How the USA Colonized the USA, Mapped
Summary
TLDRThis video script narrates the historical injustices faced by Native American tribes during the formation and expansion of the United States. It details the Louisiana Purchase, where the US acquired imperial rights but not actual land ownership, leading to forced treaties and displacement. The script highlights the broken promises, violence, and manipulation used to seize tribal lands, including the infamous Trail of Tears. It also touches on the impact of cotton farming and the role of figures like Andrew Jackson in this dark chapter of American history.
Takeaways
- ๐ The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of the United States for $15 million, but it was more about acquiring imperial rights to North America rather than land ownership.
- ๐ค The U.S. aimed to acquire land from native tribes through treaties and compensation, reflecting ideals of justice and humanity as stated by George Washington.
- ๐ The U.S. government initially offered food, farming equipment, cash, and other services in exchange for land from native tribes.
- ๐ However, as the U.S. population grew, the government and settlers began to use coercion and force to acquire native lands, contradicting initial ideals.
- ๐ฐ The U.S. often broke treaties and used underhanded tactics such as intoxicating tribal leaders or appointing false tribal leaders to sign away lands.
- ๐ซ The Indian Removal Act of 1830, championed by Andrew Jackson, formalized the forced relocation of native tribes, leading to the infamous Trail of Tears.
- ๐ The Cherokee Nation's legal victory in the Supreme Court was undermined by the executive branch's refusal to enforce the ruling, demonstrating the government's hypocrisy.
- ๐ The Trail of Tears between 1831 and 1838 involved the forced relocation of nearly 100,000 native people, resulting in thousands of deaths.
- ๐ผ The U.S. government, military, and private companies were all complicit in the systematic ethnic cleansing of native tribes to make way for settlers and economic expansion.
- ๐ The economic growth of the U.S., particularly in the cotton industry, was directly linked to the displacement and suffering of native tribes.
Q & A
What significant event is referred to as the Louisiana Purchase?
-The Louisiana Purchase was a real estate deal in 1803 where the United States doubled its size by acquiring a vast territory from France for $15 million.
What did the United States actually buy from France in the Louisiana Purchase?
-The United States bought the imperial rights to the land, which meant France would not interfere with the U.S. colonizing the territory.
How did the United States plan to acquire land from the native tribes?
-The U.S. intended to negotiate and sign formal treaties with the native tribes, then pay them fairly for their land.
What was George Washington's stance on the administration of Indian affairs?
-George Washington was determined that the U.S. government's administration of Indian affairs would be directed by the principles of justice and humanity.
How did the initial peaceful transactions between the U.S. and native tribes change over time?
-As the U.S. became more powerful and needed more land for its growing population, the government and settlers started using coercion, fraud, and violence to force tribes to give up their land.
What was the impact of the westward movement on native tribes?
-The westward movement led to native tribes being forced to sign treaties and cede their lands, often through deceit and military force, resulting in displacement and violence.
What was the Black Belt Prairie and why was it desirable to cotton farmers?
-The Black Belt Prairie was a strip of land particularly fertile for cotton farming. It was desirable because cotton was a lucrative cash crop.
What was the Cherokee Nation's response to Georgia's attempt to abolish their government and claim their land?
-The Cherokee Nation fought back by taking Georgia to court, and they won the case in the Supreme Court, which upheld their rights to the land.
What was Andrew Jackson's role in the forced relocation of native tribes, known as the Trail of Tears?
-Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court ruling that supported the Cherokee's land rights and instead pushed for the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which led to the forced relocation and suffering of many native tribes.
What was the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and what was its effect on native tribes?
-The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a law that authorized the U.S. government to negotiate treaties for the relocation of native tribes to designated 'Indian Territory.' It resulted in the forced removal and suffering of many tribes, including the infamous Trail of Tears.
How did the United States government and settlers justify their actions towards native tribes?
-The U.S. government and settlers justified their actions through a facade of legal documents, treaties, and payments, which they claimed were just and fair, despite the actual violence and coercion involved.
