WORLD POVERTY v/s U.S. IMMIGRATION

[rigney]

I have no idea if this guy, Roy Beck; is a real economist or not. I liked his presentation and analysis of world conditions, so I ask; Is he on the level, or just 'eye candy" for us dummies? Some of you take a look.

 

http://numbersusa.org/

 

Well, you've seen it. What do you think? And do any of you have a soluble solution to this problem?

Edited January 16, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

The problem when people put on shows like this is that it creates fear for "waves" of "mass immigration" that are imagined to exceed "the nation's resources." Of course it all seems logical when you assume that there is such a thing a national economies that are isolated from the rest of the globe, but in reality there is and has been a global economy since globalism began with colonialism, before the US constitution was written and even before Columbus or whoever discovered the Americas at all. Just recently, in fact, someone was telling me about "the Silk road" which is either the name of a book or a trade route (or both) that stretched throughout Europe and Asia. People walked back and forth across Eurasia doing business as they went. I've heard people argue that the global population was so much less then, but the counter-argument to that is that technological modernization has brought much greater efficiency. The point is that there is a global economy and no national region is independent of it, least of all the most prosperous and high-consumption economies.

 

So, the question is why do these kinds of pundits (and nationalists generally) like to frame migration as a threat to national regionalism instead of the reverse? Probably for the same reason they frame the global poor as being too sick and pathetic "to be helped" by the US and/or other developed economies; i.e. because it makes citizens of the developed world feel strong instead of weak, as their high-dependency economies have made them. If so many people are surviving on $2/day, doesn't it make you wonder what they know that westerners don't, considering that most westerners would be lost trying to survive on $2/day?

 

The fact is that once upon a time people migrated to the Americas in search of land/resources to live on independent yeoman farms/homesteads because they believed they could be independent from kings, landlords, and anyone else. The pilgrims suffered terribly after arriving on the Mayflower, but they eventually became self-sufficient. The question is why this American dream has been replaced in the media by a different dream that is about money and what you can buy with it. I suspect the reason is to bolster a consumerist economy instead of stimulating people to pursue greater independence, which would lower GDP since the more people do for themselves, the less money they have to spend to get it elsewhere.

 

The question of opening borders isn't so much about inviting "immigration," it's about having a global economy where it's possible for people to be independently prosperous enough that there is no reason to flee one region for another. The ironic thing is that everywhere I hear of people living as simple farmers, there seems to be oil interests where the poor farmers are getting hunted off the land. Imagine if the story of the pilgrims had been that they were hunted off the land by colonialists who wanted to use their land for commercial oil drilling. Actually, this is basically the story of the cotton industry, which prompted the removal of American indians to reservations. The US has drifted so far from its ideological roots and still people have the gaul to talk about protecting it from 'intruders.' The 'intruders' are well-established; the question is how to convert them back to the dream they sacrificed in the process of creating a social-economic monster.

Edited January 16, 2011 by lemur

[rigney]

Appreciate your input lemur and hope others will reply also. I understand economics about as much as I do knitting. Would be nice if something could be done, but what? I certainly don't want squatters in my back yard. It just ain't that big.

Edited January 17, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

Appreciate your input, but hope someone else can reply. I understand economics about as much as I do knitting. Would be nice if something could be done, but what? I certainly don't want squatters in my back yard. It just ain't that big.

Don't be ridiculous. There are people with US citizenship poor enough to squat your back yard right now. They don't do it because they know they would get arrested. Don't be so naive as to think of the borders as floodgates or dykes waiting to overflow. The issue here is that people lack access to resources in the global economy and somehow a great number of people with citizenship in regions such as the US and other developed/prosperous economies are able to get access to not only basic necessities but also everyday luxuries. The issue is if it's so costly to ship food-surplusses to places where people are hungry, why not allow the hungry people to come to where loads of food is getting thrown away by people getting paid to do it?

[rigney]

lemur, It's hard for me to see the wisdom of your economics. If! as you suggest, we simply allow the immigrants to come in; you will not only have to feed them, but also to clothe, house, school and medicate them, unless they go home each evening. Where will the jobs and cash flow come from to do all of this? We can't even afford our unemployment situation as it is now. Will we be able to sustain such an influx? Or will the weakest link in this chain finally break? Oh! it will eventually happen. But when that time does come, what will we do then, Pray?

