INTRO
Hello to All,
I never thought that I would live to see the day that we might get some of our sacred land back,
I have filed a federal class action against the United States for the return of the land seized by the United States under Trail of Tears Treaty of 1835 and for the fair market value of any land at that time that cannot be returned.
It took 182 years for we, the Cherokee People, to get this opportunity to get our land back at least some of it. We found an incredible attorney Michael Lynn Gabriel, an author of 19 legal books, who found and developed a legal theory overlooked by all that should not only get some of our land back but also act as a bar against such further similar governmental abuse of the Fifth Amendment towards all Americans.
Our complaint is on this site, so you can see what is being done
The legal basis for the return of the land is like most new ideas so simple to contemplate and understand that it took a legal genius to see it.
The US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment requires just compensation for any property for public use. Every case up to this point of time has only dealt with the issue of just compensation no case has ever addressed whether the taking was for the public use or good. It has always been accepted that every taking was for the public good so no one ever questioned that point until now.
The taking of the Cherokee land was done to get rid of the Cherokee Indians, that was the government’s sole purpose. The government made sure of its intention to do so when it passed the 1830 Indian Removal Act which gave President Jackson the right to take Indian lands.
Our question under the Fifth Amendment is whether:
- the taking of Indian lands or for that matter anyone’s land just for the sole purpose of getting rid of them and then
- forcing upon them a 2222 mile death march
is really for the public use, benefit and good of the United States?
Does the government really have the power under the Fifth Amendment to force people off their land just because it does not like them? If so then a Democratic legislature of a state could order the purchase of all Republican-held lands as long as fair market value was paid for the lands and then order the Republicans to leave the state under guard. In Republican-controlled states, the reverse could happen. That is what happened to the Cherokee. So if that was for the public good so then would the above examples as well
In order for the taking of Cherokee land to be valid, then it must be found that its purpose was for the public good. In short, the American People would have to agree that it was for the public good for the government to take Indian land solely for the purpose of getting rid of them and that is also for the public good to then to march on a death march of 2200 miles west of the Mississippi somewhere they did not want to go just to get rid of the Indians. For the government to prevail against us, the American people would have to find that the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which allowed President Jackson o force Indian off their lands was for the public good and not just a means to get rid of Indians.
If that is the actual finding of the courts, then the Federal Government can do anything, take anything force, anyone, to do anything it wants done as long as it pays fair price for what it wants done by simply labeling it as being done for the public good
In September 1835 Chief John Ross sent an open petition to the United States pleading that the fraudulent treaty of 1835 be rejected and that the Cherokee People be allowed to stay on their lands. Over 17000 Cherokees nearly ninety percent (90%) of the tribe members supported that petition. It has become known as the “Our Hearts are Sickened Petition” from the famous line of the petition.
Those signing the petition knew that if it was not accepted that they could be signing their death sentence. In fact for many they were. The government after rejecting the petition used the signatures on the petition to track down all of those Indians as trouble makers just because they wanted to stay in their homes and made sure the Indians were put on the death march. Up to one third of the Cherokees died on the march. The government initially tried to say few died but over the years the truth has come out
Now we Cherokee are pursuing two means to get our lands back. One method is political and the second means is legal through the courts. It is seeking help for the political means that is the reason that I can contacting you.
In this election year, we want to put all politicians running for office in both the House and Senate to declare their position on Indian justice. Do they approve of what happened? Do they want to be assured that some form of justice is done? Do they support the return of Cherokee land and indeed all similar Indian Lands taken just to get rids of the Indians and for which the lands have been not been used or little used for the public good?
We have created a web site herein where the 1835 petition will again be resubmitted with signatures of now living Cherokees along with anyone else who believes in a quest for justice.
This is The Re-Petition For the Dead.
We are herein reposting the petition on this web site.
We want to show both to the Courts and to all politicians seeking election that the time for justice has come again and did not die death march of the original signers. Their petition which cost many their lives is now being resubmitted and again seeks the justice denied in their lives for the Cherokee everywhere
Stuart Anglin
RE-PETITION FOR THE DEAD
Preamble
In September 1835 Chief John Ross sent an open petition to the United States pleading that the fraudulent treaty of 1835 be rejected and that the Cherokee People be allowed to stay on their lands. Over 17000 Cherokees nearly ninety percent (90%) of the tribe members supported that petition. It has become known as the “Our Hearts are Sickened Petition” from the famous line of the petition.
Those signing the petition knew that if it was not accepted that they were could be signing their death sentence. In fact for many they were. The government after rejecting the petition used the signatures on the petition to track down all of those Indians as trouble makers just because they wanted to stay in their homes and made sure the Indians were put on the death march. Up to one-third of the Cherokees died on the march. The government initially tried to say few died but over the years the truth could not be concealed.
