President Andrew Jackson’s views regarding American Indians also challenged the law. Treaties were and continue to be legal agreements among sovereign nations. However, Jackson refused to believe that Native American tribes were sovereign and thus viewed Indian treaties as an absurdity. Ultimately, he forcibly removed a number of tribes, most notoriously the Cherokee, from their homes.
Yet even removal and issues of tribal sovereignty fit within a larger context of Jackson’s convictions regarding national security and state sovereignty. The general’s rise was due to his success as an Indian fighter on the frontier. He always, and to some extent legitimately, viewed American Indians as a serious threat to settlers. As president, Jackson understood
Jackson faced the issue of Indian removal throughout his eight year in office. He made about 70 treaties with Native American tribes both in South and the Northwest. Jackson presidency marked as a new era in Indian-Anglo American relations imitating a policy if Indian removal. His annual message of December of 1829 contained extensive remarks on the present and future state of American Indians in the United States. It contained many observations, assessments, and prejudices about Native Americans that had been widely held by Native American hunters makers since Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.
Jackson’s Native American policies were very undemocratic because they decreased the power of the people. Document 9 states that the Native Americans have reasons to stay on their land, one being that the land west of the Arkansas Territory is unknown to them. Another is that the region is poorly supplied with food and water and that the new neighbors have different customs and a totally different language. Finally, they wish to remain on the land in which their ancestors died and where they were buried. The evidence helps explain that Andrew Jackson’s Native American policy was very undemocratic because the Native Americans had four very good reasons for staying on their homeland.
In the current situation, Jackson believed that the Indians would only live in constant warfare with Americans if they remained in the states, and that being "surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization" would "doom him to weakness and decay (Norton Mix, 141)." He then argued that the nation's sense of "humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity (Norton Mix, 141). " By providing a solution for both sides, Jackson took on a sympathetic approach to justify the removal of the Indian tribes to the West of the Mississippi River where they "may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice (Norton Mix,
Second, When jackson said that he never considered native americans to be potential citizens and signed the removal act on May 28, 1830 jackson said that they can not live in a civilized community. This shows that jackson thinks that the indians can't or are not capable of being friendly
When Andrew Jackson stated that the the manifest destiny was a right to the citizens of America he created the national thought on whether or not to take the land that rightfully belonged to the indians. Even when he was talking about the manifest destiny, he called the indians uncivilized and savages. That sentence was untrue, The Indian wanted peace not war. One of their strategies were to adopt american
In the article “Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830,” the author, Alfred A. Cave, writes about President Jackson’s abuse of power. He is arguing that Jackson abused his power when he was enforcing the Indian Removal Act. He argues that Jackson broke guarantees he made to the Indians. He uses a political methodology and uses secondary sources.
First, the earliest form of racism that was forced on the First Nationers of this country. From the moment the English step on to the American soil the settlers knew there was no precious metals so the only thing that it offered was land. “As Since the Indians stood in the way of unlimited access to North America’s magnificent landmass, the Indians would have to be eliminated. And so they were” (Stannard 431).
Robert Remini’s Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars is a book that makes you question Jackson's character. Remini addresses the long-standing debate of historians and scholars over whether or not Jackson was barbaric or whether he was a merciful savior that prevented the Native Americans from going extinct. Remini instead argues the opinion that Jackson was simply a man of his time. Despite this, Remini does show Jackson's inexcusable cruelty towards the Native Americans. He learned to fear and hate Indians from an early age.
He saw the policy of Indian removal as necessary to promote American economic growth and security. Jackson's attitude towards Native Americans was controversial, and he was known for his harsh policies towards them. He believed that they were inferior to whites and viewed their assimilation into American society as impossible. He famously defied a Supreme Court ruling that favored the Cherokee Nation's right to remain on their lands in Georgia and pushed forward with their forced removal. Jackson's role in the Indian Removal and his attitudes towards Native Americans have been the subject of ongoing debate and criticism by historians and scholars, with some viewing him as a champion of American democracy and others as a symbol of America's treatment of Native Americans.
He believed Jackson needed a reality check. The Indians were there first, it was their land. He force the Natives to move away from their homeland, with brute force. He believes Jackson could not justify his actions just because it was for America’s benefit. He also stated Jackson refused to listen to many people, and he refused to let Indians live.
Andrew Jackson’s sentiment towards the Native Americans was certainly not a kind one. Manifest destiny was a popular belief among Americans, including Jackson, and he would go to the extent of forcing Native Americans out of their homes to reach their “ordained goal”. He believed in the expansion of southern slavery which is why he pushed for removing the Indians west of the Mississippi, which makes it the more disgraceful. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 said that it will allow American government to offer in-state territories to the Indian’s for their western land. This wasn’t the case when the U.S. went in and drove the Indians out by force.
Although Jackson was important, he was part of many terrible things. Around the 1820s there were many major indian tribes in eastern United States such as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole. This soon came to a change. Andrew Jackson thought these Indians were in the way of eastern development, using the Indian Removal Act which the congress had approved he decided to kick them out and send them west. In 1831 the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Indians had the right to self government and the United States could not interfere with that.
Andrew Jackson disobeyed a direct order from the Supreme Court, which it means he was above the law. I really wonder how Americans tolerated him, at that time, he was cruel to the Indian common man. Because of him, the Native Americans have the worst end of the Trail of Tears. They are the ones who are forced out of their traditional homes and sent away on a journey of pain and death. Those who had fallen ill, most of the time died, and those who had the will to move on were able to make it to the end and start new lives.
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.
This source has significant value to historians but, like any other source, has its limitations. Andrew Jackson’s motivation to remove the Cherokee from their homeland originated from an avid persona to benefit the Americans. The speech analyzes Jackson’s motivation, and specific plans to remove the Cherokee. In consideration of the speech being written in 1830, the audience can learn how Jackson was rather harsh towards the natives in order to benefit himself and others. This is evident with Andrew Jackson’s actions and his presumptions of the Natives.