Outlines
๐ The Origins of America's Expansion
The script begins with a description of the continent's diverse landscapes and the native tribes that inhabited it. It then shifts to the historical event of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, where the United States acquired rights to a vast territory from France for $15 million. The narrative highlights that this land was not owned by France but inhabited by native tribes. The U.S. aimed to acquire legitimate ownership through treaties and payments to the native tribes, contrasting with old imperial powers. George Washington's quote emphasizes the intention to administer Indian affairs with justice and humanity.
๐ The Facade of Treaties and Land Acquisition
This section delves into the U.S.'s initial attempts at peaceful land transactions with native tribes, offering goods and services in exchange for land. However, it quickly moves to the darker side of this process, where the U.S. government and settlers began using coercion and force. The narrative provides examples of tribes like the Great Lakes tribes and the Seminoles who resisted but were eventually forced into treaties or war, leading to their displacement. The paragraph exposes the breaking of treaties and the exploitation of native lands for the benefit of white settlers and the cotton industry.
๐ฐ The Rise and Fall of the 'Five Civilized Tribes'
The focus of this paragraph is on the 'Five Civilized Tribes'โCherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminoleโwho had treaties with the U.S. recognizing their land rights. Despite their attempts to assimilate and maintain their lands, the tribes faced increasing pressure from cotton farmers and slave owners. The paragraph details the Cherokee's legal battle with the state of Georgia, their Supreme Court victory, and the subsequent Indian Removal Act of 1830 by Andrew Jackson, which aimed to forcibly relocate tribes to the west. It discusses the fraudulent tactics used to gain tribal lands, including intoxicating leaders and appointing false tribal chiefs to sign away lands.
๐ถโโ๏ธ The Trail of Tears and Ongoing Struggles
This paragraph describes the forced relocation of the five tribes, known as the Trail of Tears, where thousands were expelled from their lands and made to walk to designated areas in the west. It discusses the fraudulent signing of a treaty by an unauthorized Cherokee leader and the U.S. government's disregard for the tribe's protests. The paragraph concludes with the impact of these actions on native populations, the loss of life, and the economic growth of the cotton industry in the newly vacated lands. It also sets the stage for a continuation of the story in a second video, hinting at further resistance and the establishment of a state that could have been different.
๐ฅ Behind the Scenes and Future Plans
The final paragraph shifts from historical narrative to a behind-the-scenes look at the video production process. It discusses the creation of a poster featuring map projections, the use of LUTs and presets for video color grading, and the host's startup, Bright Trip. The paragraph also mentions the Patreon support for the channel and expresses gratitude for the viewers' engagement, promising more videos to come.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กLouisiana Purchase
๐กNative Tribes
๐กImperial Rights
๐กTreaties
๐กWestward Movement
๐กEthnic Cleansing
๐กThe Trail of Tears
๐กCotton
๐กBlack Belt Prairie
๐กIndian Removal Act of 1830
๐กSupreme Court
Highlights
The continent's dramatic landscapes have been home to hundreds of nations and tribes for thousands of years.
The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of the United States for just $15 million, but the land was not legally owned by France.
The US was buying imperial rights to colonize the land without French interference, not actual ownership from the native tribes.
George Washington aimed for the US administration of Indian affairs to be directed by justice and humanity.
The US planned to negotiate and pay for land from the native tribes, rather than conquering them.
The US offered goods and services in exchange for land, but many tribes were reluctant to leave their ancestral lands.
As the US population grew, pressure increased to acquire more land, leading to conflicts with tribes that refused to sell their land.
Tactics used by the US included going to war, trickery, and appointing fake tribal leaders to sign away land.
Despite treaties and legal victories, tribes were often forced to sign agreements under duress or through deceit.
The discovery of gold led to the US breaking treaties and encroaching on native lands, disregarding justice and legality.
The five 'civilized tribes' in the deep south faced forced relocation despite treaties recognizing their land rights.
Cotton farming and the desire for land led to the aggressive pursuit to remove native tribes from their lands.
The Cherokee Nation won a Supreme Court case against Georgia, affirming their land rights, but the executive branch did not enforce the ruling.
Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 used taxpayer money to forcibly relocate tribes, despite promises of fair treatment.
The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation of the Cherokee and other tribes, resulting in thousands of deaths.
The US government, military, and private companies were all involved in the forced removal of First Americans from their lands.
The process was systematic, documented, and resulted in the first state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in America.
Hitler later referenced the US's ethnic cleansing as a model for his own actions.
The story of the First Americans continues with their attempts to build a new life in Indian territory and fight back through legal means.
Transcripts
(inspirational music) (waves crashing)
- This continent has some
of the most dramatic landscapes on the planet.
From the ocean shorelines
to the alpine mountains and the sandy deserts,
and also in this land mass from coast to coast,
and everywhere in between there lived hundreds,
if not thousands of different nations,
tribes of people whose land this was, this was their home.
But then others showed up to these shorelines
in their boats, and that is when everything changed.
(pensive music) (text clicking)
(button clicking) (lively music)
Okay. (hands rubbing)
In the spring of 1803, two American politicians
visiting Paris closed the sweetest real estate deal
they had ever seen.
With the simple stroke of a pen,
their country doubled in size, all for just $15 million.
But in this deal, which was called the Louisiana Purchase,
the US didn't actually buy this land from France.
France didn't actually own the land.
What the United States was buying was the imperial rights
to this huge swath of North America.
This basically meant that France would stay out of the way
and let the buddy new empire,
the United States, colonize it without interfering.
If the United States really wanted ownership over this land,
they would need to get it
from the people who were here first,
which at the time was lots of different native tribes.
These are the people who had been here
for thousands of years,
way before Europeans had the idea
of leaving their continent.
And this land that the US just bought was theirs.
(dramatic music)
Oh, and this isn't just me, like some modern,
enlightened person looking back
and judging the United States at this time.
The US knew that this wasn't their land
and that they were going to have to buy it
from the people living there.
And their big plan was to do things differently,
not like the old imperial powers
that they had just broken away from.
In fact, George Washington was quote, "Determined
that the US government's administration
of Indian affairs shall be directed entirely
by the great principles of justice and humanity."
Go, USA.
Let's do this in the right way.
So instead of conquest, they would negotiate
and sign formal treaties with these native nations.
Then they would pay them for their land, fair and square.
(camera snapping)
After all, this was a country whose founding document
highlights justice, tranquility, welfare, and liberty.
In our series, "How the US Stole,"
we get to see how the US grew
from a group of English settlers to a global superpower.
But none of those stories would exist without this one,
the origin story, the first thing that the US ever stole.
(film whirring) (dramatic music)
So Europeans are pouring into this newly formed country,
the United States, and the government is making deals
and signing treaties with the tribes,
allowing these newcomer immigrants to settle on their land.
At first, this is a fairly peaceful transactional process.
The US would offer food, farming equipment, cash,
the services of a blacksmith,
all exchange for ownership over this land.
But unsurprisingly, a lot of these tribes had no interest
in moving out of their ancestral lands
in exchange for like farming equipment.
And this is where all of George Washington's ideals
of justice and humanity really start to dissolve.
The US was becoming a more powerful nation.
They needed more land for their booming population.
So the inpatient settlers
and their government started playing dirty.
- [Reporter] The westward movement
was like a green tidal wave.
- You start to see what happens when these tribes say no
to the newly powerful United States.
In one instance, one group of tribes up near the Great Lakes
didn't wanna sell their land.
They told the United States
that this river would be the border
and to not cross it, to stay off their land.
The US said no.
And they took them to war and lost twice.
But on the third time, they won the battle
and forced the tribes to sign a treaty giving away all
of this land, basically all of present-day Ohio.
Something very similar happened down here
when the Seminole tribes refused to leave their land,
the US military came in, another war killing thousands,
forcing the tribes to sign a treaty
and pushing them into the swampy interior
of the state where they had no access
to their farmland or the ocean.
Down here in what was becoming Alabama,
the Muskogee nation refused to sign a relocation treaty
but not wanting to go to war,
agreed to sell a portion of their land
in return for a guarantee that they could keep the rest.