Now we Cherokee are pursuing two means to get our lands back. One method is political and the second means is legal through the courts. It is seeking help for political means.
We want to put all politicians running for office in both the House and Senate to declare their position on Indian justice:
- Do they approve of what happened?
- Do they want to be assured that some form of justice is done?
- Do they support the return of Cherokee land and indeed all similar Indian Lands taken just to get rids of the Indians and for which the lands have been not been used or little used for the public good?
“OUR HEARTS ARE SICKENED”
“It is well known that for a number of years past we have been harassed by a series of vexations, which it is deemed unnecessary to recite in detail, but the evidence of which our delegation will be prepared to furnish. With a view to bringing our troubles to a close, a delegation was appointed on the 23rd of October, 1835, by the General Council of the nation, clothed with full powers to enter into arrangements with the Government of the United States, for the final adjustment of all our existing difficulties. The delegation failing to effect an arrangement with the United States commissioner, then in the nation, proceeded, agreeably to their instructions in that case, to Washington City, for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with the authorities of the United States. After the departure of the Delegation, a contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, and certain individual Cherokees, purporting to be a “treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of Georgia, on the 29th day of December, 1835, by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious Delegation, in violation of a special injunction of the general council of the nation, proceeded to Washington City with this pretended treaty, and by false and fraudulent representations supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited Delegation of the Cherokee people, and obtained for this instrument, after making important alterations in its provisions, the recognition of the United States Government. And now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the Senate, and approved by the President [Andrew Jackson], and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of the displeasure of the United States, and the threat of summary compulsion, in case of refusal. It comes to us, not through our legitimate authorities, the known and usual medium of communication between the Government of the United States and our nation, but through the agency of a complication of powers, civil and military. By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty. We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralized, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations. The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country. And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of the United States; nor can we believe it to be the design of these honorable and highminded individuals, who stand at the head of the Govt., to bind a whole Nation, by the acts of a few unauthorized individuals. And, therefore, we, the parties to be affected by the result, appeal with confidence to the justice, the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a compact, in the formation of which we have had no agency. In truth, our cause is your own; it is the cause of liberty and of justice; it is based upon your own principles, which we have learned from yourselves; for we have gloried to count your [George] Washington and your [Thomas] Jefferson our great teachers; we have read their communications to us with veneration; we have practised their precepts with success. And the result is manifest. The wildness of the forest has given place to comfortable dwellings and cultivated fields, stocked with the various domestic animals. Mental culture, industrious habits, and domestic enjoyments, have succeeded the rudeness of the savage state. We have learned your religion also. We have read your Sacred books. Hundreds of our people have embraced their doctrines, practiced the virtues they teach, cherished the hopes they awaken, and rejoiced in the consolations which they afford. To the spirit of your institutions, and your religion, which has been imbibed by our community, is mainly to be ascribed that patient endurance which has characterized the conduct of our people, under the laceration of their keenest woes. For assuredly, we are not ignorant of our condition; we are not insensible to our sufferings. We feel them! we groan under their pressure! And anticipation crowds our breasts with sorrows yet to come. We are, indeed, an afflicted people! Our spirits are subdued! Despair has well nigh seized upon our energies! But we speak to the representatives of a Christian country; the friends of justice; the patrons of the oppressed. And our hopes revive, and our prospects brighten, as we indulge the thought. On your sentence, our fate is suspended; prosperity or desolation depends on your word. To you, therefore, we look! Before your august assembly we present ourselves, in the attitude of deprecation, and of entreaty. On your kindness, on your humanity, on your compassion, on your benevolence, we rest our hopes. To you we address our reiterated prayers. Spare our people! Spare the wreck of our prosperity! Let not our deserted homes become the monuments of our desolation! But we forbear! We suppress the agonies which wring our hearts, when we look at our wives, our children, and our venerable sires! We restrain the forebodings of anguish and distress, of misery and devastation and death, which must be the attendants on the execution of this ruinous compact. In conclusion, we commend to your confidence and favor, our well-beloved and trust-worthy brethren and fellow-citizens, John Ross, Principal Chief, Richard Taylor, Samuel Gunter, John Benge, George Sanders, Walter S. Adair, Stephen Foreman, and Kalsateehee of Aquohee, who are clothed with full powers to adjust all our existing difficulties by treaty arrangements with the United States, by which our destruction may be averted, impediments to the advancement of our people removed, and our existence perpetuated as a living monument, to testify to posterity the honor, the magnanimity, the generosity of the United States. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray.”
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