Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay on the indian removal act
Essays on indian removal
Essays on indian removal
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Essay on the indian removal act
Written by Steve Inskeep detailing the lives of President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee Chief John Ross during 1812 to 1835. Jacksonland describes President Andrew’s desire to remove five indian tribes from their traditional homeland and move them to the far west. They were the initial targets of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and eventually leading to the Trail of Tears. The book opens with a particular set of maps showing how the land was divided in the era of the story.
The Indian Removal Act authorized Jackson to give the Indians land west of the Mississippi in exchange for their land in the states, but could not force them to leave. He violated and broke commitments that he even negotiated with them. He tried to bribe the Indians and even threatened some of them. Alfred Cave organizes his article thematically and is trying to prove
President Jackson claimed that it was in the best interest of the States, the citizens, growth of the Southwest and of the Indians for Indians to be relocated west. One of President Jackson’s main point was that “it will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; and allow them to pursue happiness in their own
In December 7, 1829, Jackson sent a letter to Congress and it shows that he was democratic in some area, but not in other area. The letter was about the Native Americans and Indian Removal which was caused by white settlers who wanted Native Americans’ lands. Jackson strongly supported white settlers and decided to force Native Americans to move to the west. He claimed in the letter that Native Americans should move to the west and if they remain they must be subject to their laws. Because Jackson wanted to benefit his people who supported him, he caused Native Americans trouble and eventually killed them by moving them forcefully.
The majority of this occurs in the United States from just after the War of 1812 up until the end of Jackson’s presidency in 1837. Most of this time is about how the U.S. had a lot of nationalism and let the government do many unconstitutional things. The United States was feeling great after winning the War of 1812. Therefore they let the government make and do the majority of the stuff that they would like. They created things such as the Second Bank and made taxes that were unconstitutional.
Andrew Jackson was the first person to be elected as a member of the senate and later elected president of the United States. He was a man of many contradictions who had little formal education. Jackson claimed he was a “people’s” champion, yet he excluded many, especially the Indians, from the country’s democracy calling them “savages”. (Schwartz, Lecture 19). With the exclusion of the Indians followed Jackson being a forceful proponent of Indian Removal.
According to “The Trail of Tears,” American History Illustrated, 97% of Georgians voted for Jackson for president because he supported their expansion into Indigenous lands to the northwest (Document A). This made westward expansion a major policy goal of the Jackson campaign, which was possible only by relocating Indigenous peoples. So what? Moreover, in President Andrew Jackson’s message to Congress on Indian removal on December 6, 1830, Jackson presented the removal of Indigenous “savages” as a positive idea for the growth of the nation (Document E). He presented the building of cities, farms, and industries as natural progress, which the Indigenous peoples were blocking.
This was a major breakthrough for Jackson’s administration, as one his underlining goals as president was to grown the Democratic Party. Andrew Jackson’s planned to repair the Indian and white relations by allowing the Native American’s to choose if they wanted to live in the United States or on their own land. If they lived in the United States they could learn how to become a civilized race and grow within the United States laws. If they chose to live on their own land the Indian tribes would be required to move to an area set apart from the United States which is only to be used for the Indian tribes. The territory that was set aside for the Indian tribes was west of the Mississippi
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.
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
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.
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
The differences in positions between President Andrew Jackson and US Senator and vice-presidential running mate of Henry Clay, Theodore Frelinghuysen, are largely to due the differences in perception of the value of the Cherokees history in America and the superiority of the white man. Jackson believed that the Natives were savages that did not deserve the vast lands of the country but rather that the whites were entitled to it because they were much more “civilized” and “prosperous” as he claims in his Case for the Removal Act in 1829, rhetorically questioning,“What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and raged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization,
As President Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court’s rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would “[fall]…still born. ”44 Southern states were determined to take ownership of Native lands and would go to great lengths to secure this territory, burning out Natives and squatting on their lands.45 President Andrew Jackson outlined his Indian removal policy in his Second Annual Message to Congress.46 Jackson's comments on Indian removal begin with the words, "It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.47 Once gold was found in Georgia, the Native populations of the South had to be removed. The Five Civilized Tribes were to be relocated by the federal government.
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.