Table Of Content

Toward Cherokee Removal This page intentionally left blank 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 This page intentionally left blank 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 This page intentionally left blank 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