Edited January 17, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

lemur, It's hard for me to see the wisdom of your economics. If! as you suggest, we simply allow the immigrants to come in; you will not only have to feed them, but also to clothe, house, school and medicate them, unless they go home each evening. Where will the jobs and cash flow come from to do all of this? We can't even afford our unemployment situation as it is now. Will we be able to sustain such an influx? Or will the weakest link in this chain finally break? Oh! it will eventually happen. But when that time does come, what will we do then, Pray?

How do economies produce clothing, housing, education, and medical care? Answer this question and you can begin to think about how to provide these goods and services to people or how to give them access to what they need to do it for themselves. Your economics seems to naively assume that prosperity flows magically from paying money. People that think in terms of magic-money don't seem to understand that something has to be DONE for the money to make economic productivity happen.

 

If you can shift your mindset away from finance to material economics for a moment, please tell me why unemployment and poverty are a problem? What is it that is stopping people from using their labor to harness other resources and generate a better life for themselves? When you can answer this question, it doesn't matter what flag is on people's passports. It comes down to a global economy that is (dis)organized and (mis)managed in a way that over-coddles a privileged few while oppressing others.

 

What's worse, imo, is that I don't even think it's a question of people in wealthy economies sharing their prosperity, because I don't think everyone in the world needs to drive cars and consume food prepared by someone else, etc. In fact, I think that there are very basic things that improve people's quality of life in the situation they're in, such as relative freedom from violence/terror/fear, healthy water, food and/or fertile farmland, and maybe the freedom to go where they want and do what they want as long as they respect others' rights. I really don't see what is so hard about achieving this globally.

 

What it really comes down to is that people in developed economies are brainwashed into believing that there is scarcity because that is the way capitalist economies work. As a result, a fascist-type "national-socialist" mentality emerges where people see reducing the ratio of population to wealth as the ideal means of increasing prosperity. Instead of focussing on scarcity and protective territorialism, why don't people focus on increasing efficiency and thereby productivity to expand economic prosperity as much as possible? I find the whole endless ideology of "protecting our superior economy from hordes of barbarians" outdated and tiresome. It's an ideology that draws on and reproduces racism and competitive violence so there needs to be something else in its place.

Edited January 17, 2011 by lemur

[rigney]

lemur, I find the whole endless ideology of "protecting our superior economy from hordes of barbarians" outdated and tiresome. It's an ideology that draws on and reproduces racism and competitive violence so there needs to be something else in its place.

 

Tell me lemur, Did I remotely bring any of this into the subject? Quote: "Protecting our superior economy from hordes of barbarians, racism or competitive violence? "My God man"!, there is enough chaos, racism and viloence out there without mass producing it at another level. So, please don't run our country down or tear it apart, making it totally accessible to the world. Other than some Marxist idiology, bring your thoughts to the forefront, just don't fester and stew over them. I stay mad at my government and our system most of the time, but never enought to want it destroyed. A capitalistic and free market society is the only hope we have for a better world.

Edited January 17, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

Tell me lemur, Did I remotely bring any of this into the subject? Quote: "protecting our superior economy from hordes of barbarians"? And racism or competitive violence? "My God man"!, there is enough chaos, racism and viloence in the world today without mass producing it on another level. Please don't tear my country apart any worse than it is. Bring some of these ideas to the forefront, just don't fester and stew over them. I stay mad at my government and our system as it is, but nnever enought to want it destroyed.

Look, Rigney, I thought about this post and I was concerned that we're not having a constructive discussion. I get impatient when discussing these kinds of issues because the stakes seem very plain to me, while others seem to be either willfully or unknowingly oblivious to the kinds of arguments that are being made. You didn't explicitly say the quote about "protecting our superior economy from hordes of barbarians," but the video you posted about the colored gumballs being far too numerous to allow into the country was the same kind of reasoning. I was trying to make it transparent for you to see how these kinds of people make it seem natural that national regions should be buttressed against immigration. The logic they're suggesting is that there's wealth inside the border(s) to protect. This in turn promotes a reactionary stance among believers in the the ideology.

 

What I was trying to explain to you is that nationalism itself becomes a form of racism (i.e. national socialism) when the inhabitants/citizens of the nation are differentiated from others. All racism really is is an ideology where people are sorted into groups on the basis of physical characteristics. Nationalism doesn't always directly make reference to bodily traits the way racism usually does, but it does make reference to things like birthplace and culture, with the assumption that culture is inherent to some and alien to others. So when you start piling up all these kinds of sorting-logics and differentiating people and separating them into different regions, it promotes groupism in various forms, which means that individuals regard each other in terms of group-identity instead of focussing on individuality. This leads to stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, etc.

