Mobilizing women, anticipating abolition: The struggle against Indian removal in the 1830s

Journal of American History

Volumn 86, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 15-40

  Hershberger, Mary ^a  

^a CAPITAL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039924692     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2567405     Document Type: Article

References (248)

1. John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year, 1918, vol. II: The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren (Washington, 1920), 275-76, 288-96.
2. Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year, 1918, vol. II: The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren Ibid., 275-76;
3. "Maysville and Lexington Roads," Niles' Weekly Register, June 19, 1830, pp. 308-9. Andrew Jackson's first federal appointments indicated his removal priorities. He named ardent proponents of removal to government positions crucial in carrying it out: John Eaton as secretary of war (succeeded by Lewis Cass) and the Georgian John M. Berrien as attorney general.
4. See Dorothy V. Jones, License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early America (Chicago, 1982);
5. Annie Abel, Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1907, vol. I: The History of Events Resulting in Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi (Washington, 1908), 241-45;
6. Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States (28 vols., Washington, 1934-1975), V, 142-46;
7. Leonard Richards, "The Jacksonians and Slavery," in Antislavery Reconsidered, ed. Lewis Perry and Michael Fellman (Baton Rouge, 1979), 115-16.
8. Jackson called the treaty system with the Indians "farcical," saying that Indians had no rights of domain to any territory in the United States. See Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790-1834 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), 233-35.
9. On Jackson's Indian policy, see Michael Paul Rogin, Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian (New York, 1975);
10. Ronald Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era (Lincoln, 1975);
11. Dale Van Every, Disinherited: The Lost Birthright of the American Indian (New York, 1966);
12. Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building (Minneapolis, 1980);
13. Robert V. Remini, The Legacy of Andrew Jackson: Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery (Baton Rouge, 1988);
14. and Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln, 1984).
15. Lydia Sigourney summed up these sentiments when she wrote that President James Monroe's benevolent regard for "our aborigines" "seems now to be pervading the higher ranks of society, promising to overcome that stern indifference which has too long been entertained towards the sons of the forest, by a nation which covered their glory." L. H. Sigourney, Traits of the Aborigines of America (Boston, 1822), 284.
16. See also "News From the Panoplist," Boston Recorder, Aug. 21, 1819, p. 138.
17. On the other hand, Martin Van Buren praised Jackson for breaking presidential tradition on removal. John Quincy Adams had, in fact, restored to the Cherokee some land they had signed away under duress. See Fitzpatrick, ed., Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, 276-88.
18. George B. Cheever, "The Removal of the Indians: An Examination of an Article in the North American Review and an Exhibition of the Advancement of the Southern Tribes in Civilization and Christianity," American Monthly Review, 10 (Jan. 1830), 704;
19. Robert York, George B. Cheever: Religious and Social Reformer, 1807-1890 (Orono, 1955), 56.
20. For state and local histories that emphasize the prominence of the removal issue, see Donald B. Cole, Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire, 1800-1851 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 99;
21. and Randolph Anthony Roth, "Whence This Strange Fire? Religion and Reform Movements in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 1791-1843" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1982).
22. For evidence that no secular journals circulation exceeded 4,500 in the 1820s, see Gaylord P. Albaugh, History and Annotated Bibliography of American Religious Periodicals and Newspapers (2 vols., Worcester, 1994), I, xiii-xv.
23. By the 1820s, when the population of the United States stood at 13 million, over 400,000 copies of religious newspapers regularly circulated. See also Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the United States from 1690-1872 (New York, 1873);
24. Wesley Norton, Religious Newspapers in the Old Northwest to 1861: A History, Bibliography and Record of Opinion (Athens, Ohio, 1977);
25. George Henry Payne, History of Journalism in the United States (New York, 1929);
26. Edwin Emery and Henry Ladd Smith, The Press and America (New York, 1954);
27. and Carol Sue Humphrey, The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833 (Westport, 1996).
