and
had gained more and more acceptance in the ensuing years.2 Although the effort to remove the
eastern tribes was ultimately successful there still existed a group of people who stood opposed
to Indian removal. This opposing voice of the anti-removal agents grew so strong in fact that
Martin Van Buren later claimed that "a more persevering opposition to a public measure had
scarcely ever been made."3 The opposition, forbearer to the abolitionist movement, was made up
mostly of northerners and stood out among those in the south and the west, as well as their
neighbors in the north. The belief that slavery could move onto the lands in the south that
Indians such as the Cherokees held added fuel to the fire for many opposed to removal policies.
While Congressmen such as Daniel Webster, David Crockett, Theodore Frelinghuysen, and
Henry Clay led the charge to defeat passage of removal legislation, grassroots efforts were
mobilizing communities of activists in the north. One part of the opposition movement was
1
"An Article in the North American Review on the Removal of the Indians. The Letters of William Penn," American
Monthly Magazine, I (January 1830), 704.
2
Christian B. Keller, “Philanthropy Betrayed: Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Origins of Federal
Indian Removal Policy,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 144, no. 1 (2000): 39-40.
3
Mary Hershberger, “Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle Against Indian Removal in the
1830s,” Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 15-40
Opposition to removal 3
played by those involved in a Christian missionary organization called the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions and by the people directly affected by the group.
The Christian movement for Indian rights began with the missionaries who worked
closely with many of the various Indian tribes. Although Christian missionaries had been
pursuing the protection of Indian rights since well before the nation was founded one of the first
of these missionaries to step up and pursue an active opposition to outright removal was
Jeremiah Evarts. A Yale alum, whose father James founded Middlebury College in Vermont,
Evarts began his career as an attorney at law but during the powerful Christian revival known as
the Second Great Awakening felt a strong conviction to make a difference for the causes of
morality and faith.4 Rather than taking up a position as a country preacher Evarts felt a stronger
call to social action and to preach against the evils of society. In 1805, he founded a religious
periodical called The Panoplist of which he was the editor and took to writing editorials on social
action and morality.5 In the Panoplist Evarts found a medium to advance his ideas on social
action but was left without a base to advance the faith he came to love in the Awakening.
In 1812, along with some acquaintances, he began the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), initially acting as its treasurer.6 The organization aimed to send
missionaries not only to settlement communities but to the Indian tribes living within their own
borders. Indian tribes in the north were scarce however as they had been the victims of violence
and disease at the hands of prior settlers. It was not long before those in the organization realized
4
Christian B. Keller, “Seth Storrs, Congregationalism, and the Founding of Middlebury College,” Proceedings of
the Vermont Historical Society 69, no. 2 (2001): 262.
5
Wikipedia contributors, "Jeremiah Evarts," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Evarts (accessed November 12, 2006).
6
Wikipedia contributors, " American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions," Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Board_of_Commissioners_for_Foreign_Missions (accessed
November 13, 2006).
Opposition to removal 4
that violence against the Indians had not ceased but had simply moved on out of their sight with
the ever-increasing white settlement of the growing nation. Evarts came to the conclusion that
Indian removal was the most pressing issue as the increasingly westward movement of the nation
brought more and more whites into the opinion that eastern Indian lands should be made
available to the United States. Evarts along with the ABCFM became one of the first to vocalize
their opposition against such removal under the premises that a Christian nation could not be
built upon such immoral grounds. Of the over 200 essays that he would write for the Panoplist,
twenty-four of them were focused on the issue of Indian removal, all written under the name
William Penn (as the defense of Indians was not a favorable opinion amongst his neighbors).7
Aside from his writing efforts Evarts and the ABCFM also circulated petitions and built a strong
support base against removal. Evarts however, felt the most powerful way of fighting removal
would require physically lobbying Congress and trying the constitutionality of removal in the
courts.