 

Since I don't assume you are a bigot (you seem like a good-hearted person to me from your posts), I am taking seriously your concerns that the US (or other regions) have limited resources and capacity for population growth. Then, what I'm trying to do is ask you to look at the fact that people in these developed regions/economies have already surpassed the resource-capacity of the regions as circumscribed. In other words, the global economy (colonialism) has long made Europe dependent on other continents for resources and European lifestyles and consumerism/materialism/industrialism have spread to create a global middle class. These global middle-class people are consuming BEYOND their national regions' capacity while the global poor are conserving these resources by not consuming as much, albeit involuntarily.

 

So I can't tell if what you are really concerned about is depletion of global resources by the global middle-class or something else related to the US region(s) specifically. My opinion is that preventing population-growth by restricting in-migration and/or birth rates will not prevent US consumerism from depleting and degenerating local resources. Resource-conservation requires cultural changes to consumption/lifestyles. Stifling global migratory freedom cannot prevent citizens from running their ecologies and economies into the ground. Given a more resource-conservative economy, there would be much more room for population expansion than there is when great inefficiencies, waste, and everyday decadence are taken for granted to the point of not even thrilling people anymore. Gluttony has become nothing more than avoiding the difficulties of resource conservation.

Edited January 17, 2011 by lemur

[rigney]

#8 Today, 02:47 PM lemur

So I can't tell if what you are really concerned about is depletion of global resources by the global middle-class or something else related to the US region(s) specifically. My opinion is that preventing population-growth by restricting in-migration and/or birth rates will not prevent US consumerism from depleting and degenerating local resources. Resource-conservation requires cultural changes to consumption/lifestyles. Stifling global migratory freedom cannot prevent citizens from running their ecologies and economies into the ground. Given a more resource-conservative economy, there would be much more room for population expansion than there is when great inefficiencies, waste, and everyday decadence are taken for granted to the point of not even thrilling people anymore. Gluttony has become nothing more than avoiding the difficulties of resource conservation.

 

If you've noticed, I more than once go back and edit my material because I'm really not that good at it. My thing to say is, I consider myself among the elite of America. While my income is less than $30,000.00 a year, I feel blessed. I don't envy a Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros or any of the billionaires, or even millionaires; simply because proportionally, they are few.

""Get back with you in a few"", Gonna play some cards with my middle son. Ok! I'm back, and he whipped me like a rented mule.

But to go a step farther, I'm not enamored with this guys philosophy, just looking for opinions. When you see a shanty town along the Orinoco, Tigrus, Yalu, Ohio or Mississippi, etc. your heart hurts. I'm not near smart enough to rationalize why it happens, only that it does. Can we make a difference? Yes!, if someone can lead the way without further conflict and bloodshed. Otherwise its status quo, no matter who you are or where you go.

Edited January 17, 2011 by rigney

[John Cuthber]

Shouldn't this thread be in Cherokee, Navaho, or some such?

[lemur]

If you've noticed, I more than once go back and edit my material because I'm really not that good at it. My thing to say is, I consider myself among the elite of America. While my income is less than $30,000.00 a year, I feel blessed. I don't envy a Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or a George Soros or any of the billionaires, or even millionaires; simply because proportionally, there aren't that many. Get back with you in a few, gonna play some cards.

Resource-conservation or depletion isn't about status, whether someone is elite, privileged, or how much money they have or spend. All those things can play a role but people need to get beyond the game of blaming or exonerating themselves or others for social, economic, or ecological effects. Shame and pride don't solve any problems. I don't get why you shift around so much in your posting. One moment you seem to be on to an issue, but then you seem to drop it before any rigorous critical discussion can evolve. First you seemed concerned with limited national resources. Would you change your concern if it turned out global resources instead of national ones were the issue? Or would you seek a new reason to protect nations against 'intruders?' What is the ultimate goal? To defend nations against non-citizens for ethnic reasons or to optimize economic good and individual freedom?

[Moontanman]

Shouldn't this thread be in Cherokee, Navaho, or some such?

 

 

yeah, all them damn immigrants from Europe, starving, illiterate, barely able to live. We teach them how to live here and they kick us off our land!