28. For evidence that removal represented a substantial transfer of Cherokee assets in land improvements to white farmers, see David Wishart, "Evidence of Surplus Production in the Cherokee Nation Prior to Removal," Journal of Economic History, 55 (March 1995), 120-38.
29. On republican motherhood, see Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideals in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, 1980).
30. See also Lori Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth Century United States (New Haven, 1990);
31. Barbara Berg, The Remembered Gate: Origins of American Feminism: The Woman and the City, 1800-1860 (New York, 1978);
32. Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America (Middletown, 1981);
33. Jean E. Friedman, The Enclosed Garden: Women and Community in the Evangelical South, 1830-1900 (Chapel Hill, 1985);
34. and Linda K. Kerber, Toward an Intellectual History of Women: Essays (Chapel Hill, 1997).
35. On the changes wrought by the market economy, see Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York, 1991);
36. and Joseph Blau, ed., Social Theories of Jacksonian Democracy (New York, 1947).
37. The lead article in the largest of these papers, the Christian Advocate, was frequently a report of a female association's activities and meetings. The contributors were usually anonymous, but women appear to have written many of these pieces. A phrase such as "let us, beloved sisters," for example, indicates female authorship. See, for example, "New York Female Association Society Report," Christian Advocate, Jan. 15, 1830, p. 1.
38. On the eighteenth-century mission movement, see Henry Warner Bowden, American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict (Chicago, 1981);
39. Colin B. Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the American Frontier with Particular Reference to the American Home Missionary Society (Caldwell, 1939);
40. and John A. Andrew III, Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth: New England Congregationalism and Foreign Missions, 1800-1830 (Lexington, Ky., 1976).
41. On foreign missions, see William R. Hutchinson, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago, 1987);
42. Clifton Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810-1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969);
43. and Joseph Grabill, "The Invisible Missionary: A Study in American Foreign Relations," Journal of Church and State, 14 (Winter 1972), 93-105.
44. At least half of those whom mission boards supported were women, although the term "missionary" was reserved for men. William G. McLoughlin, Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839 (New Haven, 1984), 249;
45. Charles Cole Jr., The Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists, 1826-1860 (New York, 1954), 59.
46. On women's support for Indian missions, see, for example, "Donations From Nov. 21st to Dec. 20th, Inclusive," Missionary Herald, 22 (Jan. 1826), 30-31;
47. "Donations From March 21st to Apr. 20th, Inclusive," Missionary Herald, ibid., 23 (May 1827), 165-68;
48. "Journal of the Mission at Brainard," Missionary Herald, ibid., 16 (Feb. 1820), 84-93;
49. "Visit of Indian Young MenMissionary Herald, ," ibid., (July 1820), 29-30;
50. "North American Indians. Progress in Civilization," Missionary Herald, ibid., 25 (Feb. 1829), 57-62;
51. "Choctaws. Extracts from a Letter of Mr. Kingsbury, dated January 29, 1829," Missionary Herald, ibid. (May 1829), 152-54.
52. On the Gnadenhutten massacre, see "Miscellanies," Missionary Herald, ibid., 20 (June 1824), 197-99.
53. See also "From the New York Observer," Religious Intelligencer, March 27, 1824, pp. 675-77;
54. "Civilization of the Indians," Religious Intelligencer, ibid. (Feb. 1824), 605;
55. "Indian Improvement," Religious Intelligencer, ibid. (April 1824), 747;
56. "Among the Cherokee," Boston Recorder, March 11, 1820, p. 42;
57. "The Cherokees," Christian Watchman, Sept. 14, 1827, p. 1;
58. "Concerning the Mission Among the Cherokee," United Brethren Missionary Intelligencer, 1 ([Dec.?] 1824), 541-42;
59. "From Arkansas," Niles Weekly Register, Oct. 15, 1825, p. 103.
60. "Cherokee Mission," Boston Recorder, Jan. 10, 1824, p. 1.
