Compare Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War. Were
the justifications used similar or different? Can we understand Cherokee
removal as a precedent for Mexican “removal”, or were there important
differences between them? (80-100 words or so, by Friday 5pm).
The justifications employed by the Americans in the Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War are very similar because there were based upon justificatory racism. The racial superiority of the Americans stemmed from a fictional Anglo-Saxon dominance and their ability to exterminate ‘weaker’ races.
ReplyDeleteThe Cherokee removal was exasperated by their supposed inability to civilise and adapt to white society. The Cherokee community through this period progressed momentously. A written language was created, conversion to Christianity was apparent and economically the indigenes began to mimic the Americans. However, prevailing these changes was the notion that the Cherokee people were an inferior race and not matter how progressive their society became they could never assimilate fully to white American society. The desire for land and hardening of racial ideologies culminated in the removal of the Cherokees westward which set a precedent for further expansion.
This further expansion came in the wake of the annexation of Texas and culminated in the Mexican American War. This was also justified and understood on racial terms. The Latin Americans were perceived as weak, inferior, feminine savages that would benefit from the guidance of American republicanism and civilisation. In addition, scientific theories of phrenology substantiated these claims of Latin Americans being a lesser race.
To conclude it can be seen that manifest destiny resulted in a myriad of conflicts and the removal of many groups of people from their rightful lands. The spread of civilization was detrimental not only the Native Americans but also to the Latin Americans.
While from a distance, broad linkages can be made between the justifications utilized by various Americans regarding the removal of the Cherokees and the Mexican-American War. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that the circumstances surrounding each event reveal their justificatory arguments to be significantly different.
ReplyDeleteThe Cherokee Indians were a cultural group which existed within the United States as a nation; despite the fact that their place within the wider context of American society was uncertain. This internal position can be evidenced by the fact that the Cherokee did not resort to violence when threatened by the State of Georgia, or the Administration of President Jackson. Instead, the Cherokee utilized America’s own public institutions, namely its legislature and its courts, to justify their culture’s position within the fabric of American society. As a result of this, President Jackson was forced to cloak his political agenda in humanitarian rhetoric; characterizing himself as a 'shepherd' who was assisting the wayward Cherokee along their path towards ‘civilization.’
In contrast to the societal position of the Cherokee, the Mexicans did not exist within the social fabric of the US. They were a society not only with their own culture, but their own nation; and thus could clearly be described as an external group. As a result of this, the Mexicans could be, and were, painted as a foreign ‘other.’ A mass of individuals who were racially and culturally inferior to Anglo-Saxon civilization; and whose intransigence was preventing America from reuniting with its ‘long-lost sibling’, Texas. In a reflection of this mindset, a majority of the domestic opponents of the war agreed with the driving principles behind it; if not with the methods that were being used. In the case of Mexico, there would be no kind American shepherd; only the soldier and the settler who believed that the continent was theirs by Divine providence.
There are significant parallels that can be drawn between the Cherokee removal and the later Mexican-American war. Foremost amongst these parallels is the justification provided to both ‘policies’ by the growing belief of an inherent racial hierarchy in the Americas, with white Americans at its head. This allowed for the strong use of patriarchal rhetoric by the US government in arguing that, in the first instance, the Cherokee should be removed from the potential danger of conflicts with white US citizens and Andrew Jackson’s humanitarian masking of the removal. This is seen again in the Mexican American war, whereby the US rhetoric centred on the inferiority of the Mexican people and their inability to properly utilise land (as was seen also with the Cherokee). A further similarity here is that both the Cherokee and Mexicans had gone far to emulate the American way of life. The similarities here present a strong case that the Cherokee removal set a precedent for the US government and its people to overlook the rights of sovereign peoples in favour of seeing this racial hierarchy as giving the US a clear right to dictate the direction of development in North America, despite any resistance.
ReplyDeleteThe Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War were bi-products of America’s policy of westward expansion. Although different forms of justification were used for each of the conflicts, America could not expand without taking ownership over both Cherokee land and Texas.America thus proposed highly hypocritical reasons riddled with contradictions in order to justify their actions. These justifications included ‘Proper Use of the Land’, inferiority in race and religion and humanitarian protection. The justifications for both ‘removals’ placed heavy emphasis on the ‘Proper Use of the Land’ and suggested that Americans were the only ones who would utilize the land. The civilization of America in turn had no room for ‘inferior races’, such as the Mexicans or the Native Indians. America saw the ‘removal’ of each as the best way to spread their exceptional way of life increasingly westward.
ReplyDeleteChristopher Malone
ReplyDeleteBoth the Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War provide examples of American exceptionalism. The United States, in their aspirations to further Manifest Destiny sought to marginalise both Cherokee and Latin nationals, ultimately with similar intentions.