The majority of Congress agreed with the idea of Indian removal but some stood
radically opposed to it. Evarts worked with these congressmen such as Henry Clay and Daniel
Webster to push legislation and oppose current legislation for removal and even persuaded
President John Quincy Adams to set aside funds to try to “civilize” the Indians in order to
convince others that removal wasn’t necessary.8 All of these attempts proved ultimately
unsuccessful however and the Indian Removal Act was passed in 1830. The fight did not end
there for Evarts as he next turned his attention to another law which this time was related to the
ABCFM’s missionary work with the Cherokee Indians in Georgia. A law there was passed
around the same time as the passage of the Removal Act that stated that whites could not live on
7
Cherokee Removal: The "William Penn" Essays and Other Writings, Review author: Thomas Burnell Colbert
American Indian Quarterly, University of Nebraska Press: 1985
8
Wikipedia contributors, "Jeremiah Evarts," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Evarts (accessed November 12, 2006).
Opposition to removal 5
Indian land without the approval of the state.9 This was directly caused by the missionary’s
efforts to teach the Cherokees to resist removal in that state. Evarts enlisted a group of lawyers
to test the merits of the law and the case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court.
However, in 1831, the court rejected an injunction the ABCFM obtained against the law stating
that Georgia had dominance of the Cherokee people as they were “a dependant nation”. The
opposition campaign and its subsequent loss proved too hard on Evarts health and he died later in
the year of tuberculosis at the age of 50.10 His death dealt a strong blow to the anti-removal
forces, so much so that according to one historian, "the Christian crusade against the removal of
the Indians died with Evarts."11 However Christian anti-removal efforts continued on and would
eventually overturn the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia case with the help of another Christian
missionary, Samuel Worcester
Born in 1798, Samuel Worchester grew up during the rise of the anti-removal periodicals
and the expansion of the Native American mission field through the ABCFM and others
organizations. Coming from a long line of pastors, Worchester himself also pursued ministry
once he came of age. However, in the end Worchester’s life would focus not on the pulpits of his
northern country upbringing but rather on the Cherokee Indian tribes of the southeast. In 1825,
during his time in seminary the young Samuel Worcester met a Cherokee man named Buck
Oolwatie who had adopted the “white” name of Elias Boudinot.12 The two grew close quickly
and in a short time Worchester felt drawn into missionary work. He joined the ABCFM, which
9
Tim Alan Garrison, "Worcester v. Georgia (1832)." The New Georgia Encyclopedia,
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2720 (accessed November 16, 2006).
10
Wikipedia contributors, "Jeremiah Evarts," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Evarts (accessed November 12, 2006).
11
Prucha, Francis Paul, ed. Cherokee Removal: The "William Penn" Essays & Other Writings by Jeremiah Evarts.
Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981; containing essays originally published as Essays On The
Present Crisis..American Indians in 1829.
12
"Samuel Worcester," Spartacus Educational, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWworcester.htm (accessed
November 15, 2006).
Opposition to removal 6
was now being chaired by Jeremiah Evarts, and requested to be sent to work with the Cherokee
people. Upon his arrival in a Cherokee town in southeast Tennessee, Worchester immediately
took up the role of head preacher as well as help with construction efforts and medical needs.13
Yet the true impact of Worchester’s work began when Boudinot approached him to help him start
a newspaper. The Cherokees had declared themselves a sovereign nation in 1827 and
Worchester, who was also a skillful linguist, saw a great opportunity in paper to advance the
United States knowledge of the Cherokee government and culture as well as build literacy and
community within the tribe. Worchester suggested that the paper be written, at least party, in the
“Talking Leaves” Cherokee written language that had only recently been developed by a
Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah.14 Worchester convinced ABCFM to fund the project
including building the office and buying a printing press. The first paper was printed in 1827
and The Cherokee Phoenix provided not only the uniting of the Cherokee Nation that Worchester
predicted and had been needed but also made attempts to prove to the United States government
that the Cherokee were not a savage tribe. To help them in pushing this perception, Worchester
and Evarts also had help from a group much larger than they could have imagined; albeit made
up entirely of women.
