Indian Removal Act Pros And Cons

What if someone had come to your home and told you that you and your family had to relocate to a new place? This had been the home you grew up in, your parents grew up in, and your grandparents had grown up in; and the property your home sat on had been in your family for generations. How would you deal with federal officers telling you that you had to leave the only home that you had ever known? Imagine how the Indians felt when the Indian Removal Act was passed. Native Americans were pressured to negotiate treaties for relocation from their homelands in the East to Indian Territory in the West; so that the white settlers could expand their colonies. The Indian Removal Act was just a way for the Americans to take the Indian’s land for their

“Along with the treaties, the federal government had pledged to protect the Indians” (DeFrees). The treaty with the Cherokee nation was one of many examples of how the treaty was abandoned. “The treaty between the Cherokee Nation and the United States contained a provision by which "all white people who have intruded, or may hereafter intrude, on the lands of the Cherokee, shall be removed by the United States" (DeFrees). Another treaty between the Indians and Americans guaranteed peace and the honor of Indian territories. This treaty was made mainly to make sure that the fur trade would not be. The Supreme Court had decided that the Indians could live on the land; however, they could not hold a title to the land. This was because their “right to own their land” was inferior to the settler’s “right to discovery.” The Indian’s wanted to own their own land because it was theirs to begin with; therefore, they thought this decision was

However, the five tribes that were civilized in the states had adopted the agricultural process and converted to Christianity. They were known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” and consisted of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw. They had to discard their own beliefs to be accepted into American society. “That it was wrong having asked the Indians to assimilate by taking up "civilized" customs such as farming and practicing Christianity to then turn around and send them out into the wilderness and the unknown”