[lemur]

yeah, all them damn immigrants from Europe, starving, illiterate, barely able to live. We teach them how to live here and they kick us off our land!

There's some truth in this, but I think it's a mistake to see it as a collective "us vs. them" conflict. Many native Americans integrated with migrants from Europe and elsewhere. Native american cultures also developed in some ways as a result of contact, just as European cultures did from contact with native cultures. I read, for example, that a written version of Cherokee was developed extremely quickly because someone studied written English or other languages and then developed one for Cherokee. I think a lot of historical perspective has been influenced by growing collective consciousness since the 19th century or so. It is interesting to see how the history would look different if it was written from a more individualistic perspective. Of course that is hard to do when the individuals involved regarded themselves and others in collective terms in their interactions.

[rigney]

Since I can't talk over you, or your rhetorcial philosophy, it's best you and I cease this conversation. I would have loved nothing more than for others to have participated, but sometimes that don't happen. You don't know me at all friend! My compassion is only for that which I can feel and understand as remorseful and/or sadness. You mistook my caring for the poor and hurting as wishy washy or melodramatic, so; your rhetoric falls on deaf ears. I'm a soldier. Nothing more, nothing less. Tread on me, mine or my country; and you do so at your peril. And if not, come prepared, whether from within or without. I am very distrusrting of people who thinks changing America to appease the world is doing so with Americas best interests at heart. Am I sorry for the have-nots? Yes. Do I want to share my last crumb with them? Hell no! I picked a stray cat up 15 years ago, and he's done nothing in the interim other than eat, sleep and shit.

Edited January 18, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

You don't know me at all friend! My compassion is only for that which I can feel remorse or sadness. Otherwise, I'm a soldier. Nothing more, nothing less. Tread on me, mine or my country and you had best be prepared, from within or without.

And by "mine or my country," you are referring to people you identify with or like . . . meaning you willfully afford less respect to people you differ with or regard as foreign? You know, you can have a soldier ethic without seeking out enemies on the basis of categories, right? I guess it doesn't matter though anyway. It sounds like you are married to the ideology of always elevating some to a superior status to others and doing whatever you can to buttress those you deem superior over those you deem unworthy. Am I oversimplifying your position?

 

If so, this is your choice - but then you shouldn't be surprised when there are others who take the same attitude toward you. I guess when that happens, you just hope to win a battle for domination and/or separation from your enemies. Don't you ever think that peaceful co-existence would be better than always fighting to dominate or be dominated?

Edited January 18, 2011 by lemur

[Moontanman]

There's some truth in this, but I think it's a mistake to see it as a collective "us vs. them" conflict. Many native Americans integrated with migrants from Europe and elsewhere. Native american cultures also developed in some ways as a result of contact, just as European cultures did from contact with native cultures. I read, for example, that a written version of Cherokee was developed extremely quickly because someone studied written English or other languages and then developed one for Cherokee.

 

Yeah, because of that my people were able to record their experiences on the trail of tears, most of the people died in that forced march, when our nation was taken from us by Andrew Jackson. Yeah, it was a fair trade i am sure...

 

I think a lot of historical perspective has been influenced by growing collective consciousness since the 19th century or so. It is interesting to see how the history would look different if it was written from a more individualistic perspective. Of course that is hard to do when the individuals involved regarded themselves and others in collective terms in their interactions.

 

The native Americans were exterminated like animals, biological weapons were used, the native Americans who were left had their children taken from them so they could be forced to speak English, they cut their hair, made them dress as whites, took away their culture, destroyed the entire Cherokee Nation, not to mention the nomadic Native Americans cultures and tribes. The Native Americans were systematically denied their very lives because they were Native Americans, some because they weren't civilized enough, some because they were too civilized and occupied lands white people wanted but mostly just because they were not white. No lemur, it's not just a matter of perspective, it was quite real, quite horrible, and most of my people didn't survive the "Indian Wars" it was a war of extermination, of people, of cultures and a way of life.

[rigney]

And by "mine or my country," you are referring to people you identify with or like . . . meaning you willfully afford less respect to people you differ with or regard as foreign? You know, you can have a soldier ethic without seeking out enemies on the basis of categories, right? I guess it doesn't matter though anyway. It sounds like you are married to the ideology of always elevating some to a superior status to others and doing whatever you can to buttress those you deem superior over those you deem unworthy. Am I oversimplifying your position?