61. For other responses opposing Indian land cessions to Georgia, see "Indian Eloquence," Religious Intelligencer, Dec. 6, 1823, pp. 426-28;
62. "Mr. Brown's Address," Religious Intelligencer, ibid., Dec. 27, 1823, pp. 470-71;
63. "Creek IndiansReligious Intelligencer, ," ibid., June 18, 1825, pp. 41-43;
64. "Cherokee Nation," Religious Intelligencer, ibid., Aug. 6, 1825, pp. 153-54;
65. "Annual Report of the Methodist Church," Christian Advocate, May 5, 1827, pp. 65-66;
66. "The Choctaws," Genius of Universal Emancipation, Nov. 27, 1829, p. 94;
67. "The Cherokees," Christian Watchman, Sept. 14, 1827, p. 1;
68. "Choctaws," Missionary Herald, 26 (Aug. 1830), 250-55;
69. "Letter By a native Cherokee Woman," Missionary Herald, ibid., 15 (April 1819), 171;
70. and "Whites versus Indians," Religious Intelligencer, May 22, 1824, p. 823.
71. "The Cherokees," Boston Recorder, July 9, 1829, p. 112.
72. See also "Critical State of the Cherokees," Missionary Herald, 25 (Dec. 1829), 375;
73. and "Lo, the poor Indian!," Hamilton Intelligencer, June 30, 1829, p. 2.
74. Georgia's new laws forbade Cherokee assemblies save for purposes of ceding land and disallowed the testimony of any Cherokee in court against white men. See Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, eds., The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 1995);
75. William L. Anderson, Cherokee Removal: Before and After (Athens, Ga., 1991);
76. David Williams, The Georgia Gold Rush: Twenty-Miners, Cherokees, and Gold Fever (Columbia, S.C., 1993);
77. Louis Filler and Allen Guttmann, eds., The Removal of the Cherokee Nation: Manifest Destiny or National Dishonor (Boston, 1962), 18-21;
78. Muriel Wright, "The Removal of the Choctaws to the Indian Territory, 1830-1833," Chronicles of Oklahoma, 6 (June 1928), 103-28;
79. and Mary E. Young, "The Creek Frauds: A Study in Conscience and Corruption," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 42 (Dec. 1955), 411-37.
80. On removal attacks, see, for example, "The Cherokees," Hudson [Ohio] Observer and Telegraph, Aug. 18, 1829, p. 19;
81. "Georgia and the Indians," Hudson [Ohio] Observer and Telegraph, ibid., March 19, 1830, p. 4;
82. "The Indians," Hudson [Ohio] Observer and Telegraph, ibid., May 28, 1830, p. 2;
83. "Reasons For Espousing the Cause of the Indians," Hudson [Ohio] Observer and Telegraph, ibid., Jan. 27, 1831, p. 2;
84. "The Presidential Election," Genius of Universal Emancipation, Nov. 8, 1828, pp. 53-55;
85. "Rights of the Indians," Genius of Universal Emancipation, ibid., Oct. 2, 1829, p. 30;
86. "Memorial," Christian Advocate, Jan. 8, 1830, p. 1;
87. "Secular Summary," Boston Recorder, Dec. 25, 1828, p. 107;
88. "The Cherokees," Boston Recorder, ibid., Feb. 5, 1829, p. 24;
89. "Domestic: Rights of the Indians," Boston Recorder, ibid., Aug. 20, 1829, p. 135;
90. and "From the Vermont Chronicle, 'The Indians,'" Boston Recorder, ibid., Dec. 2, 1829, p. 196.
91. Gerda Lerner, The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels against Slavery (Boston, 1967), 92;
92. Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (New York, 1994), 58-60;
93. Cheever, "Removal of the Indians," 711.
94. See Lewis Cass, "Documents and Proceedings Relating to the Formation and Progress of a Board in the City of New York for the Emigration, Preservation, and Improvement of the Aborgines of America," North American Review, 41 (Jan. 1830), 62-121.
