Was the Indian Removal Act Justified?
“Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all” (Maximilien Robespierre). The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized negotiation between the United States of America and the Five Civilized Tribes in the southeast for the acquisition of their lands. Andrew Jackson signed it in to gain territory for agriculture as well as to appease Georgia, as tensions are high between the state and the Cherokee. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is unjust because it violates the Cherokees’ right to their lands and nation, can only bring them harm, and the grounds upon which the law was formed and justified are invalid.
Andrew Jackson argues that the Indian
…show more content…
Now the Cherokee may share the same fate. Nowhere in the deal given by the United States states or even implies that the nation would provide aid or assistance as the Cherokee are deported from their own country and forced to trek across our country most likely on foot. In short, the Cherokee are being forced to trek the Trail of Tears across the United States just as the Choctaw and Creek were before them, effectively committing national suicide, with the death rate of the trail reaching 66 …show more content…
The sheer nature of the law is unjustified as it states that the United States can negotiate for the full acquisition of Indian lands so that southern states can gain land for farming and so that Georgia will not invade the Cherokee. Not only does the United States not have the right to declare several nations tradeable to the United States, the Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia ruled that Georgians cannot participate in Indian affairs, including forcing the Cherokee off their land. It is the executive branch’s (the President’s and their subordinates’) duty to enforce it, even with force if need be like when South Carolina threatened to secede. The law also does not take into account the amount of hardship the Indians must go through if they are forced off their land. Good land or not, $5 million is not enough to rebuild an entire nation’s settlements, culture, and history. No aid is provided during transit either, leaving the exiled natives to the elements when it was the Union that sought after their lands in the first place. Previous tribes who had been forced off their land in the same manner walked the infamous “Trail of Tears”, a harsh and deadly trek that spans from the southeast United States to the Indian
So down below this will explain in depth why the indian removal act of 1812 is not justified Well, for starters we actually killed them using muskets and swords killing the men who tried to stop them. as well as we killed them with diseases that we had and we starved them because we killed animals for sport and we introduced new animals to the ecosystem. and intern were killing their way of life now they may have killed some of us but that is like saying a burglar runs into your house kills your family and then is trying to kill you.
President Jackson promised the Indians horses and shelter but he did not give them anything. Indian removal act was not justified because President Jackson was not being a good leader, they Cherokee Indians were there first and claimed their land before the white settlers came, lastly the Indian Removal was very cruel and
The Act led to an array of legal and moral arguments for and against the need to relocate the Indians westward from the agriculturally productive lands of the Mississippi in Georgia and parts of Alabama. This paper compares and contrasts the major arguments for and against the
Indian Removal Act:There's no place like home The” Trail of Tears” is remembered as the most catastrophic events in American history. It was popularly known as the “Trail of Tears” because it had adverse effects on the history,culture and development of the Cherokee Indians .The “Indian Removal Act” was established during President Andrew Jackson’s jurisdiction. It led to the suffering and deaths of thousands of Cherokee Indians.
The Indian Removal Act was just a way for the Americans to take the Indian’s land for their
Although the Indian Removal Act was derived off of getting rid of all Indians from the land they were currently at, the main reason was to create settlements for the white men to live in to make sure that the young population could grow and reach the highest of powers without anything or anyone coming in their way. The land of the Indian’s contained power, and the white men needed it all. President Jackson even used the needs of the white men to support the Indian Removal Act. He stated in the act, “Our forefathers” and “Our children.” This called out to the white men.
Imagine having to walk over 1200 miles because someone else wants you land. In 1820 five Native American tribes the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek Indians were invaded by all of the white people who came to the U.S from Europe, and the white men got very settled. Ever since the white men showed up to the U.S. there was conflict with the Native Americans. The Indian Removal Act is when southern Indian tribes formed their removal of the Natives and forced them to leave all of there stuff. I believe that the Indian Removal Act is a step in the wrong direction because we were not treating the Native Americans like human beings, it went against the constitution, and jackson wanted to build a wall to separate.
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.
The dispersing of the Indians, particularly the five civilized tribes of the southwest: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole fairly began before the approval of the Indian Removal Act. As the European-Americans were progressing the procedure of passing the Act was bound to happen. They were once a secluded society and now forced to a loss of war. The Indian Removal Act was signed on 1830 by President Andrew Jackson. The act allowed President Andrew Jackson to provide the states with federal funds to remove the civilized tribes and reject the Indians from letting them to be part of the European-American society.
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
They were the most accepting when it came to transforming to the "civilized" life of the white settlers. In 1830, President Jackson convinced congress to pass the Indian Removal Act, which was “A measure that allowed state officials to override federal protection of Native Americans”(). There was absolutely no justification for why Andrew Jackson removed the Cherokee Indians from their land. In his State of the Union Address, he says "it is in the best interest of the Cherokee's to remove them west because they were not civilized"(2). Ultimately, Jackson wanted the land that the Cherokee Indians called home
Soon after becoming president, Jackson passed the former act which called for the relocation of native tribes from their homelands to a designated “Indian territory” in present-day Oklahoma. While Jackson had a clear idea of his plans, he befriended the tribes and promised them prosperity, friendship, and the possibility of becoming civilized children of God. In other words, he, the symbol of reassurance in America, stabbed the backs of all natives. Beyond the question of Jackson 's morality, what was the ultimate reason behind the removal? The answer to this is simple: white settlers wanted to grow and cultivate on Indian lands, and they attained this when the government pushed the natives out of their lands.
His conduct served as an obstacle to Congress, and within his eight years as president, only one major legislation was passed at his behest: the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Though he expanded the power of the chief executive, he demonstrated an inability to compromise, encroached upon the legislative process, and acted according to his own will in order to seize valuable Indian land. With empowerment from the new bill, he then disobeyed the Supreme Court and forcibly transferred the Indians out of Georgia in 1838. Previously, Chief Justice John Marshall declared, “The acts of Georgia are repugnant to the Constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States.” Although the Court ruled against the removal with a 6-1 vote in favor of honoring the treaties with the Cherokee Indians, Jackson’s demonstrated heinous intentions by persistently attempting to dominate the Indians and directly defying the judicial branch, disregarding the system of checks and balances essential to government.
“The right thing to do is not always the popular thing to do. In this case, defending the Cherokee is the right thing to do.” This quote was stated in the “Allow the Cherokee to Stay” article written by Joan Marshall. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a law that was passed when the Americans tried clearing out the Indians in Georgia so that they can take over the land. They moved almost all of the Indian tribes to a place in Louisiana called Indian Territory.
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.