Records of the Moravians among the Cherokees

The subtitle In Their Own Voice—“Power to Remove” sets the tension-filled tone of Volume 8 of Records of the Moravians among the Cherokees. In the brief span of just two and a half years, 1828 to July 1830, events take place that seal the fate of the Cherokees east of the Mississippi.

The Cherokees put Sequoyah’s syllabary to use with a printing press and newspaper, so that their words, in Cherokee and English, are heard not only in their Nation but as far as the subscriptions carry the Cherokee Phoenix. Although some Cherokees emigrate to the west, the greater majority choose to remain in their ancestral homeland and suffer the consequences of intruding Georgians.

But the federal election of 1828 signals a change in American politics as Andrew Jackson is elected president and the destiny of America is pushing westward. With the discovery of gold found in Cherokee lands and the United States Congress giving the president “power to remove” all Native Americans east of Mississippi, the Cherokee homelands become increasingly threatened.