To argue that the Cherokee Removal was precedent for the Mexican American War would be an oversimplification of an intrinsic and intentional policy movement. Whilst the Cherokee removal demonstrated an Anglo-American fear and distaste of non-white actors, the Mexican-American War dug deeper in that America had reached a point in its early history where cultivating land was a secondary consideration in light of consolidating outreaching settlements in order to garner regional dominance and eliminate colonial influence through Central and South America.
The temporal shift Anglo-America exhibits between initiatives was the focus on religion. Whilst the Cherokee population had, to an extent, embraced contemporary American culture, the Latin Catholics were viewed as a threat to the Protestant majority, and provided an ample scapegoat where the validity of racial profiling, which had worked so effectively against the African American slave class, as well as the native cherokee, was brought into question in regards to many of the lighter-skinned Latin population.
The Trail of Tears and the Mexican-American War were justified to the American people largely on socio-racial grounds. With the perception of an Anglo-Saxon socio-racial supremacy over the Native or Mexican, justified to Americans as proven by their ‘superior’ use of land over the Native or Mexican, westward expansion appeared to Americans an act of necessary social progression; expansion became an act of pseudo-benevolence towards the Native, or Mexican, through enlightenment. This perception of superiority was arguably a product of the Enlightenment’s Eurocentric exceptionalism, which encouraged the growth of an exceptionalist United States, which in turn alloyed with nineteenth century American evangelicalism to create a perception of Manifest Destiny.
ReplyDeleteThere are, without a doubt, parallels between the Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War. Both cases involved the realisation of what was eventually called America's “Manifest Destiny”, and both were largely legitimised on racial grounds. In sources from the time, Americans make clear their justifying belief that these inferior races are incapable of “proper use of the land”, for which the Anglo-Saxon race is uniquely equipped.
ReplyDeleteDespite there being some differences between the Cherokee removal and the Mexican-American war, we can consider one a precedent for the other. In both cases, there were attempts by the U.S government to buy the land off their opponents, who rejected these proposals. These rejections resulted in the U.S using coercive force in order to achieve their expansionist ambitions. Furthermore, the Democrats were able to succeed in taking their opponents' lands despite considerable opposition on the home front and from their political rivals.
Perdue and Green tied the Cherokee Removal to the emergence of ‘romantic nationalism’ and the racial superiority of United States as a white mans nation. These justifications were similar to those used for the Mexican-American war; racial inferiority and to further serve as reasoning for American exceptionalism. However Mexicans were harder to pinpoint on racial terms and more scientific reasoning was used, rather than being an ‘uncivilized’ race which was largely the justification for Cherokee Removal. Although similar justifications were used considering Cherokee Removal as a precedent is overly simplistic, the Mexican-American War origins were not solely based on racial justifications, the boundary issues surrounding the Texas territory was a large factor in the decision for war.
ReplyDeleteBoth wars were dominated by justifications due to race, but with slightly different focuses.
ReplyDeleteThough the purported reason for the Mexican-American war was that Mexico had breached the boundary of the United States, its rationale seemed primarily based on race. The Mexicans were decreed to be feminine, lazy and ignorant with smaller brains; gender and scientific theories played their part. Similarly, religion was motivational, as Protestant America did not want to be overrun by Catholics. Even creating political stability for the Mexicans was a suggested justification.
The Cherokee removal, however, was justified by the desire for land and the doctrine of the proper use of land. This was of course connected to America’s racial beliefs, and their consequent swelling conviction that the Cherokees could not be civilised, despite evidence to the contrary. Humanitarianism was also cited as validating the removal, due to the proximity of Georgia.
Therefore, the Cherokee removal can be seen as a weak precedent for the Mexican ‘removal’, but only due to the broad similarity of the racial justifications.
The Cherokee Removal in 1838 and the Mexican American War in 1846 - 1848 can be considered a continual progression of American ideology of exceptionalism. In both instances, the American governments justified their actions under a very similar concept of themselves being racially superior and their duty to expand their civilization westward.
ReplyDeleteIn both proceedings, most Americans believed that it was their duty, their destiny to bring civilization to those “uncivilized” and inferior races. Although the Cherokee nation was considered to be the most advanced in assimilating to ‘white’ society, President Andrew Jackson pushed the contradictory theory of assimilation through isolation in order to preserve and ‘protect’ these racially inferior people. Whereas, in the Mexican American War, the American government justified their position through the prism of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. This doctrine essentially positioned America as the “mother” to protect the ‘helpless’ nations from European powers aiming to colonize. This ideological doctrine and the notion that America deserved the annexed land because of their racial superiority and ability to use the lushes lands ‘properly’ enabled Americans to justify their actions in the Mexican American War.
Although the Cherokee Removal and Mexican American War played out differently, the motive behind the justifications can be seen under the umbrella of American exceptionalism. As both events can be seen as a continual progression of racial exceptionalism in America’s history.
