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Indian Removal Thesis

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The Indian Removal Act was highly controversial at the time, with some Americans opposing it on moral grounds, while others supported it for economic and political reasons. The removal itself was a traumatic experience for the affected tribes, as they were forced to leave behind their homes, communities, and way of life. Thousands died during the journey westward, known as the Trail of Tears, due to disease, starvation, and exposure. Today, the Indian Removal Act and its legacy are widely criticized as a dark chapter in American history that violated the human rights and sovereignty of Native American peoples. Andrew Jackson played a significant role in the Indian Removal as he was the President of the United States at the time and signed …show more content…

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. The Cherokee removal, also known as the Trail of Tears, is the most remembered of the Indian Removals because it was one of the largest and most devastating forced migrations of Native American peoples in American

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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

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700 Words | 3 Pages

One of many atrocities that Jackson committed was the forceful removal of thousands of Indians and the subsequent death of many of them. Although his reasoning, as is stated in his Message to Congress "On Indian Removal," was

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552 Words | 3 Pages

By far, the Indian Removal Act is a very barbarous thing to put our fellow Native Americans through. To begin with, removal of the indians is a very bribing and forceful action. The fact that we would all take the measures to force them off of their land is uncalled for, especially since it is land of their own. We cannot just bribe and trick the tribes for the comfort of ourselves, all stated in Document 6, Senator Peleg Sprague. In Document 5, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Frelinghuysen’s speech mentions how removal of the tribes would involve, very violent actions and crowded acres as they will be forced onto lands west of the Mississippi.

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684 Words | 3 Pages

Furthermore, Natives occupied only a small portion of the territory as evident by the concentration of migrants in the southern most area (Doc 7). Naturally, this transition wasn’t seamless as some tribes refused to leave their sacred homeland. The Cherokees were a prominent opposer, having been forcibly removed and subjected to the infamous Trail of Tears in 1838. Despite being known as the tribe most assimilated to American society, the Cherokees were still forced to leave their ancestral home. Jackson and other politicians reasoned that the removal was for the Native Americans’ own safety and the preservation of their culture, but the removal only tore tribes away from the origins of their culture and

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1733 Words | 7 Pages

The removal of the Cherokee, or more commonly known as the “Trail of Tears,” was a defining American event that left an incredible historical impact. The Cherokee and other Native American tribes were being moved westward by the American government for various reasons such as disputes with white settlers, the desire for the gold on the Cherokee lands, the desire to civilize them and other reasons. However, it was far from a simplistic dispute between whites and Native Americans. There were many whites, including President Jackson, as well as some Cherokee, who supported the policy to move the Indians west. Opponents of the removal also included both whites and Cherokee.

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778 Words | 4 Pages

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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1091 Words | 5 Pages

The Trail of Tears and the Cherokee and Indian Removal Acts were some of the darkest times in American history. This was a period where thousands of Native Americans were taken from their homes and were forced to move West. These events were fueled by greed and prejudice from both the United States government and its citizens. People who had political power used their authority to harm the Natives and the common folk could do nothing to help. By the end, the Native Americans endured some of the most appalling treatments imaginable.

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516 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1022 Words | 5 Pages

Thousands of Indians were killed by this act, and it was known as the “Trail where they Cried”, which is how the Trail of Tears got its name. Though the Trail of Tears greatly impacted Westward Expansion by opening up new lands to white settlers, it killed thousands of Natives by forcing them off the land. Problem Even before the Indians were legally forced off their

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1308 Words | 6 Pages

As a part of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Native American people were forcefully assembled and made to endure one of the longest walks from Georgia to Oklahoma on what has become known as the Trail of Tears. President Andrew Jackson’s motives for movement of the Native people to a new territory was to eliminate the Native race by stripping the victims of their vital resources needed for basic survival. After 178 years of expansion and growth in the United States of America, the circumstances for Native Americans remain unchanged. President Jackson’s sentiments have permeated the present society in issues associated with the physical and emotional fight to decolonize. Decolonization is both the individual and communal effort to regenerate

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472 Words | 2 Pages

So the treaty signed by about 100 Cherokees determined the lives of about 17,000 other Cherokees to live in Indian Territories, and caused the Cherokees to be forced to leave their homeland. In conclusion, the U.S. government ordered the Indian Removal Act of 1830 because of their greed for gold and expansion of land. The white settlers greed for gold and more land caused the Cherokees to leave their homeland, and resulted in the deaths of about 4,000 thousand Cherokees. So the journey of the Cherokees is widely remembered today as “The Trails of

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420 Words | 2 Pages

The Trail of Tears was ignominy in the history of United States. After President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the United States Military forced many Native American Tribes off their land. About 15,000 Cherokees were forced to leave from their land and this journey became to be known as “The Trail of Tears”. The Cherokees were forced because the greedy Americans wanted the land for agriculture and to grow cotton which would earn them a lot of money. The tribes were forced to moved westward from their ancestral land and settle in Oklahoma Territory.

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265 Words | 2 Pages

Nobody's lives would be the same after losing the ones they had lost during the long journey. The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears were terrible events for the Native American people to live through. They lost lives, supplies, homes, and family memories.

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1475 Words | 6 Pages

The Act was essentially a landgrab, forcing multiple Native American tribes out of their homelands in the East so that Americans could farm the land. This legislation eventually led to tribes either fighting, and dying, or relocating. The relocation was a long and inhospitable journey, leading to many deaths. This journey is now known as the Trail of Tears. It is important to note that there was opposition to the removal; Davy Crockett was among those who fought against the legislation.

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999 Words | 4 Pages

The Trail of Tears event of the removal of the Indians happened in 1838. “At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. ”(History.com Staff). In this event, the Cherokee community of Native Americans was forced by the US government to move from their native home in the Southern part of the contemporary America to what is known as the Indian territories in Oklahoma. Arguments over land, restrictions, and laws were common amongst the Indians and settlers/whites.

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