The Age of Jackson and How it Destroyed The Native Americans Following a few years after the Era of Good Feelings, Andrew Jackson was elected into office and would forever leave a blemish in history. For any historian to indulge into the Age of Jackson, it cannot be ignored that Jackson's motives towards Native Americans were abundantly clear. Elected into office in 1828, Andrew Jackson did not hesitate to eradicate Native Americans from the borders of Georgia, Mississippi, Illinois, and parts of Florida where many Tribes have been residing. "In 1830 Congress passed and President Jackson signed an act "to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi." …show more content…
With unsuccessful results after the Supreme Court decision, a small unauthorized faction of Cherokee members signed the Treaty of New Echota which provided the Cherokee land to the west and $5 million as well as other resources for the passage. A majority of the members from the Cherokee tribe did not approve of the decision to sign this Treaty but it was too late. This split the entire tribe in factions as the Cherokee in favor of the treaty would leave immediately once the Treaty was ratified in 1836 while those that did not believe in the treaty would resist and stay in the East. After three years of resist, the Cherokee were now being forced off their land by federal troops ordered to remove Indian tribes at gun point. As indicated by Cherokee leader William Shorey Coodey in his letter to John Howard Payne on the departure, "The entire Cherokee population was captured by the U.S. troops under General Scott in 1838 and marched, to principally, upon the border of Tennessee where they were encamped in large bodies until the time for their final removal west." (Rozema 133). With an estimate of 20,000 Cherokees being forced to take a passage thousands of miles to Oklahoma, now infamously known as the Trail of Tears, roughly a quarter of those members perished. Some of the causes of death from this forceful removal included freezing to death, starvation and disease. Upon arriving to the new land that the Native Americans were forced to live on, the Cherokee Tribe became ever more so divided as members that signed the Treaty of New Echota were then sentenced to