95. Cass later became Andrew Jackson's secretary of war and implemented the removal policy. See also George B. Cheever, "Review of the Speeches on the Passage of the Bill for the Removal of Indians," Spirit of the Pilgrims, 3 (Oct. 1830), 492-500, 517-32.
96. "Present Crisis in the Condition of the American Indian," Hudson [Ohio] Western Intelligencer, Dec. 29, 1829, p. 4.
97. For census data showing the accuracy of the antiremovalists' portrayal of Cherokee life, see William G. McLoughlin and Walter H. Conser Jr., "The Cherokees in Transition: A Statistical Analysis of the Federal Cherokee Census of 1835," Journal of American History, 64 (Dec. 1977), 678-703;
98. and Douglas C. Wilms, "Cherokee Land Use in Georgia before Removal," in Cherokee Removal: Before and After, ed. William L. Anderson (Athens, Ga., 1991), 1-28.
99. See also Wishart, "Evidence of Surplus Production."
100. R. Campbell, "From the Georgian, Literary Premium," Niles' Weekly Register, Aug. 30, 1828, p. 14.
101. "Georgia Indians," Niles' Weekly Register, ibid., Sept. 13, 1828, pp. 41-42;
102. "From the Savannah Mercury," Niles' Weekly Register, ibid., June 20, 1829, p. 14.
103. The essays by Jeremiah Evarts were first printed in July 1829 and later distributed in pamphlet form and reprinted in other newspapers, including the Cherokee Phoenix. See Jeremiah Evarts, Cherokee Removal: The "William Penn" Essays and Other Writings, ed. Francis Paul Prucha (Knoxville, 1981).
104. See John A. Andrew III, From Revivals to Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, the Cherokee Nation, and the Search for the Soul of America (Athens, Ga., 1992).
105. For the start of the Indian removal debate before the Senate, see Register of Debates in Congress, pt. 1, vol. 6, 21 Cong., 1 sess., April 6, 1830, p. 305.
106. For the start of the debate before the House of Representatives, see Register of Debates in Congress, pt. 1, vol. 6, 21 Cong., 1 sess., May 13, 1830, p. 988.
107. Of Vermont's 117 towns, 24, for example, petitioned Congress to oppose the removal bill. Nearly one-quarter of the adult male inhabitants in these towns signed the petitions. See Roth, "Whence This Strange Fire?," 305-18.
108. On the petitions, see Evarts, Cherokee Removal, 23;
109. "Domestic Summary," Boston Recorder, Jan. 13, 1830, p. 7;
110. Boston Recorder, ibid., Jan. 20, 1830, p. 11;
111. "Thoughts Concerning the IndiansBoston Recorder, ," ibid., Dec. 30, 1829, p. 210;
112. "Report From Washington," Niles' Weekly Register, Jan. 23, 1830, pp. 363-64;
113. and "Present Crisis in the Condition of the American Indian," Hudson [Ohio] Western Intelligencer, Dec. 29, 1829, p. 4.
114. The Boston-based Baptist periodical the Christian Watchman was later called the Watchman-Examiner, and libraries generally catalog it under that name. Register of Debates in Congress, pt. 1, vol. 6, 21 Cong., 1 sess., Feb. 24, 1830, p. 582; "Memorial of Inhabitants of Brown County, in the State of Ohio in Relation to the Cherokee Indians, February 22, 1830," PA, Box 726.9 (Ohio Historical Society, Columbus);
115. "Domestic Summary," Boston Recorder, Jan. 20, 1830, p. 11;
116. "For the Western Intelligencer," Hudson [Ohio] Western Intelligencer, Jan. 29, 1830, p. 1;
117. "From the Journal of Commerce, 25 March 1830," Boston Recorder, April 14, 1830, p. 1.
118. See also "Removal of the Indians," Christian Watchman, Oct. 23, 1829, p. 170.
119. Catharine E. Beecher, Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions (New York, 1874), 62-64. Beecher does not provide the names of the other women, one of whom was married to Thomas Chester, and another to Daniel Wadsworth, who was an architect and benefactor of the Hartford Female Seminary.
