Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Indian removal act pros and cons
Indian removal act introduction
Essay on native american treatment
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Indian removal act pros and cons
The Removal Act
Since the first Europeans landed on “the new land” with a thirst to conquer and deplete everything on their path, Natives to this land fought to retain as much as they could. But in reality, by the time the new settlers where finished they had decimated the natives in numbers and with that sought to remove and relocate the few that remained. The Indian Removal Act was enacted to relocate Indians from the east to west of the Mississippi. One may wonder how such a heinous act came into play; this essay will focused on a brief history of the events that lead to its fruition and finalization. It will also provide a personal evaluation of the effects of such act on the people enacted on.
Pressed by its white citizens The United
…show more content…
According to a Britannica publication, this act “was the first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of officially respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians.” (Kathleen Kuiper). By the time the removal was being applied, many treaties were already in place trying to rid the natives of their lands. Once Andrew Jackson took presidency his governance sought to displace Indians and completely assimilate or eradicate them. While many natives had already relocated peacefully, it was just some remaining tribes that fought in legal courts to retain their land, “the Five Civilized Tribes (Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek) refused to trade their cultivated farms for the promise of strange land.” (Kathleen Kuiper). The native’s attempts to retain their lands, whether combative or peaceful made no difference in the end result of submission and tragically expulsion from their homes. President Jackson’s aimed all along was for the complete removal of Indians to clear way for the white citizens, therefore due to the act enforcement about 46,000 Native Americans were uprooted across the Mississippi River. Once The Indian Removal Act was passed and more treaties enforced the end results were palpable, “with the exception of a small number of Seminoles still resisting removal in Florida, by the 1840s, …show more content…
By the end of the Revolutionary war which took place in 1775 and ended by 1783, half of the Cherokees primary land was relinquished, and by 1791 this tribe had already been displaced to Georgia with the passing of another treaty. White settlers wanted to keep expanding and the land became more coveted do to the discovery of gold, and so by 1830 the same government that relocated the Cherokees now attempted to recover the Georgian territory they got moved to and was home to the tribe now. The Cherokees were considered a “civilized” tribe and had left behind their combative nature, by now they believed in the rule of law and having a counsel objected to the relocation. The tribe appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court a total of three times to fight this injustice, the resistance was useless and the government still pushed for the Natives to give up their territory. The wheel was turning at this point and sadly and the events the follow were atrocious: “1838, U.S. president Martin Van Buren ordered the U.S. Army into the Cherokee Nation. The soldiers rounded up as many Cherokees as they could […] and […] marched the captives, […] to the Indian Territory. Scholars estimate that 4,000-5,000 Cherokees,[…] died on this "trail where they cried," commonly known as the Trail of Tears” (Garrison, Tim). This act caused the removal of about fifteen thousand
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.
It had previously been the policy of the American government to remove and relocate Indians further and further west as the American population grew, but there was only so much...
In order to understand the lack of morality on the part of the United States, the actions taken by the group in favor of removing the Indians and their opponents needs examining. The seeds of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 are rooted in colonial times and continued to grow during the early years of the American republic. To comprehend this momentous tragedy we must first examine the historical background of the Indian '"'problem'"' and seek rationale for the American government"'"s actions. This includes looking at the men who politically justified the expulsion of the Cherokee nation and those who argued against it.
... the unwilling tribes west of the Mississippi. In Jackson’s letter to General John Coffee on April 7, 1832, he explained that the Cherokees were still in Georgia, and that they ought to leave for their own benefit because destruction will come upon them if they stay. By 1835, most eastern tribes had unwillingly complied and moved west. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created in 1836 to help out the resettled tribes. Most Cherokees rejected the settlement of 1835, which provided land in the Indian territory. It was not until 1838, after Jackson had left office, that the U.S. Army forced 15,000 Cherokees to leave Georgia. The hardships on the “trail of tears” were so great that over 4,000 Cherokees died on their heartbreaking westward journey. In conclusion, the above statement is valid and true. The decision the Jackson administration made to remove the Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River was a reformulation of the national policy. Jackson, along with past Presidents George Washington, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson, tried to rid the south of Indians This process of removing the native people was continuous as the years went on.