Men were not the only ones fighting for the rights of the Indians. While it is true that the
gender roles that existed in the early 1800’s limited their efforts relative to those of men such as
Evarts and Worchester, the role that women played in the Indian removal opposition was
immeasurable. It could even be argued that women played a much larger role in the opposition if
not in numbers. In 1829, while listening to Jeremiah Evarts speak, a young Catharine Beecher,
13
Wikipedia contributors, "Samuel Worcester," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Worcester (accessed November 12, 2006).
14
Jim Parins, " The Genius of Sequoyah," Sequoyah Research Center: American Native Press Archives,
http://anpa.ualr.edu/digital_library/sequoyah/sequoyah.htm (accessed November 14, 2006).
Opposition to removal 7
sister to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher, was moved to join the fight against
removal.15 Beecher, along with others at her Hartford Female Academy decided to start a
petition to support the cause and circulated it throughout the country. The petition was
incredibly successful and gathered countless signatures, all from women. Beecher’s petition
however, although anonymous, was wildly scandalous as it claimed women as its authors and so
was the first of its kind in the states. This fact alone even caused the petition to be used by
proponents of removal to support their argument that the anti-removal effort was itself immoral
and against social norms.16 The petition campaign encouraged other women to become more
active in the fight as well. A group of women who obtained the petition started a group called
the Ladies Association for supplicating Justice and Mercy Toward the Indians and sent their own
petitions directly to Congress.17 The petitioning drive took heavy tolls on Catharine Beecher
however as she was continually being asked if she was involved in the matter. The situation
became so stressful for her in fact that she was unable to teach for a time and went to stay with
friends to recover from what she describes as “extreme pain and such confusion of thought as
seemed like approaching insanity."18 Beecher’s health improved but, as had happened with other
failed attempts to change outside perceptions of the Cherokees and other tribes, the push towards
Indian removal continued and would quickly become more serious for the Cherokee people as
well as for Worchester.
In 1830, the Georgia law that Jeremiah Evarts would eventually test before the Supreme
Court was now standing in the way of Worchester’s work with the Cherokees. Following the
15
Alisse Theodore, “A Right to Speak on the Subject: The U.S. Women's Antiremoval Petition Campaign, 1829–
1831,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5, no. 4 (2002): 604
16
Mary Hershberger, “Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle Against Indian Removal in the
1830s,” Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 28.
17
Mary Hershberger, “Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle Against Indian Removal in the
1830s,” Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 27.
18
Mary Hershberger, “Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle Against Indian Removal in the
1830s,” Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 27.
Opposition to removal 8
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia decision the full court press against the Cherokees began. While
George Gilmer, the governor of Georgia, was coming up with a plan to have a lottery for the land
that the Cherokees were currently on, Worchester was meeting with members of the ABCFM and
others to draw up a resolution against the law banning whites from Indian land.19 It was the
belief of the group that obeying the law would be the equivalent of disavowing Cherokee
sovereignty. Georgia, under the orders of Gilmer, sent a militia to New Echota where
Worchester’s group was and arrested them. After a speedy trial, the group of eleven was
convicted and nine of the men abandoned the cause and claimed allegiance with Georgia.
Worchester and one other man were left to the prison while their case made its way through the
court system again reaching the highest court in the land. In 1832, Worchester v. Georgia was
tried and won with the justices declaring that the Cherokee people were a sovereign nation and
therefore unaccountable to Georgia law.20 However the decision changed nothing as both
Georgia and the administration of President Andrew Jackson ignored the ruling and continued to
press for removal leaving Worchester in prison for another month before releasing him. Upon
leaving the prison Worchester decided there was no hope for the situation because the Supreme
Court was now being ignored. In 1835, Worchester made his way to Oklahoma to prepare for
the arrival of the Cherokees where 3 years later he would be met by half the number he left in
Georgia, the rest having died in the process.21
The opposition to the removal of the eastern Indians, whether it be Christian in principle
or otherwise, was ultimately a failure. The famous poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, also a supporter
19
Wikipedia contributors, "Samuel Worcester," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Worcester (accessed November 12, 2006).
