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I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me.
Lesson 2: What were the Key Controversies of the Jackson Presidency?
Today you are going to make some very important observations. For years, the Native Americans purchased manufactured goods by relying upon the profits gained by selling deerskins and other commodities to the British. After the Revolutionary War, this market experienced a significant decline. First as Secretary of State under Washington and later as President, Thomas Jefferson encouraged Native Americans to focus their energies on commercial farming. If they transitioned to an agriculturally based lifestyle, similar to the white landowners in the South, Jefferson hoped that the Native Americans would be able to support themselves, assimilate into the American economy, and sell portions of their former hunting grounds, now considered to be surplus land, to the states.
Despite some cultural barriers, most notably the notion that farming was women's work, over the next thirty years some Native Americans began adopting parts of Jefferson's "civilization program." Farmers implemented numerous commercial agricultural methods, including slavery. During this time, Native Americans explored other political, social, and economic changes that lessened the differences between the notions of American and Indian "civilizations." Despite these changes, President Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 required all Indian nations to give up their tribal lands and relocate to federally owned land west of the Mississippi.
In this Web assignment, it is up to you to examine the style-of-life experienced by the Cherokee Indians in the 1830's and determine if their practices were compatible with the United States at that time.
Analyze the state of the Cherokee nation prior to Indian removal and answer the question, "Did the Cherokee Indians change their lifestyle to reflect white American standards of the time?" Make sure to include examples!