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.
The Indian Removal Act drove thousands of natives off their tribal lands and forced them west to new reservations. Then again, there are those who defend Jackson's decision stating that Indian removal was necessary for the advancement of the United States. However, the cost and way of removing the natives was brutal and cruel. The opposition fails to recognize the fact that Jackson’s removal act had promised the natives payment, food, and protection for their cooperation, but Jackson fails to deliver any of these promises. Furthermore, in “Indian removal,” an article from the Public Broadcasting Service, a description of the removal of the Cherokee nation is given.
"The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes, Native Americans and the Land, Nature Transformed, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center." The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes, Native Americans and the Land, Nature Transformed, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. .
The federal government proceeded to find a way around this decision and had three minor Cherokee chief’s sign the “Treaty of New Echota” in 1835 giving the Cherokee lands to the government for 5.6 million dollars and free passage west. Congress got the treaty ratified by only one vote. Members of their tribes murdered all three chiefs who took part in the signing of the treaty. After this event there was not much the Cherokee’s could do and were forcibly moved west on what they called and are known today as the ‘Trail of Tears,’ which became a constitutional crisis in our history. In this instance the lack of cooperation between the branches of the government was the downfall for the Cherokee nation. The way the Cherokee’s were forced west caused losses of up to twenty percent of the nation. This figure is only a guess and scholar’s think it was more a third of the nation was lost. The ‘Trail of Tears’ was also a morale issue in the United States, later having an impact on our history the way other Native American races in general are treated in the future.
The Indian Removal Act was the only major piece of legislation passed during Jackson's eight years as President. The Indian removal was so important to Jackson that he went back to Tennessee to have the first negotiations in person. He gave the Indians a couple simple alternatives. Alternatives like to submit to state authorities, or migrate beyond the Mississippi. Jackson offered generous aid on one hand while holding the threat of subjugation on the other.
The removal of Indian tribes was one of the tragic times in America’s history. Native Americans endured hard times when immigrants came to the New World. Their land was stolen, people were treated poorly, tricked, harassed, bullied, and much more. The mistreatment was caused mostly by the white settlers, who wanted the Indians land. The Indians removal was pushed to benefit the settlers, which in turn, caused the Indians to be treated as less than a person and pushed off of their lands. MOREEE
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
...(Perdue 20). It gave them two years to prepare for removal. Many of the Cherokees, led by John Ross, protested this treaty. However, in the winter of 1838-1839, all of the Cherokees headed west toward Oklahoma. This removal of the Cherokees is now known, as the Trail of Tears was a very gruesome event. During the trip from the southern United States to current day Oklahoma, many of the Cherokees died. Shortly after their arrival in Oklahoma, they began to rebuild. They began tilling fields, sending their children to school, and attending Council meetings (Perdue 170).
In the essay, “The Trail of Tears” by author Dee Brown explains that the Cherokees isn’t Native Americans that evaporate effectively from their tribal land, but the enormous measure of sympathy supported on their side that was abnormal. The Cherokees process towards culture also the treachery of both states and incorporated governments of the declaration and promises that contrived to the Cherokee nation. Dee Brown wraps up that the Cherokees had lost Kentucky and Tennessee, but a man who once consider their buddy named Andrew Jackson had begged the Cherokees to move to Mississippi but the bad part is the Indians and white settlers never get along together even if the government wanted to take care of them from harassment it shall be incapable to do that. The Cherokee families moved to the West, but the tribes were together and denied to give up more land but Jackson was running for President if the Georgians elects him as President he agreed that he should give his own support to open up the Cherokee lands for establishment.
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...