 

If so, this is your choice - but then you shouldn't be surprised when there are others who take the same attitude toward you. I guess when that happens, you just hope to win a battle for domination and/or separation from your enemies. Don't you ever think that peaceful co-existence would be better than always fighting to dominate or be dominated?

 

Would you answer one simple question? Are you a misinformed, misguided American, or a subservient living among us trying to take America down to a lower level? Which ever, you can be up front with me. And while I may not agree, I can listen to your grief. Edited January 18, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

Yeah, because of that my people were able to record their experiences on the trail of tears, most of the people died in that forced march, when our nation was taken from us by Andrew Jackson. Yeah, it was a fair trade i am sure...

It was not a fair trade. From my understanding, cotton interests were elevated above individual economic freedom because the profit from cotton-trade was though to outweigh the benefits of economic freedom to use the land for independent homesteading. The military and force generally should not have been used to evict people from their land. Some form of nomad-rights should have been established and respected.

 

The native Americans were exterminated like animals, biological weapons were used, the native Americans who were left had their children taken from them so they could be forced to speak English, they cut their hair, made them dress as whites, took away their culture, destroyed the entire Cherokee Nation, not to mention the nomadic Native Americans cultures and tribes. The Native Americans were systematically denied their very lives because they were Native Americans, some because they weren't civilized enough, some because they were too civilized and occupied lands white people wanted but mostly just because they were not white. No lemur, it's not just a matter of perspective, it was quite real, quite horrible, and most of my people didn't survive the "Indian Wars" it was a war of extermination, of people, of cultures and a way of life.

Try to understand what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with denying the attrocities against native Americans or anyone else. My point is that from an individual perspective, white soldiers had the volition to choose whether to support a corrupt regime or resist and refuse to transgress the rights of individuals they attacked. In other words, this was not a war between two collectives but it is a collection of stories in which some individuals committed violence against others with ethnicity as a mitigating factor. My point is that collectivizing the events reproduces the racism that caused the violence to happen as it did in the first place.

 

 

 

Would you answer one simple question? Are you a misinformed, misguided American, or a subservient living among us trying to take America down to a lower level? Which ever, you can be up front with me. And while I may not agree, I can listen to your grief.

What you are doing is a form of ad hominem argumentation. It doesn't matter what my national-citizenship status is. You should be responding to the content of my posts. It's MLK day. Judge people (and posts) by the content of their character, not by tangential ascribed statuses.

[Moontanman]

It was not a fair trade. From my understanding, cotton interests were elevated above individual economic freedom because the profit from cotton-trade was though to outweigh the benefits of economic freedom to use the land for independent homesteading. The military and force generally should not have been used to evict people from their land. Some form of nomad-rights should have been established and respected.

 

The Cherokee Nation had a very carefully worded treaty of non aggression with the USA, they had agreed to be allies with the USA. The treaties were ignored, my people were marched, men women and children, on foot halfway across the continental USA, in cold weather, to an area totally unfamiliar to the Cherokee, the few that made it then died due to not being able to feed themselves in a strange area they were not used to farming or hunting in.

 

Try to understand what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with denying the attrocities against native Americans or anyone else. My point is that from an individual perspective, white soldiers had the volition to choose whether to support a corrupt regime or resist and refuse to transgress the rights of individuals they attacked. In other words, this was not a war between two collectives but it is a collection of stories in which some individuals committed violence against others with ethnicity as a mitigating factor. My point is that collectivizing the events reproduces the racism that caused the violence to happen as it did in the first place.

 

Your point is meaningless lemur, to have defied the orders of the government would have meant being shot on the spot by the commanders in charge. Your option was not a reasonable idea, besides the fact that most whites were too stupid to understand the Cherokee were not nomads like the Plains Indians, they hated the Cherokee because they were different, because the Cherokee lived on desirable land, not cotton land by the way, the Cherokee mostly lived in the mountainous areas.

[lemur]

The Cherokee Nation had a very carefully worded treaty of non aggression with the USA, they had agreed to be allies with the USA. The treaties were ignored, my people were marched, men women and children, on foot halfway across the continental USA, in cold weather, to an area totally unfamiliar to the Cherokee, the few that made it then died due to not being able to feed themselves in a strange area they were not used to farming or hunting in.