120. Catharine E. Beecher, Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions (Ibid., 63.
121. "Circular Addressed to the Benevolent Ladies of the United States," Christian Advocate and Journal, Dec. 25, 1829, pp. 65-66.
122. Circular Addressed to the Benevolent Ladies of the United States," Christian Advocate and Journal, 1829, pp. 65-66. Ibid.
123. Beecher, Educational Reminiscences, 63.
124. On the Ladies Association for Supplicating Justice and Mercy Toward the Indians, see "For the Watchman," Christian Watchman, Jan. 1, 1830, p. 6.
125. See also, "Congressional, Senate," Hudson [Ohio] Western Intelligencer, March 12, 1830, p. 3;
126. "Twenty-First Congress, 1st Session," Niles' Weekly Register, Feb. 27, 1830, pp. 4-7;
127. "Domestic Survey," Boston Recorder, Jan. 13, 1830, p. 7;
128. and "For the Watchman," Christian Watchman, Jan. 1, 1830, p. 1.
129. On the Pittsburgh petition, see "National Affairs: Proceedings of Congress," Christian Advocate, March 12, 1830, p. 111;
130. and Louis Filler, The Crusade against Slavery, 1830-1860 (New York, 1960), 99.
131. Lori Ginzberg has noted that "the rhetoric of female benevolence bore little resemblance to women's actual organizational behavior." Relatively conservative women, she points out, readily justified petitioning local officials on poor relief and orphan asylums. See Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence, 6;
132. and Berg, Remembered Gate, 167.
133. Widespread public speculation on its authorship centered on Benjamin Silliman, a professor at Yale University and the most prominent scientist in America at the time. Beecher, Educational Reminiscences, 64-65.
134. Kathryn Kish Sklar attributed Beecher's breakdown to Zilpah Grant's rejection of Beecher's offer to be associate principal of the Hartford Seminary. Beecher placed her breakdown in relation to the Ladies' Circular and the strain of secrecy that followed. See Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven, 1973);
135. and Beecher, Educational Reminiscences, 65-70.
136. See also Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 60.
137. Evarts, Cherokee Removal, 30.
138. See, for example, "From the Hamp. Gazette," Boston Recorder, Jan. 20, 1830, p. 7;
139. "For the Watchman," Christian Watchman, Jan. 1, 1830, p. 1;
140. "Circular Addressed to the Benevolent Ladies of the United States," Christian Advocate and Journal, Dec. 25, 1829, pp. 65-66;
141. "The Choctaws," Genius of Universal Emancipation, Nov. 27, 1829, p. 94;
142. "For the Genius of Universal Emancipation," Genius of Universal Emancipation, ibid., 1 (July 1830), 54-55;
143. "Ladies' Repository: The Indians," Genius of Universal Emancipation, ibid., Jan. 8, 1830, pp. 140-41.
144. For evidence that Margaret Chandler requested the Genius of Universal Emancipations editor, Benjamin Lundy, not to use her name, see Benjamin Lundy, "Missionary Journeys in the Interest of the Cause," Vertical File Manuscript 288 (Ohio Historical Society).
145. For William Lloyd Garrison's short-lived disapproval of the Ladies' Circular, see Wendell Phillips Garrison, ed., William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879, The Story of his Life Told by His Children (4 vols., New York, 1969), II, 156-57.
146. On debate over the petitions in Congress, see Register of Debates in Congress, pt. 1, vol. 6, 21 Cong., 1 sess., Jan. 11, 1830, pp. 506-11;
147. Register of Debates in Congress, ibid., Feb. 2, 1830, p. 109;
148. Editorial, Niles' Weekly Register, Jan. 23, 1830, p. 1;
149. "The Indians," Genius of Universal Emancipation, Jan. 15, 1830, p. 150;
150. and Filler, Crusade against Slavery, 99.
