Consequences Of The Native American Removal

The Native American removal was the process of evicting approximately 100,000 Indians from their homeland in the United States during the 1830s, resulting in the deaths of approximately 15,000 indigenous people (Britannica). At the time, President Andrew Jackson wanted to populate the Indian tribes’ home territories in the eastern United States with American citizens by forcing Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi River (Doc 6). Out of the tribes, only some followed the President’s orders voluntarily. Others, such as the Seminole tribe, resisted. The Native American removal was not justifiable given the tribes were trying to assimilate, they had already surrendered land to the US, the process was a waste of American time and resources, and the method of removal was inhumane.

Assimilation is the act of absorbing into another culture or group (Merriam-Webster). This is precisely what some of the indigenous tribes were trying to do. In particular, the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes tried to assimilate into white society. This act of assimilation was what granted them the name, “The Five Civilized Tribes.” These tribes made changes to their society in hope that they could avoid white harassment. For example, the Cherokee tribe accepted the white God, translated the American Bible to their native language, wrote on paper like the Americans, developed houses and communities, and even had their own constitution (Doc 3). Given the Five