Summary Of Andrew Jackson's Speech Concerning The Indian Removal Act

White residents of the United States clashed with the Indigenous people on land, food, and rights, without a permanent compromise. In 1829, President Andrew Jackson proposes to move all Indigenous people within America’s current territory to reservations. After being pursued for nearly thirty years, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes agreed for their removal. This would allow whites to live their civilized lives as the Indigenous people cast off their savage habits in remote reservations. President Jackson’s Case for the Removal Act shows that those of power and majority decide the terms of segregation.

A Shameful Part of American History The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was America’s first attempt to legally remove Native Americans from their land. This primary source was created by the Senate and House of Representatives, and it was backed by President Andrew Jackson. Passed on May 28th, the act allowed the for the relocation of Natives west of the Mississippi River. This order was a result of Manifest Destiny which was the belief that it was the United State’s God-given right to expand westward.

The Indian Removal Act also known as the “Trail of Tears” was signed on May 28, 1830 by President Andrew Jackson. Allowing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi for exchange of Indian lands inside the state borders. He forced the westward move of the "five civilized" Native American tribes, the Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Cherokees and Choctaws. A few tribes went without trouble, but many resisted the policy. About 4,000 Cherokees died when the United States government forcibly moved them during the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839.

Furthermore, President Andrew Jackson felt so passionately about owning land that he was willing to forcibly remove the indigenous people from their natural land. In his address to congress on The Indian Removal Act he writes, “. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power”. This captures the idea that by obtaining land Americans will be doing a greater deed than ridding the country of the “savage” Native Americans.

This essay considers how Cherokees responded to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This Act, promoted by the seventh President of the United States Andrew Jackson, enabled the United States government to relocate the “Five Civilized Tribes” to reservations west of the Mississippi River. The majority of Americans supported removing Southeastern Amerindians. American settlers were eager to gain access to Cherokee lands in Georgia. The Indian Removal Act resulted in the mass transplantation of Indian tribes known as the “Trail of Tears.”

Robert V. Remini argued in “Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars” that the Indian Removal Act was the only way to save the Native Americans from being extinct. He proposed this act to not only to save the Native Americans from being extinct, but also ““... could and would protect them fully in the possession of the soil, and their right of self government...to be our equals in privileges, civil, and religious.”” (285). He had been concern about the safety of the Native Americans for many years since white settlers were hungry for land and would do anything for it. Moving to the west would let the Native Americans do what they wanted to do and live freely.

The life of Native Americans before and after the government issued the Indian Removal Act created a lasting effect on our nation. Native Americans were forced by the US government to vacate their lands. Surprisingly, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida, which was all land that their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations (“Indian 1”). By the end of the 1890, very few Natives remained anywhere in the lands east of the Mississippi River (“Indian 1”). The Natives were forced to leave these land, because of the whites moving in who wanted the soft, fertile land, because of its farming capability.

Andrew Jackson, in his “Address on Indian Removal” speech, argues that his Act, which relocates Native Americans in the South East, is ultimately beneficial for both the United States and the Indians. To slowly degrade the opinions congressmen have on the Indians and conjure sympathetic emotions, Jackson uses derogatory words which further diminish the little respect congressmen have for the Native Americans. For example, almost every paragraph contains the word “savage” which connotes incivility, barbarism, and stupidity. The use of “savage” allows Jackson to imply that America is better than the “red men” and should decide their fate in order to protect them. Furthermore, towards the end of the second paragraph Jackson uses words like “retard,”

Cherokee Chief John Ross began to devise a plan to counter this removal and he stated with the Blood Law which stated that any Cherokee that made a deal to sell land to the United States without the consent of the entire tribe faced dire and certain consequences. Chief Ross then set out to take the Cherokee case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case of Worcester v Georgia the U.S. Chief Justice, John Marshall ruled The Cherokee Nation is a distinct community, occupying its own territory with boundaries accurately described and which the laws of Georgia can have no force and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the consent of the Cherokees themselves. The Cherokees were astatic with this ruling. However,

If scholars and historians fail to recognize the true devastation that the removal caused, they undermine the pain Indians endured. People like to think of the removal as a positive thing for Indians; the United States granted them an opportunity for a new life rid of the threats from Georgia. President Jackson himself, when talking about American citizens, remarked “How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions!” People trusted what Jackson said because of his presidential position. However, people failed and still fail, to recognize that Jackson hoped not only a removal, but an act of genocide against the Cherokee.

President Andrew Jackson’s Second Annual Message to Congress of 1830 was used to specifically address Jackson’s stance on how and why Indian removal would be beneficial to white settlements. The document was written by Andrew Jackson December 6, 1830 for Congress. President Jackson’s message on Indian removal claimed to pay whole expenses and settlement. In addition to completely separating Indians from white settlements; liberating Indians from government power and allow them to run under their own institutions. Nonetheless, Jackson was also hoping Indians would be rid of their “savage ways” and be influenced by the Christian community.

Imagine being forced to leave your home, just for the reason of white settlers needing land to plant cotton. In 1814, Andrew Jackson from Tennessee commanded, the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Cherokee nation. In their defeat, they lost 22 million acres of land. The Cherokees were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of the two years the Cherokees would be removed by force. In 1838 only 2,000 had migrated and 16,000 remained on the land.

Andrew Jackson’s message to Congress and “Samuel’s Memory” are about the same topic, the Indian Removal Act, but are two completely different pieces. Both are told from two very different points of views. Both evoke very different emotions. One was written to persuade people and justify the Act and the other was written to show the horror of the Act and the devastation of how the act affected the Indian people. While both are about the same topic, they are nowhere near the same.

The Trail o f Tears: A Cherokee LegacyThe discovery of the New World in the late 1400s by Christopher Columbus led to the end of the Old World. Many troubles have arisen amongst the original inhabitants of the New World such as Native Americans. After the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus, Native Americans were abused, exploited, and suffered at the hands of many Europeans. In the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Legacy, Chip Richie analyzes the forced removal ofNative Americans from their sacred land by President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Indian Removal Act resulted in the deaths of many Native Americans, and this long journey became known as The Trail of Tears.

The Genocide: Trail of Tears/ The Indian removal act During the 1830s the united states congress and president Andrew Jackson created and passed the “Indian removal act”. Which allowed Jackson to forcibly remove the Indians from their native lands in the southeastern states, such as Florida and Mississippi, and send them to specific “Indian reservations” across the Mississippi river, so the whites could take over their land. From 1830-1839 the five civilized tribes (The Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw) were forced, sometimes by gun point, to march about 1,000 miles to what is present day Oklahoma.