151. Cass, "Documents and Proceedings Relating to the Formation and Progress of a Board in the City of New York for the Emigration, Preservation, and Improvement of the Aborigines of America."
152. See also Herman J. Viola, Thomas L. McKenney, Architect of America's Early Indian Policy: 1816-1830 (Chicago, 1974), 220-22;
153. Francis Paul Prucha, "Thomas L. McKenney and the New York Indian Board," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 48 (March 1962), 635-55;
154. "Indian Question," Christian Watchman, May 7, 1830, p. 1;
155. "Secular Summary, Domestic," Boston Recorder, Nov. 11, 1829, p. 183;
156. George A. Schultz, An Indian Canaan: Isaac McCoy and the Vision of an Indian State (Norman, 1972);
157. and McLoughlin, Cherokees and Missionaries, 266-78.
158. For the removal bill's passage and the party maneuvering involved, see Donald B. Cole, The Presidency of Andrew Jackson (Lawrence, 1993), 109;
159. and Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy (Lincoln, 1975), 52-53.
160. George Cheever wrote that the expectation of the bill's passage led him "almost to despair with a dejection of feeling which nothing can express." Cheever, "Removal of the Indians," 715;
161. Editorial, Niles' Weekly Register, June 5, 1830, p. 1.
162. 5 Pet. 1 (1831).
163. McLoughlin, Cherokees and Missionaries, 287-88;
164. "Cherokees: Further Proceedings Against the Missionaries," Missionary Herald, 27 (Sept. 1831), 281-84;
165. "Cherokees: Further Particulars Respecting the Imprisonment of the Missionaries," Missionary Herald, ibid., 299-302;
166. "The Missionaries Among the Cherokees," United Brethren Missionary Intelligencer, 4 ([Jan.?] 1831), 186-87.
167. For the arrests and trials, see "Arrest of the Missionaries of the Board in the Cherokee Nation," Missionary Herald, 27 (May 1831), 165-67;
168. "Arrest of the Missionaries in the Cherokee Nation," Missionary Herald, ibid. (July 1831), 229;
169. "Cherokees," Missionary Herald, ibid. (Aug. 1831), 247-54;
170. "Cherokees: Further Particulars Respecting the Imprisonment of the Missionaries," Missionary Herald, ibid. (Sept. 1831), 299-302;
171. and "Cherokees," Missionary Herald, ibid. (Oct. 1831), 332-34.
172. See also John Ehle, Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation (New York, 1989), 244-53;
173. and William G. McLoughlin, "Civil Disobedience and Evangelism among the Missionaries to the Cherokees," Journal of Presbyterian History, 51 (Summer 1973).
174. Elizur Butler's wife had taught in an Indian school for years. See "Death of Mrs. Butler," Missionary Herald, 26 (Jan. 1830), 29. On Worcester v. Georgia, see 6 Pet. 515 (1832);
175. and Joseph C. Burke, "The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality," Stanford Law Review, 21 (Feb. 1969), 500-531.
176. Garrison, ed., William Lloyd Garrison, I, 270;
177. Edward Everett Dale, "Letters of the Two Boudinots," Chronicles of Oklahoma, 6 (Sept. 1928), 333.
178. See also Edwin A. Miles, "After John Marshall's Decision: Worcester v. Georgia and the Nullification Crisis," Journal of Southern History, 39 (Nov. 1973), 519-44.
179. For evidence that Andrew Jackson stayed in close touch with Georgia officials as they made removal decisions, see John Spencer Bassett, ed., Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, 1829-1832 (7 vols., Washington, 1926-1935), IV, 450-51.
180. The state of Georgia repealed its Cherokee laws in 1979 and pardoned Worcester and Butler in 1992. The state called their imprisonment "a stain on the history of criminal justice in Georgia" and acknowledged that it had usurped Cherokee sovereignty and ignored the Supreme Court. New York Times, Nov. 23, 1992, p. A13.
