Cherokee Removal There was treaties concluded by the five civilized tribes that restricted the amount of land that the tribes could own Even with the treaties Americans would continue encroaching into Indian Territory President Monroe then came with a solution to resettle the tribes far beyond the existing frontier The Cherokee tribe sent their chief John Ross to negotiate with Monroe Monroe promised the tribe protection from further land grabbing However after President Monroe came President Jackson Jackson later pressured the tribes to relinquish a large portion of their territory and agree to relocation There was a court case of Cherokee Nation v Georgia and Worchester v Georgia which ruled that the Indians could not be forced from their land Jackson ignored the court and forced the Cherokee to move west to Oklahoma over the trail of tears Lansford W Hastings The author of A Emigrant s guide to Oregon and California In Hasting s book he developed a route called Hasting s cutoff a supposed shortcut that would lead emigrants into California faster However the route proved to be treacherous The route was not meant for emigrants to travel on because of their wagons The only party to try Hasting s cut off the Donner Reed party took an entire year to reach California The route required the group to travel through conditions unfavorable for wagons such as the woods desert and mountains The group was stranded in the mountains for months leading most people to resort to cannibalism and over half of the party dying before they were finally rescued Amistad Case A group of Africans were abducted from Sierra Leone and shipped to Cuba a center for slave trade The abduction violated all of the treaties then in existence 53 Africans were purchased by two Spanish planters and put aboard a ship called the Amistad The Africans were able to seize the ship and kill all aboard except the 2 planters They ordered the planters to sail back towards Africa The ship was later seized by an American ship where the planters were freed and the Africans imprisoned on the charges of murder The murder charges were later dismissed but there were still salvage claims and property rights to be determined In the federal court it was ruled that the Africans were not property because they were illegally held as slaves In the Supreme Court the Africans regained their freedom were returned to their homeland Mother Ann Lee and the Shakers Mother Ann Lee attempted to create a utopian society She believed that people should live a celibate lifestyle because in heaven people did not get married Some people joined the Shakers because they would be able to separate from their families and the government would take care of the families The group was called Shakers because they believed that dancing would purify them of their sins Her idea of there being no marriage in heaven and living in an unmarried lifestyle influenced Noyes in his Oneida Community John Humphrey Noyes He founded the Oneida community and was attracted to Lee s notion of a society without marriage He rejected the idea of celibacy in favor of complex marriage He asserted that traditional marriage led to quarreling and exclusiveness However in complex marriage everyone was married to everyone else He established a community and in that community a committee The committee made sure that no one would have sex too frequently with only one person Sex was to be introduced by an older person of opposite gender Noyes also promoted birth control withdrawal method and eugenics Noyes later established himself as first father so that whenever a woman reached puberty he would be the one to have sex with her first The community was later discovered and due to fears of being charged with bigamy Noyes fled to Canada and wrote a letter back to the community saying that he was wrong and that everyone should get married Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk In the book Maria published that the priests in Catholic churches were allowed to order nuns to have sex with them and took them to an underground area in order to do so If the nuns became impregnated then the child would later be killed and buried However these were all false accusations Maria was an escapee from a Catholic sanatorium and was impregnated by her boyfriend The book was written by her and a couple protestant ministers Many people believed the book and in some towns convent inspection laws were passed to try and find the underground passages written in the book None were found Manifest Destiny Manifest Destiny was the widely spread belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent The idea was introduced by John Sullivan that it was the fulfillment of God s will for Americans to spread civilization and intelligence Manifest Destiny supported the idea that Americans were superior both culturally and racially This was the driving force of the United States expansion and it served as a rationale for the Mexican American War William Lloyd Garrison the publisher of an abolitionist newspaper called The Liberator He was the leader of the emerging anti slavery movement and founded the American Anti Slavery organization He also published pamphlets encouraging slaves to revolt so where there were slave revolts many people blamed Garrison for instigating them The state of Georgia also offered a 5 000 reward for his capture John Brown Raid An abolitionist named John Brown with several other abolitionists marched into Harper s Ferry took down the telegraph lines and took control of an armory in hopes that slaves in the area would join them in a revolt After several days John Brown and the remaining abolitionists inside the armory were captured and put on trial Brown was later sentenced to death Northern abolitionists regarded Brown s execution as the government s support of slavery The death of Brown further separated the North and South on the issue of slavery Uncle Tom s Cabin This novel was written by an American abolitionist Her novel depicted the life of African Americans under slavery Her novel motivated anti slavery forces in the North but angered those in the South The novel allowed the public to understand the true horrors of slavery such as the cruelty that slaves endured The novel brought the North and South closer to the Civil War Joaquin Murrieta a miner who had been run out of a mining camp by white miners during the California Gold Rush He turned to crime and became a bandit in revenge He