And the United States agreed, and they actually did.
And the Muskogee kept their ancestral lands forever.
Wamp, wamp, no, that didn't happen.
Four years later, a bunch of white settlers moved in,
boxing the Muskogee out of their ancestral land.
As tensions grew because of this violated agreement,
the US military was called in
to force the Muskogee out of their lands.
No treaty was ever signed.
I mean, the shenanigans ranged the whole gamut here.
They would get tribal leaders drunk to trick them
into signing this paper that gave them all the land.
They would appoint random people to be the tribal leaders
and then tell them to sign away the land
for the whole tribe.
In another conflict, the Sioux and Arapaho nations
defeated the US military over and over
until the US finally signed a peace treaty,
acknowledging their land.
(text clicking)
And they were safe
until gold was discovered eight years later
and the US broke their treaty, redrew the boundaries,
built roads on their land.
And before you know it, you've got a bunch
of white guys with gold pans harvesting this land.
Treaties and justice be damned.
(dramatic music)
Eventually, other tribes caught
onto what was gonna happen, realizing
that refusing the US government would mean violence.
So they would sign the paper, take the money and leave.
Over the course of almost 100 years,
the United States signed 368 treaties
with tribal nations who were driven out one way
or another to make way
for white settlers who established control
over this land that their government had stolen for them.
And yes, you have all the paperwork,
all the spreadsheets that they were making,
all the treaties, a nice paper trail
but this was all a facade of justice,
a thinly veiled campaign for imperial conquest.
(dramatic music)
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Let's get back to the story.
Okay, so we have all of this like fake treaty shenanigans
going on to help the United States feel
like they're doing justice and it's working.
They are moving loads of native people out
of their ancestral lands so that white people can settle it.
But there was one region that proved particularly difficult
for this extermination project that was going down.
Here in the deep south,
you had these five large nations that lived side by side
with the settlers for a long time.
They had all signed treaties with the United States
that acknowledged their right to this land.
Many of them spoke English, practiced farming,
wore European clothes, some even owned slaves.
Because of this,
these five tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw,
Muskogee, and Seminole were known
as the five civilized tribes.
And there's an alternative world where these tribes
could have remained on their land living side by side
with the Europeans as they settled.
But that's not what happened,
mostly because of cotton.
(pensive music)
Farmers down here were getting super rich off
of a very valuable cash crop called cotton
that they could sell to textile mills around the world.
It was an industry made even more profitable
by its key input: free labor from stolen Africans.
There was this one strip
of land down here called the Black Belt Prairie
that was particularly desirable for farming cotton.
But as you can see, it was locked up
in what the United States treaties had formally acknowledged
as belonging to Native Nations.
But the farmers down here were looking at this as like
this is a perfect place to expand our cotton kingdom.
So these southern slave owners did what was kind
of becoming US policy
towards the people living on the land that they wanted.
They made up their own rules.
The state of Georgia was particularly aggressive
in trying to clear this land out, or in the words
of their governor at the time to replace, quote,
"All of the red with white population."
They targeted the Cherokee nation, passing a law
that abolished their governments.
The Cherokee are not gonna stand for this.
So they fight back using the same shenanigans
that the United States is trying to use:
the US legal system.
They take Georgia to court, a case that went all the way
to the Supreme Court.
And guess what?
The Cherokee Nation won.
Like there was no way
around the fact that they had ironclad rights
to this land signed and sealed.
The highest court in the country just ruled
that the states could not impose on tribal sovereignty.
But as we all learned in government class,
a ruling from the judicial branch only works
if the executive branch enforces it.
Oh, and who was in charge of the executive branch?
Oh, this guy.
The guy who wrote a letter to his wife
during the War of 1812 from the battlefield saying
that he had successfully slaughtered 170 Native Americans
in quote, "An elegant style."
Oh, and the guy who's on our $20 bill.
Yeah, him, Andrew Jackson thought
that negotiating treaties with the people
who were living here was a ridiculous notion.
