Toward Cherokee Removal: Land, Violence, and the White Man’s Chance

239 Pages·2020·6.137 MB·English

by  Adam J. Pratt

Toward Cherokee Removal
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Early American Places is a collaborative project of the
University of Georgia Press, New York University Press,
Northern Illinois University Press, and the University of
Nebraska Press. The series is supported by the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, please visit
www.earlyamericanplaces.com.
Advisory Board
Vincent Brown, Duke University
Andrew Cayton, Miami University
Cornelia Hughes Dayton, University of Connecticut
Nicole Eustace, New York University
Amy S. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University
Ramón A. Gutiérrez, University of Chicago
Peter Charles Hoffer, University of Georgia
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, New York University
Joshua Piker, College of William & Mary
Mark M. Smith, University of South Carolina
Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University
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Toward Cherokee
Removal
Land, Violence, and the White Man’s Chance
Adam J. Pratt
The University of Georgia Press
Athens
© 2020 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved
Portions of chapters 3, 4, and 5 appeared previously as “Violence and the Competition for
Sovereignty in Cherokee Country, 1829–1835,” in American Nineteenth Century History 17,
no. 2 (2016): 181–97, and are reprinted here by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors.
Printed digitally
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937240
ISBN: 9780820358253 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9780820358260 (ebook)
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Order and Sovereignty 11
2 Disorder in the Disputed Territory 26
3 The Slicks and the Pony Club 49
4 The Convergence of State and Federal Policy 72
5 The Georgia Guard and the Politics of Order, 1830–1832 92
6 The Georgia Guard and the White Man’s Chance, 1832–1836 121
7 The Militia and the Coming of Order 150
Conclusion 171
Notes 179
Bibliography 201
Index 215
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Acknowledgments
Although I did not realize it at the time, the seeds for this project were
planted when my family, like so many others, moved to metro Atlanta
in the mid-1990s. My new home felt different and mysterious, in part
because it kept the names of an older, but also more present, past. I fished
for trout in the Chattahoochee River, while a local hardware store and
the youth baseball league, both called Ocee, all kept place-names that
predated American settlement.
When I left for college, the first upper-level history courses I took cov-
ered Andrew Jackson and Indian Removal. One in-class debate became
so heated so quickly that a student began to cry (I still point out to Paul
Anderson, the professor of that class and my undergraduate mentor, that
I was not the reason those tears were shed). When I went off to graduate
school, it was that single day in that single course that stuck with me. It
demonstrated to me the power that the past holds over our current lived
experience—and our emotions. It was not a surprise to me, then, when I
went to my adviser and told him I wanted to study Indian Removal and
not the politics of Civil War memory.
As he did on countless occasions, Gaines Foster leaned back in his
chair, bemused look on his face, and asked me to explain myself. My
inarticulate rambling obviously worked. Gaines shepherded me through
the program at LSU, helped me network with other scholars, gave me
encouraging feedback, and at the end of it all, more importantly, insisted
that I call him his friend. It’s a friendship that I cherish to this day. My