It is quite simple to draw parallels between the justifications used for the removal of the cherokee people and that of the Mexican-American war. While both were thinly veiled through diplomatic agendas such as that of border disputes with the Mexicans, the true validation of these actions came from the American nation's belief in their own exceptionalism.
ReplyDeleteThe European Americans justified the removal of the Cherokees, by their belief that the Cherokees were a subordinate, savage people, incapable of utilising the land in their possession to its full potential. The white Americans spearheaded by Jackson, saw it as part of their purpose to take control of the land to allow preservation of the Cherokee people by pushing them west of the Mississipi where they could peacefully exist, with their own cultural practices. This act is evidently one bred of the belief of racial superiority, a conviction that the white Americans were of grander ilk than the natives of the American continent.
Similarly, accounts of white American's initial impressions of the Mexican people, reveal a deep seated superiority complex, the Mexicans being racially vilified as lazy, weak and effeminate. The Mexicans, similar to the Cherokee, were occupying land that the Americans desired, yet were unwilling to submit. As such, the land was to be seized in order to fulfil America's manifest destiny.
Both the Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War were justified by expansionism, but also exceptionalism. The practical benefit of the Removal was more land: by 1830 the combined populations of Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia had grown to over two million.
ReplyDeleteAs such, the need for land in order to expand was clear. However, a second justification can be found in Andrew Jackson’s message to Congress (1830). Jackson positions the United States as an altruistic force; one that knows what is best for the Indian population. He points to the native’s ‘savage habits’ and their poor ‘condition’. A degree of American exceptoinalism can be found here.
Similarly, it could be said that the Mexican-American War was racially justified. They were a ‘lazy set’ (Greenberg, 97); uneducated and (once again) ‘savage’. A war that was ostensibly justified by the need to ‘nationally [exist]’ (Polk) was perhaps more racially motivated.
Many of the same justifications were used for the removal of the Cherokees and the annexation of Texas. American exceptionalism and ‘national character,’ defined the change from civilisation policies to removal, and brought about a belief in American Anglo-Saxon racial superiority. This extended to the Mexican-American war and the use of phrenology to justify Mexican effeminateness. Furthermore, proper use of the land was part of the justification of removal in both cases. The motivations were, however, different as where the Mexicans would have to be assimilated, the purpose of removal of the Cherokees was designed to isolate them from American ‘civilisation.'
ReplyDeleteThe Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American war were prompted by differing historical circumstances; however the motivation for both were similar. They were justified in terms of racial superiority or inferiority and the issue of improper use of land by the former occupants. Although the methods of acquiring the land were different for each event, the Cherokee Removal could have served as a precedent for the Mexican-American War. The actions of the United States remained fundamentally similar, in that they claimed racial superiority over land and race to spread its influence and ideals, thus fulfilling the notion of ‘Manifest Destiny’. Therefore, the Cherokee Removal would have given more legitimacy to the Mexican-American War.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War do draw on this notion of expansionism as a justification to appropriate the natives land, the circumstances surrounding each events were fundamentally different and therefore cannot provide precedent.
ReplyDeleteThe search for resources has been a significant driving force behind the appropriation of land throughout history. In addition to this notion of 'Manifest Destiny', America was adamant in seizing the surrounding land to host the proliferating population of Anglo-Saxons; a process that ultimately led to the Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears. However, 'Manifest Destiny' provided a tenuous link to the seizure of Native American territory, allowing racism to emerge as a more robust justification. Indeed, when the Mexican-American War raged, more 'developed' forms of racism surfaced such as phrenology. While not having a basis in reality, the Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War did share this basic common trait.
While racism was a popular feature of these two events, the Mexican-American War was distinctly different in regard to American land. The Cherokee Indians were a cultural group existing within the United States as a nation who eventually formulated its own constitution. This is distinguished to the Mexicans who lived outside the realm of the United States with their own culture and their own nation. Cherokee Removal was ostensibly accepted on the grounds it was American land, a feature the Mexican Removal does not share. This fact invites the point of American imperialism under the guise of humanitarian presidential rhetoric and dubious shedding of American blood.
As such, the Cherokee Removal does not provide precedent for Mexican Removal.
There is a strong thread running through the presidential rhetoric from Jackson to Polk when explaining the expansion of the United States. Both presidents perceived their respective acts of expansion (Cherokee Removal and the Mexican-American War), as another step in the process of national growth. Explanations along these lines were sufficient to justify their acts to those who were involved in the political process. While the specific circumstances differed, both events relied upon notions of racial and cultural superiority amongst white elites. Thus, while it may be going too far to claim that the removal of the Cherokee served as a “precedent” for the Mexican-American War, both events undoubtedly resulted from the same set of beliefs and assumptions about the ‘other’ inhabitants of the North American continent.
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