The Native Peoples Lose their Land In the USA, as settlement expanded, the natives were induced or forced to move, after signing treaties selling their land. The prices paid were very low, and there were instances when the Americans (a term used A ranch in Colorado. D ISPLACING I NDIGENOUS P EOPLES T HEMES IN W ORLD H ISTORY to mean the European people of the USA) cheated them by taking more land or paying less than promised. Even high officials saw nothing wrong in depriving the native peoples of their land.
This is seen by an episode in Georgia, a state in the USA. Officials had argued that the Cherokee tribe was governed by state laws, but could not enjoy the rights of citizens. (This was despite the fact that, of all the native peoples, the Cherokees were the ones who had made the most effort to learn English and to understand the American way of life; even so they were not allowed the rights of citizens.) In , an important judgment was announced by the US Chief Justice, John Marshall. He said that the Cherokees were ‘a distinct community, occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia had no force’, and that they had sovereignty in certain matters.
US President Andrew Jackson had a reputation for fighting against economic and political privilege, but when it came to the Indians, he was a different person. He refused to honour the Chief Justice’s judgment, and ordered the US army to evict the Cherokees from their land and drive them to the Great American Desert. Of the , people thus forced to go, over a quarter died along the ‘Trail of Tears’. Those who took the land occupied by the tribes justified it by saying the natives did not deserve to occupy land which they did not use to the maximum.
They went on to criticise them for being lazy, since they did not use their crafts skills to produce goods for the market, for not being interested in learning English or dressing ‘correctly’ (which meant like the