20
Tim Alan Garrison, "Worcester v. Georgia (1832)." The New Georgia Encyclopedia,
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2720 (accessed November 16, 2006).
21
Muriel H. Wright, “Notes on the life of Mrs. Hannah Worcester Hicks Hitchcock and the Park Hill Press,”
Chronicles of Oklahoma 19, no. 4 (1941): 348
Opposition to removal 9
of the Cherokee people, wrote in a letter to President Van Buren that “the American President
and the Cabinet, the Senate and the House of Representatives… are contracting to put this active
nation into carts and boats, and to drag them over mountains and rivers to a wilderness at a vast
distance beyond the Mississippi”.22 Indeed Emerson’s words described what would soon become
history, aside from the fact that many Indians were not given the luxury of carts and boats. In
1830, the Indian Removal Act passed Congress by one vote and in 1838 President Van Buren
commenced the Cherokee removal which would be later referred to as “The Trail of Tears”. Yet
let it not be said that good people stood by and watched. For Jeremiah Evarts died fighting and
Samuel Worchester spent the rest of his days with an exiled people in a distant land. So however
doomed their plans were from the beginning, the supporters of the Cherokee people still came
forth to take their stand.
Bibliography
22
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Letter to President Van Buren," The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.,
http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=252 (accessed November
29, 2006).
Opposition to removal 10
Alisse Theodore. "A Right to Speak on the Subject: The U.S. Women's Antiremoval Petition
Campaign, 1829-1831." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5, no. 4 (2002): 604.
Christian B. Keller. "Philanthropy Betrayed: Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase, and the
Origins of Federal Indian Removal Policy." Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society 144, no. 1 (2000): 39-40.
Christian B. Keller. "Seth Storrs, Congregationalism, and the Founding of Middlebury College."
Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society 69, no. 2 (2001): 262.
Francis Paul Prucha, ed. Cherokee Removal: The "William Penn" Essays & Other Writings by
Jeremiah Evarts. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981.
Jeremiah Evarts. "An Article in the North American Review on the Removal of the Indians. The
Letters of William Penn." American Monthly Magazine, January 1830, 704.
Jim Parins. "The Genius of Sequoyah." Sequoyah Research Center: American Native Press
Archives. University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
http://http://anpa.ualr.edu/digital_library/sequoyah/sequoyah.htm (accessed November
14, 2006).
Mary Hershberger. "Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle Against Indian
Removal in the 1830s." Journal of American History 86, no. 1 (1999): 15-40.
Muriel H. Wright. "Notes on the life of Mrs. Hannah Worcester Hicks Hitchcock and the Park
Hill Press." Chronicles of Oklahoma 19, no. 4 (1941): 348.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Letter to President Van Buren." The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
RWE.org. http://http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=252 (accessed November 29, 2006).
"Samuel Worcester." Spartacus Educational. SchoolNet.
http://http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWworcester.htm (accessed November 15,
2006).
Opposition to removal 11
Thomas Burnell Colbert. Review of Cherokee Removal: The "William Penn" Essays and Other
Writings, by Jeremiah Evarts. American Indian Quarterly (1985): 191.
Tim Alan Garrison. "Worcester v. Georgia (1832)." The New Georgia Encyclopedia. The State of
Georgia. http://http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2720 (accessed
November 12, 2006).
Wikipedia contributors. "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions." Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia.
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Board_of_Commissioners_for_Foreign_Mi
ssions (accessed November 13, 2006).
Wikipedia contributors. "Jeremiah Evarts." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia.
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Evarts (accessed November 12, 2006).
Wikipedia contributors. "Samuel Worcester." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia.
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Samuel_Worcester (accessed November 13, 2006).