The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was an executive order made by Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears was an event that occurred during the act. The Indian Removal Act was the forced relocation of Native Americans from their homelands westward to a designated Indian Territory which is Oklahoma today. Native American tribes that lived east of the Mississippi River were the groups targeted by the act. The Trail of Tears was the event during the Indian Removal Act where the United States armed forces intervened to enforce the Indian Removal Act by forcing the Native Americans that remained in their homelands to march to the Indian Territory. There were stakeholders that had opposing views on the morality of the Indian Removal Act whether they were directly or indirectly affected by it.
Violent conflicts including wars and skirmishes between Native Americans and United States Settlers, peace treaties made after the Indian Wars, and court cases held by Native Americans against the United States were events that occurred in the past that influenced President Andrew Jackson to initiate in Indian Removal Act. The United States and Native Americans fought in several regional “Indian Wars” when there were conflicts over land distribution and settlement (Kappler). The Native Americans lost all of these Indian Wars and had to follow the claims set in the peace treaties made. The most common terms set in the peace treaties required the Native Americans to surrender some of their land for United States settlers to be able to develop (Kappler). Other terms set in the treaties included allowing Native Americans to enter the territories they surrendered as long as they did not resettle the land; the terms gave the Native Americans the right...
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...ir land. There were treaties that gave them the right to keep portions of land they owned before the Indian Wars and they were given the right to ward off intruders. Then they were treated as aliens after the Cherokee Nation vs the state of Georgia court case because the Cherokee called themselves a nation. The Indian Removal Act was caused by a series of events starting with the Indian Wars, then the treaties that resolved them, and then the court cases that created the mentality of viewing Native Americans as separate nations. President Andrew Jackson had all of these events happen in a short period of time and made the decision to make and execute the Indian Removal Act which led to the Trail of Tears, where many Native Americans died during what was supposed to be a resolution to the diplomatic issues between the United States and the Native American tribes.
Throughout Jackson's two terms as President, Jackson used his power unjustly. As a man from the Frontier State of Tennessee and a leader in the Indian wars, Jackson loathed the Native Americans. Keeping with consistency, Jackson found a way to use his power incorrectly to eliminate the Native Americans. In May 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act. This act required all tribes east of the Mississippi River to leave their lands and travel to reservations in the Oklahoma Territory on the Great Plains. This was done because of the pressure of white settlers who wanted to take over the lands on which the Indians had lived. The white settlers were already emigrating to the Union, or America. The East Coast was burdened with new settlers and becoming vastly populated. President Andrew Jackson and the government had to find a way to move people to the West to make room. In 1830, a new state law said that the Cherokees would be under the jurisdiction of state rather than federal law. This meant that the Indians now had little, if any, protection against the white settlers that desired their land. However, when the Cherokees brought their case to the Supreme Court, they were told that they could not sue on the basis that they were not a foreign nation. In 1832, though, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokees were a "domestic dependent nation," and therefore, eligible to receive federal protection against the state. However, Jackson essentially overruled the decision. By this, Jackson implied that he had more power than anyone else did and he could enforce the bill himself. This is yet another way in which Jackson abused his presidential power in order to produce a favorable result that complied with his own beliefs. The Indian Removal Act forced all Indians tribes be moved west of the Mississippi River. The Choctaw was the first tribe to leave from the southeast.
Under the Jackson Administration, the changes made shaped national Indian policy. Morally, Andrew Jackson dismissed prior ideas that natives would gradually assimilate into white culture, and believed that removing Indians from their homes was the best answer for both the natives and Americans. Politically, before Jackson treaties were in place that protected natives until he changed those policies, and broke those treaties, violating the United States Constitution. Under Jackson’s changes, the United States effectively gained an enormous amount of land. The removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi River in the 1830’s changed the national policy in place when Jackson became President as evidenced by the moral, political, constitutional, and practical concerns of the National Indian Policy.
The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the
Andrew Jackson signed the indian removal act in 1830. This act allowed him to make treaties with the natives and steal their lands. The Trail of Tears was a forced relocation of more than 15,000 cherokee Indians. The white men/people gave the natives 2 options: 1. Leave or 2. Stay and Assimilate (learn our culture). The natives couldn’t have their own government. There were 5 civilized tribes including the cherokees. They learned english and went to american schools and when the cherokees went to court they won.
Back in 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. This act required the government to negotiate treaties that would require the Native Americans to move to the west from their homelands. Native Americans would be moved to an area called the Indian Territory which is Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Nebraska. Some tribes that were to be moved are Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. All of the other tribes had relocated in the fall of 1831 to the Indian Territory besides the Cherokee who did not relocate until the fall of 1838. They did not move from their homeland without a fight. Their homeland was parts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. They started this march in the fall of 1838 and finished in early
Unfortunately, this great relationship that was built between the natives and the colonists of mutual respect and gain was coming to a screeching halt. In the start of the 1830s, the United States government began to realize it’s newfound strength and stability. It was decided that the nation had new and growing needs and aspirations, one of these being the idea of “Manifest Destiny”. Its continuous growth in population began to require much more resources and ultimately, land. The government started off as simply bargaining and persuading the Indian tribes to push west from their homeland. The Indians began to disagree and peacefully object and fight back. The United States government then felt they had no other option but to use force. In Indian Removal Act was signed by Andrew Jackson on May 18, 1830. This ultimately resulted in the relocation of the Eastern tribes out west, even as far as to the edge of the Great Plains. A copy of this act is laid out for you in the book, Th...
