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Indian Removal Essay

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Indian Removal
Looking throughout the overwhelming events the American Revolution had on everyone involved, allows us to examine how the governments’ policies toward the Indians changed over time. It shows how the policy changes effected the Indians as well as the Americans’, their attitudes toward each other as the American’s pushed westward and the Indians resisted. Then the actions on both sides which lead up to the final removal of all Indians to west of the Mississippi in 1830’s.
The government as well as the Americans’ attitudes toward the Indians at the beginning of the Revolution was pretty much the same as Thomas Jefferson’s, which was that given time the Indians could possibly change their ways and conform to white society’s way …show more content…

In 1807, the United States extracted treaty rights to Illinois, southern Indiana, and eastern Michigan from weakened tribal leaders. The government Jefferson and the American people saw their new nation growing from 5.3 million to 9.6 million within a 20 year span in the early 1800’s and realized that one thing stood in its way, the Indians. White settlers in the southwest were taking millions of acres from the tribes in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. Each of tribes standing alone were powerless against the overwhelming odds against them. Nevertheless, during this time two great Indian leaders stood out giving them hope, Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh. Tenskwatawa, revered as a prophet by all the tribes, recovered from the wicked effects of alcohol, coinciding with a religious Awaking. He began speaking to the tribes on the sinful nature of the white society. His speeches were able to unite several tribes. Accordingly Tecumseh in 1809 had the foresight to see that the only hope each of the tribes had was to stand as one. Consequently, creating the Tecumseh Confederacy. In 1823, the Supreme Court heard Johnson v. McIntosh . The Illinois and Pinakeshaw tribe had sold land to white settlers and then later ceded the same land to the United States government. The court sided with the United States, therefore in doing so the Supreme Court designated a position for tribes inside the new political system. It stated the tribes had fundamental property rights, and they were a sovereign entity that wasn’t required to answer to the states but to the Federal government solely. Then in 1828 came a huge change in the Indian policy with Andrew Jackson elected as president. During Jackson’s military service while fighting

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Indians had lived in the same areas for many years and had become much more accustomed to being civilized and had even started schools, making laws and becoming farmers. But all of that didn’t matter, there was increasing pressure to open up the area the Indians inhabited so the white men could settle there. The Indian Removal Act stated that all Indians must move to lands west of the Mississippi River, Jackson said the Indians would receive money for the land they lost and that all expenses would be paid for. The act was supposed to be voluntary but they were pressured to go and the tribes that did not go peacefully were forced. While most tribes did go peacefully the Cherokee Indians wanted to fight the Removal Act and took it to the Supreme

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Jackson presidency was marked as a new era in Indian-Anglo American relations by imitating a policy of Indian removal. Before the removal, he made about 70 treaties with Native American tribes both in the South and the Northwest. His First Annual Message to Congress and some others begins in December of 1829, which contained remarks on the present and future state of American Indians in the United States. He argued that it was for the Indians own well, that they should be resettled on the vacant lands west of the Mississippi River. During the time in Congress, debates on a bill didn’t begin until late February 1830.

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The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a time where there were lots of contradictions. Meanwhile It was a period of land hungry Americans who wanted to expand land democratic institutions which unfolded the limitations of democracy. The states put an end to property restrictions and due to the Louisiana purchase of1812 the American's saw more opportunities to start expanding and settling in towards the west, but was all destroyed for the native Americans who lived that way. No one knew the way the democracy worked at this age better than the Cherokees, who embraced their lifestyle and culture only to be mistreated and misunderstood when sent to be moved forcibly against their will from their home land and move to the east. In this document I will

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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.

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The land the people wanted was occupied and owned by Native American tribes. This prompted Jackson to pass the Indian Removal Act in 1830. This law allowed him to remove Native American tribes from their land and move them to “Indian Territory.” The topic of removal was not new to Jackson. He has been in campaigns against the Creeks and the Seminoles before.

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