181. Fitzpatrick, ed., Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, 290-96.
182. Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, Ibid., 295, 275-76.
183. On the removal issue, Benton lamented, Jackson was subjected to "misrepresentations which have survived the object of their creation and gone into history." Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years' View: or, a History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, From 1820 to 1850 (2 vols., New York, 1854-1865), I, 285, 690-91.
184. Bassett, ed., Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, IV, 177-78. In his farewell address in 1837, Jackson summed up his triumph on Indian removal by declaring that "the States which had so long been retarded in their improvement by the Indian tribes residing in the midst of them are at length relieved from the evil."
185. James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (20 vols., Washington, 1896-1899), II, 1511-27;
186. Blau, ed., Social Theories of Jacksonian Democracy, 2.
187. After the Indian Removal Act passed, women's antislavery petitions to Congress outnumbered mens'. Some legislators claimed that there would be but few abolition petitions "if the ladies and Sunday School children would let us alone." In 1835 Andrew Jackson urged Congress to ban all antislavery petitions and, with the crucial help of the vice president, Congress passed the first "gag" rule. See James Freeman Clarice, Anti-Slavery Days (New York, 1883);
188. Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (New York, 1979), 117, 126;
189. Richards, "The Jacksonians and Slavery," 110;
190. and Filler, Crusade against Slavery, 99-100, 179.
191. Catharine E. Beecher, An Essay on Slavery and Abolition with Reference to the Duty of American Females (1837; New York, 1970), 103-4.
192. Beecher, Essay on Slavery, 105.
193. Gordon S. Haight, Mrs. Sigourney: The Sweet Singer of Hartford (New Haven, 1930), 34-35;
194. Angelina Grimké, Letters to Catherine E. Beecher (1838; New York, 1969), 113.
195. "Thoughts Concerning the Indians," Boston Recorder, Dec. 30, 1829, p. 210.
196. For immediatist antecedents, see John Woolman, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, 1754 (New York, 1976);
197. Henry Highland Garnet, Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles (New York, 1969);
198. and James Forten, Letters from a Man of Colour on a Late Bill Before the Senate of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1813).
199. See also Ralph Sandiford, Mystrey of Iniquity ([Philadelphia], 1730);
200. and Benjamin Lay, All Slave-keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage (Philadelphia, 1737).
201. "To the Public," Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831, p. 1.
202. At that time Garrison said that he had similarly recanted in "To the Public," Genius of Universal Emancipation, Sept. 2, 1829, p. 5.
203. But although the 1829 article by Garrison declared that "the slaves are entitled to immediate and complete emancipation," it also supported colonization efforts. He was not an impassioned immediatist until Congress passed the removal bill. The post-1830 attack on colonization by its erstwhile supporters, historian Ronald Walters has written, marks a break with prior antislavery thought so complete and inexplicable that it "haunts everything written on the subject." Ronald G. Walters, The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after 1830 (Baltimore, 1976), xi.
204. David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era (New York, 1956), 19-36.
205. See also Avery Craven, The Coming of the Civil War (Chicago, 1957), 117-50;
206. Arthur Young Lloyd, The Slavery Controversy (Chapel Hill, 1939), 49-101;
207. Martin Duberman, "The Abolitionists and Psychology," Journal of Negro History, 47 (July 1962), 183-91;
208. Martin Duberman, ed., The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists (Princeton, 1965);
209. Dwight Lowell Dumond, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (Ann Arbor, 1962);
210. Staughton Lynd, The Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (New York, 1968);
211. Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 (New York, 1967);
212. and Carlton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 through the Civil War (New York, 1970).
