The Indian Removal Act: The First American Civil War

When Andrew Jackson became president in 1829, the Native American condition worsened. Congress allowed the president to solve the "Indian problem" with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (O’Neill 11). This act gave President Jackson permission to offer tribes land west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their tribal lands east of the Mississippi. Politicians of the day considered this a generous offer, (O’Neil 11) but the Native American population would not surrender their homes so easily. So the federal government used some shady tactics in order to get many tribes to accept the agreement. The US authorities nominated some Indian leaders to represent tribes in the treaty negotiations in order to get them to agree to the government 's terms.

In the article by Anthony F. C. Wallace, “The Hunger for Indian Land in Andrew Jackson’s America,” the reasons for America's need for Indian land is discussed. The purpose of this article is to explain the Indian removal that occurred under Andrew Jackson’s presidency. The thesis of this essay states that Americans kicked the Natives off of their land to fulfill a selfish desire to expand the cotton industry.           The first point Wallace uses to support his thesis is how Jackson’s financial interest in the land affected the removal of Natives.

4,000 Native American Cherokees died on the dreadful, around 1,000 mile journey to the Oklahoma territory. The United States forced them to move out west. But why wasn’t the U.S government justified to do this? There were two main reasons the Indian Removal Act was wrong.

This first seminar was successful due to the insightful comments and output every person brought when conveying our thoughts on Jackson’s actions and the Indian Removal Act. The inception of the seminar began with Maria straight out stating how Andrew Jackson was to blame and he het congress enact the bill. This was the center of our conversation for a good 15 minutes before we switched to examine why Andrew Jackson may have been forced and obligated to enact the Indian Removal Act. Sam discussed how Andrew Jackson had to “ultimately choose,” between his own citizens and the Native Americans. And he was not the only one that wanted this Act, but a majority in congress supported it, which is the reason it passed. I brought up the idea that maybe this was a form of revenge by the American people for the resistance that the Native’s put up during the War of 1812. But, Matt made the argument that if this was done as a

The Act led to an array of legal and moral arguments for and against the need to relocate the Indians westward from the agriculturally productive lands of the Mississippi in Georgia and parts of Alabama. This paper compares and contrasts the major arguments for and against the

White residents of the United States clashed with the Indigenous people on land, food, and rights, without a permanent compromise. In 1829, President Andrew Jackson proposes to move all Indigenous people within America’s current territory to reservations. After being pursued for nearly thirty years, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes agreed for their removal. This would allow whites to live their civilized lives as the Indigenous people cast off their savage habits in remote reservations. President Jackson’s Case for the Removal Act shows that those of power and majority decide the terms of segregation.

Also, No other tribe under the Indian Removal Act had a problem getting to the new land. Andrew Jackson gave them two options. Leave, or Assimilate. Leaving would fix the conflicts between whites and Indians, and assimilating would be easy because their way of life was very similar. The indians chose to ignore Andrew Jackson, and stayed.

The Indian Removal Act was signed in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson to remove the Cherokee Indians from their homes and force them to settle west of the Mississippi River. The act was passed in hopes to gain agrarian land that would replenish the cotton industry which had plummeted after the Panic of 1819. Andrew Jackson believed that effectively forcing the Cherokees to become more civilized and to christianize them would be beneficial to them. Therefore, he thought the journey westward was necessary. In late 1838, the Cherokees were removed from their homes and forced into a brutal journey westward in the bitter cold.

The government tried to force assimilation on Native Americans as well as an attempt to “kill the indian, save the man.” These ideas and policies are similar to those popular during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Jackson developed a sense of ‘paternalism’ towards indians and believed he was saving them by forcing them to live out west of the Mississippi river away from white culture. The difference was that Jackson did not believe in assimilation of indians into white culture, he believed they should be kept separate. With the help of the Federal government removing indians from land west of the Mississippi, Americans were

Many Native Americans tried to fit in with American culture, by learning to write and read, establishing governments similar to those of the United States, develop their own written languages, and start a plantation system with slavery. However, it was not sufficient. The New American still did not like the Native Americans, and wanted them to go. President Andrew Jackson was the one who thought of immediate solutions to the problem. Indian threaten westward expansion in the mid-nineteenth century with Second Seminole War, Treaty of New Echota, and Trail of Tears, To begin with, the Second Seminole War started after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

As America expanded west in the 1800s, conflict with natives was inevitable. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, asking the natives to give up their land in exchange for money. Some refused to move off their native land, such as the Cherokees. As a result of this, they were removed and forced to make the journey known as the Trail of Tears.

When the Europeans began colonizing the New World, they had a problematic relationship with the Native Americans. The Europeans sought to control a land that the Natives inhabited all their lives. They came and decided to take whatever they wanted regardless of how it affected the Native Americans. They legislated several laws, such as the Indian Removal Act, to establish their authority. The Indian Removal Act had a negative impact on the Native Americans because they were driven away from their ancestral homes, forced to adopt a different lifestyle, and their journey westwards caused the deaths of many Native Americans.

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed, forcing the Indians to move west of the Mississippi River. 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees died along the trail of tears, meaning over 25% of the Cherokees died. Although they did not want to leave their land, they had to because of President Jackson. The Indians should not have been forced off their land. President Jackson did not treat the Indians fairly, the land belonged to the Indians, and the Indians rights were being violated.

Trail of Tears Native Americans experienced a dramatic change in the 1830s. Nearly 125,000 Native Americans who lived on inherited land from ancestors of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida were all cast out by the end of the decade. The federal government forced the natives to leave because white settlers wanted an area to grow their cotton. Andrew Jackson (President of the U.S. during this time) signed into law, the Indian Removal Act, authorizing him to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi River in return for native lands within state borders.

He signed this Act in 1830. While most other Indian tribes chose to take their grievances with Jackson’s Act to the battlefield, the Cherokee were more civilized and knowledgeable about the legal system of the United States and decided to challenge The Removal Act in court. The way of the Cherokee was almost always one which sought for peaceful resolution first. This did not mean every Cherokee tribe chose to make the same decisions. In 1835, a group of Cherokee leaders and made an agreement -a treaty- with the U.S. government to accept payment and land in the west with the promise to relocate.