Massacre At Mystic Essay

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The Native tribes in America have interacted with the Americans ever since they first arrived as English colonies and . The English Colonies which are now the United States of America have followed developing policies towards American tribes that depict the gradual but definite ultimate removal of the Indians. The decision to remove Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi in 1830 by the Jackson Administration was a significant change in social and political policy towards the tribes, but a continuation of economic policy. By acknowledging the tribes as subjects of the United States, the Jackson administration changed previous U.S. political policy towards the tribes. In the film “Massacre at Mystic” On May 26, 1637 when the English …show more content…

The United States wanted the Indians to conform and assimilate, “Because of these purchases of Indian land, it is our duty to make new efforts for the preservation, improvement & civilization of the native inhabitants… For the earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable,...”(President Monroe, First Annual Message to Congress, 1817). The United States had been trying to civilise and assimilate Indians since the first prayer towns in the English colonies. We see this view changing in 1802 when Jackson addresses the attempts to civilize the Indians “It has long been the policy of the government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hopes of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has been, however, coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success.”(Jackson’s First Annual Message to Congress). The Jackson Administration believed the Indians assimilating wasn’t beneficial and they couldn’t create an independent government. Jackson’s ended the assimilation attempt and gave the Indians land in which Indian culture could exist separate from the United States. This ended the previous idea that the economy could benefit from civilised natives and the Jackson Administration instead wanted nothing to do