I know the story of the trail of tears. But I also know that many Cherokee integrated with whites, although I don't know under what conditions. I don't deny that the migration was unnecessary and harsh. I haven't read anything, however, about what plans were made for food supplies and economic re-establishment once relocation was complete. I don't know, for example, if there was an honest good-faith intention for the relocated people to become prosperous on the new land or whether there was indifference to potential and actual trauma. Obviously, history records the trauma but it's hard to believe that every one of the soldiers was completely lucid in the intention of genocide. It would be quite interesting if there was evidence of individual soldiers' perceptions of what they were contributing to.

 

Your point is meaningless lemur, to have defied the orders of the government would have meant being shot on the spot by the commanders in charge.

Not necessarily. They might have just been sent home with a dishonorable discharge. The question is what ideologies structured their perceptions of the acts they were committing individually that would have allowed them to either abuse or respect other individuals' humanity regardless of ethnic difference.

 

Your option was not a reasonable idea, besides the fact that most whites were too stupid to understand the Cherokee were not nomads like the Plains Indians, they hated the Cherokee because they were different, because the Cherokee lived on desirable land, not cotton land by the way, the Cherokee mostly lived in the mountainous areas.

Well, it may indeed have been the case that stupidity combined with obedience were the main factors influencing the soldiers. I have read that Cherokee living was not nomadic but I don't know why they were evicted if not for the cotton land. Maybe the cotton industry was displacing people into the mountains and these people wanted people of Cherokee identity evicted because of the hate of difference, as you put it. The question is what would it have taken for Cherokees and non-Cherokees to co-exist and become mutual respectable ethnic affiliations (and even for multiculturalism to develop)? Obviously this didn't occur, but the question is exactly how it failed to occur for each individual involved, imo. It is doubtful that the question can ever be answered framed in this way, but it is the correct framing nevertheless imo.

 

 

[rigney]

The Cherokee Nation had a very carefully worded treaty of non aggression with the USA, they had agreed to be allies with the USA. The treaties were ignored, my people were marched, men women and children, on foot halfway across the continental USA, in cold weather, to an area totally unfamiliar to the Cherokee, the few that made it then died due to not being able to feed themselves in a strange area they were not used to farming or hunting in.

 

 

 

Your point is meaningless lemur, to have defied the orders of the government would have meant being shot on the spot by the commanders in charge. Your option was not a reasonable idea, besides the fact that most whites were too stupid to understand the Cherokee were not nomads like the Plains Indians, they hated the Cherokee because they were different, because the Cherokee lived on desirable land, not cotton land by the way, the Cherokee mostly lived in the mountainous areas.

 

My heritage, a Yadkin lowlander Moontanman. Thanks for the boost. Some folks will never understand.

 

The Cherokee Nation had a very carefully worded treaty of non aggression with the USA, they had agreed to be allies with the USA. The treaties were ignored, my people were marched, men women and children, on foot halfway across the continental USA, in cold weather, to an area totally unfamiliar to the Cherokee, the few that made it then died due to not being able to feed themselves in a strange area they were not used to farming or hunting in.

 

 

 

Your point is meaningless lemur, to have defied the orders of the government would have meant being shot on the spot by the commanders in charge. Your option was not a reasonable idea, besides the fact that most whites were too stupid to understand the Cherokee were not nomads like the Plains Indians, they hated the Cherokee because they were different, because the Cherokee lived on desirable land, not cotton land by the way, the Cherokee mostly lived in the mountainous areas.

I'm a Yadkin River low lander Moontanman. Wilkes County! Some folks just dont get the message.

 

The Cherokee Nation had a very carefully worded treaty of non aggression with the USA, they had agreed to be allies with the USA. The treaties were ignored, my people were marched, men women and children, on foot halfway across the continental USA, in cold weather, to an area totally unfamiliar to the Cherokee, the few that made it then died due to not being able to feed themselves in a strange area they were not used to farming or hunting in.

 

 

 

Your point is meaningless lemur, to have defied the orders of the government would have meant being shot on the spot by the commanders in charge. Your option was not a reasonable idea, besides the fact that most whites were too stupid to understand the Cherokee were not nomads like the Plains Indians, they hated the Cherokee because they were different, because the Cherokee lived on desirable land, not cotton land by the way, the Cherokee mostly lived in the mountainous areas.

 

Moontanman, many of the Cherokee lived along the Yadkin River, Wilkes county to be precise. Edited January 18, 2011 by rigney