So he looks at the Supreme Court ruling
that validates the Cherokees right to their land.
And he literally responds
in the snarkiest way possible saying,
the chief justice John Marshall has, quote,
"Made his decision.
Now let him enforce it."
No, he was not going to enforce it.
Jackson had a different plan in mind.
It came in the form of a new law
that he pushed through both Houses of Congress.
His whole worldview towards First Americans embodied
in a piece of American legislation,
the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
This law used taxpayer money to get tribes out
of the United States,
and to relocate them to an uninhabitable place
that surely no American settler will ever end up.
- [Reporter] The great plains seemed an inhospitable land
to people familiar with the eastern states and of Europe.
- This became their dumping ground
and it came with a promise.
Move here and we will never mess with you again.
And what's crazy to me
is that even after all of the shenanigans, all the facades,
they continued to play this charade saying that the nation
of Indians may choose to exchange their land
where they now reside.
The law says that the government
had to negotiate these treaties fairly, voluntarily,
peacefully, and that the government would, quote,
"Forever secure and guarantee them their new land."
And that they wouldn't break any
of the preexisting agreements
that they had made in previous treaties.
But no, this was just more pretending, a paper trail
of pretend humanity.
Just as Andrew Jackson had ignored the Supreme Court ruling,
he had no intention
in following the law that he helped create.
But he kept up the ruse, more documents, more signatures,
more paper that made
these civilized justice-minded people feel
like they weren't orchestrating a mass ethnic cleansing
sanctioned by the government, paid for by taxes.
But they were.
So this law is implemented
and the United States government, military
and even private companies start to ramp up
their removal efforts of First Americans.
They focused in on these five tribes
that were sitting atop the land
that they wanted for their cotton empire.
More bribes, more pretend negotiations.
And when push came to shove, more threats of violence.
The Cherokee eventually signed a treaty agreeing
to sell their last portion of land.
And they moved west out to their little rectangle
of land that had been allocated
to them by the government on maps.
The only problem was that the leader
who signed the treaty on behalf
of the Cherokee people was not actually the real leader.
They had no authority to make this decision.
The Cherokee chief furiously protested this
but the US didn't care.
They had their signature from someone.
In their eyes, all was justified.
(pensive music)
Between 1831 and 1838, nearly every member
from the five tribes was expelled from their land.
100,000 people whose home this was
now forced to walk by foot for more than 1,000 miles
through brutal weather and terrain towards a little box
on the map, a place they had never been before.
The Cherokee would eventually call this journey The Trail
Where We Cried or The Trail of Tears.
Some tried to fight back against their oppressors
and others stood their ground until they were forcibly bound
in chains by the US government and herded west at gunpoint.
Their land was vacant and cotton farmers
with their slaves moved in and the economy grew.
(dramatic music)
We'll never know how many people died during all of this.
How many lives were really destroyed.
Some people say 3,000, other estimates say 15,000
but you don't need those numbers to see
how destructive this was.
It was systematic, it was documented
and it was enshrined in law.
We've a paper trail of all of it showing the receipts,
the payments, the treaties, the bureaucracy of it all.
It's like a bunch of spreadsheets from the 1800s.
American settlers, in an effort to be different
from the Old World empires they fled,
ended up carrying out
the first state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.
There's a reason why Hitler 100 years later
references this exact event, this process
when he was carrying out his own ethnic cleansing.
He said that the Volga, which is a river in Russia,
would be, quote, "Our Mississippi."
He said that Europe,
not America would be the land of unlimited possibilities.
(dramatic music)
The story of what happened
to many nations of the First Americans doesn't end here.
In fact, this is kind of the beginning.
We're gonna make a second part to this video.
And in that part two, I wanna show you what happens next
once these tribes arrive
to their little rectangle on the map, Indian territory,
the place where these tribes were forced out,
dumped and left to build a new life
and how they once again tried to fight back
using the legal frameworks that had pushed them out
and how all of that led to the establishment of one state
in our country that could have looked a lot different.
(pensive music)
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(hands knocking)
End tag bonanza.
Look at these people.
(lively music)
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