In May 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which forced Native American tribes to move west. Some Indians left swiftly, while others were forced to to leave by the United States Army. Some were even taken away in chains. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, strongly reinforced this act. In the Second State of the Union Address, Jackson advocated his Indian Policy. There was controversy as to whether the removal of the Native Americans was justified under the administration of President Andrew Jackson. In my personal opinion, as a Native American, the removal of the tribes was not in any way justified.
To take these lands, American settlers physically invaded the lands to claim as their own, however, they also petitioned the Federal Government to remove the Indians from their native lands. By doing this, they gained the support of the government’s resources and influence, especially President Jackson’s. Using both political and military attacks, the settlers quickly gained the upper hand over the Indians.
The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress in order to allow the growth of the United States to continue without the interference of the Native Americans. Jackson believed that the Native Americans were inferior to white settlers and wanted to force them west of the Mississippi. He believed that the United States would not expand past that boundary, so the Native Americans could govern themselves. Jackson evicted thousands of Native Americans from their homes in Georgia and the Carolinas and even disregarded the Supreme Court’s authority and initiated his plan of forcing the Natives’ on the trail of tears. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Indians, however Jackson ignored the ruling and continued with his plan. The result of the Indian Removal Act was that many tribes were tricked or forced off their lands, if they refused to go willingly, resulting in many deaths from skirmishes with soldiers as well as from starvation and disease. The Cherokee in particular were forced to undergo a forced march that became known as the Trail of
A federal removal policy altered the lives of many Cherokee indians and Cherokee families in the United States. The idea surrounding the federal removal policy was that by pushing the indians off of the land they were currently residing on would allow the white men, families, and farmers access to desirable land. As part of president Jackson’s removal policy indians were forced to leave their land behind and migrate westward on foot and horseback to reside in the area of the Luisiana Purchase.
In the nineteenth century, the U.S. government wanted to expand their territories to the West in order to trade with more countries through the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the government forced to remove five Tribes of Indians from the South toward the West. The act was known as Indian Removal in 1830, which was the policy that moving Indians to the West. Simultaneously, numerous Americans believed in the belief of manifest destiny, so many Americans rushed into the West for seeking lands. However, the demand of lands of the West was consistently, so the U.S. government evolved Indian Removal to settle the Indians in 1851- reservations which was the government reserved new lands for Indians to stay on and pay them back money every year. However
There were several motives for the removal of the Indians from their lands, to include racism and land lust. Since they first arrived, the white Americans hadn’t been too fond of the Native Americans. They were thought to be highly uncivilized and they had to go. In his letter to Congress addressing the removal of the Indian tribes, President Jackson states the following:
Beginning in the 1860s and lasting until the late 1780s, government policy towards Native Americans was aggressive and expressed zero tolerance for their presence in the West. In the last 1850s, tribal leaders and Americans were briefly able to compromise on living situations and land arrangements. Noncompliance by Americans, however, resumed conflict. The beginning of what would be called the "Indian Wars" started in Minnesota in 1862. Sioux, angered by the loss of much of their land, killed 5 white Americans. What resulted was over 1,000 deaths, of white and Native Americans. From that point on, American policy was to force Indians off of their land. American troops would force Indian tribe leaders to accept treaties taking their land from them. Protests or resistance by the Indians would result in fighting. On occasion, military troops would even lash out against peaceful Indians. Their aggression became out of control.
Natives were forcefully removed from their land in the 1800’s by America. In the 1820’s and 30’s Georgia issued a campaign to remove the Cherokees from their land. The Cherokee Indians were one of the largest tribes in America at the time. Originally the Cherokee’s were settled near the great lakes, but overtime they moved to the eastern portion of North America. After being threatened by American expansion, Cherokee leaders re-organized their government and adopted a constitution written by a convention, led by Chief John Ross (Cherokee Removal). In 1828 gold was discovered in their land. This made the Cherokee’s land even more desirable. During the spring and winter of 1838- 1839, 20,000 Cherokees were removed and began their journey to Oklahoma. Even if natives wished to assimilate into America, by law they were neither citizens nor could they hold property in the state they were in. Principal Chief, John Ross and Major Ridge were leaders of the Cherokee Nation. The Eastern band of Cherokee Indians lost many due to smallpox. It was a year later that a Treaty was signed for cession of Cherokee land in Texas. A small number of Cherokee Indians assimilated into Florida, in o...
From the very beginning of its existence, the U.S. dealt with Indian tribes on an official governmental and treaty making basis. Political involvement in Indian affairs was a very important part of governmental life in early America. Indian tribes were very powerful in the 1700s and early 1800s in America and were a serious threat to the new United States. Hence, the United States government was heavily involved in negotiating and dealing with tribes as part of its governmental policies. The United States ultimately negotiated, signed and ratified almost 390 treaties with American Indian tribes. Most of these treaties are still valid today. The United States did not give Indian tribes anything for free in these treaties. Instead, the treaties were formal government to government negotiations regarding sales of land and property rights that the tribes owned and that the United States wanted to buy. The United States Supreme Court stated in 1905 that United States and Indian treaties are “not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them — a reservation of those not granted.” Thus, while tribal governments sold some of their rights in land, animals, and resources to the United States for payments of money, goods, and promises of peace and security, the tribes held onto or reserved to themselves other lands and property rights that they