213. On religious explanations, see, for example, Gilbert Barnes, The Anti-Slavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York, 1933);
214. David Brion Davis, "The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Anti-Slavery Thought," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 49 (Sept. 1962), 209-30;
215. Charles C. Cole Jr., The Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists, 1826-1860 (New York, 1977);
216. Daniel Walker Howe, "The Evangelical Moment: Political Culture in the North during the Second Party System," Journal of American History, 77 (March 1991), 1216-39;
217. Randolph Anthony Roth, The Democratic Dilemma: Religion, Reform, and the Social Order in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 1791-1850 (Cambridge, Mass., 1987);
218. David Ludlum, Social Ferment in Vermont, 1791-1850 (New York, 1966);
219. and Charles Keller, The Second Great Awakening in Connecticut (New Haven, 1984).
220. On evangelism as social control, see Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 (New York, 1978).
221. On evangelism as moral principle, see Lawrence Frederick Kohl, "The Concept of Social Control and the History of Jacksonian America," Journal of the Early Republic, 5 (Spring 1985), 21-34.
222. "Rights of the Indians," Genius of Universal Emancipation, Oct. 2, 1829, p. 30;
223. "The Indians," Genius of Universal Emancipation, ibid., Sept. 2, 1829, p. 7;
224. "From the National Philanthropist," Genius of Universal Emancipation, ibid., Dec. 4, 1829, p. 110.
225. "For the Genius of Universal Emancipation," Genius of Universal Emancipation, ibid. (July 1830), 54-55.
226. In their biography of their father, Garrison's children called attention to the new masthead on the seventeenth issue of the Liberator, April 23, 1831, p. 1.
227. See Garrison, ed., William Lloyd Garrison, I, 232-33, 270;
228. William E. Cain, ed., William Lloyd Garrison and the Fight against Slavery: Selections From the Liberator (Boston, 1995);
229. and William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization, Part II (1832; New York, 1968), 5.
230. As late as 1852, Garrison linked Indian policies and slavery when he chastised Louis Kossuth for extolling American freedom and ignoring "the stain on our national escutcheon . . . that is the blood of the almost exterminated Indian tribes, and of millions of the descendants of Africa." Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, eds., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison (4 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1975), IV, 100,
231. The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison (II, 441.
232. "James Gillespie Birney, Letter on Colonization, Addressed to the Reverend Thorton J. Mills, Corresponding Secretary of the Kentucky Colonization Society (New York, 1838);
233. Betty Gladeland, James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist (Ithaca, 1955), 37, 86;
234. Beriah Green, Sketches of the Life and Writings of James Gillespie Birney (Utica, 1844), 17.
235. Thomas Jefferson suggested removing only young African Americans and noted that separating infants from their mothers "would produce some scruples of humanity. . . . But this would be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel," he concluded. See H. A. Washington, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (9 vols., Washington, 1853-1855), VII, 332-35.
236. Second Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society . . . held in the city of New-York on the 12th May 1835 (New York, 1835);
237. Elizur Wright Jr., The Sin of Slavery and its Remedy: Containing Some Reflections on the Moral Influence of African Colonization (New York, 1833), 35-36;
238. Gilbert Barnes and Dwight Dumond, eds., Letters of Theodore Weld, Angelina Grimké, and Sarah Grimké, 1822-1844 (2 vols., New York, 1934), I, 99;
239. Robert H. Abzug, Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform (New York, 1980), 87;
240. Benjamin Platt Thomas, Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom (New Brunswick, 1950), 80;
241. C. H. Cramer, Case Western Reserve: A History of the University, 1826-1976 (Boston, 1976), 16-21.
242. Beriah Green, Sermons Preached in the Chapel of the Western Reserve College (Cleveland, 1833), 45;
243. Green, Sketches of the Life and Writings of James Gillespie Birney, 10.
244. Colonization opponents also pointed to the catastrophic mortality rate of immigrant African Americans in Liberia as an argument against colonization. See Antonio McDaniel, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1995).
245. Joseph J. McCadden, Education in Pennsylvania, 1801-1835, and Its Debt to Roberts Vaux (Philadelphia, 1937), 144.
246. Cheever, "Review of the Speeches," 492;
247. Cheever, "Removal of the Indians," 716;
248. York, George Cheever, 210; "Circular Addressed to the Benevolent Ladies of the United States."