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1830John Tanner’s Narrative is published.
In his autobiography, non-Indian John Tanner tells
the story of his 30 years spent among the Ojibway.
In 1789, when Tanner was about nine years old, he
was taken captive by a raiding party. He eventually
became a member of the Ojibway tribe and married
an Indian woman, with whom he raised a family. His
book also recounts his desire in later life to reconnect
with white society, only to find himself distrusted
among both Indians and non-Indians. In addition
to its vivid presentations of the conflicts between the
white and Indian worlds on the frontier, Narrative of
the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner will later
be recognized as an important ethnographic source
on traditional Ojibway life.
Georgia ignores the Supreme Court ruling
in Georgia v. Tassel.
In Georgia v. Tassel, an Indian man named George
Tassel challenges his conviction for murder in a
Georgia state court. Tassel maintains that because
the crime was committed on Indian land, his case
is outside of the state’s jurisdiction. John Marshall,
chief justice of the Supreme Court, agrees and holds
that Tassel’s case should be reconsidered by a federal
court. The state of Georgia, believing the Court is
infringing on its rights, ignores Marshall’s order and
hangs Tassel before he can be retried. The incident
alarms the Cherokee of Georgia and moves them to
launch a lawsuit to stop the state from interfering in
their affairs (see entry for 1831).
May 28
Congress passes the Indian Removal Act.
With the passage of the Indian Removal Act, the
federal government formalizes its Removal policy.
Through this policy, the United States seeks to relo-
cate, or remove, eastern Indian groups (particularly
the large tribes of the Southeast) to Indian Terri-
tory, a vaguely defined area west of the Mississippi
River. The act is pushed forward by President An-
drew Jackson. He sympathizes with the demands
of Georgia officials who several decades earlier had
ceded to the United States land to the west of their
state’s present border in exchange for the federal
government’s guarantee that it would extinguish
Cherokee land claims in Georgia (see entry for
1802). The act is also supported by government of-
ficials who want to open eastern Indian lands for
white settlement, and by reformers, who believe
Removal will protect Indians from the corrupting
influence of white homesteaders.September 27The Choctaw sign the Treaty of Dancing
Rabbit Creek.
At a treaty council called by Bureau of Indian Affairs
officials, Choctaw leaders reject the government’s pro-
posal that the tribe leave their Mississippi homeland“Amid the gloom and honors of
our present separation, we are
cheered with the hope that ere
long we shall reach our destined
home, and that nothing short of
the basest acts of treachery will
ever be able to wrest it from us,
and that we may live free.... I
ask you in the name of justice
for repose, for myself, and my in-
jured people. Let us alone—we
will not harm you, we want rest.
We hope, in the name of justice
that another outrage may never
be committed against us.”
—Choctaw leader George W.
Harkins on his tribe’s impending
removal to Indian Territoryand move to lands west of the Mississippi River
designated as Indian Territory. After all but a few