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The Indian Removal Act: The Effects of Farming and Ranching in America
The issue: Is the policy of Indian removal—under which NativeAmericans are pressured to
negotiate treaties for relocation from their homelands in the east to the Indian territory in the west—a
good way to end conflict between the Indians and the settlers and also open up eastern lands for
settlement? Or is it an excuse to essentially take the Indians' land for settlers seeking to expand?
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Arguments for Indian removal: As the white population increases, settlers seeking more
land are increasingly coming into conflict with the Indians. Also, the states have begun to pass
legislation making Indians subject to state law, and the Indians are assimilating into white culture
more and more; removing the Indians to the west, away from the white settlers, will help to preserve
their unique heritage. Furthermore, as the discoverers of the continent, the settlers have a right to
the land—the Indians are merely occupants of the land, not its owners.
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Arguments against Indian removal: The Indians are the original inhabitants of the land,
and thus they have a right to it; the government has no justification for forcing them to give it up.
Several Indian tribes have begun to assimilate into white culture, adopting "civilized" white customs,
at the request of the government; it is wrong to then force those tribes out into the wilderness of the
west. Furthermore, Indian removal violates numerous previous treaties the government has
negotiated, in which the Indians ceded land in part in exchange for promises that their remaining
lands would be protected.
Background
When the first Europeans settled in the Americas, relations with the NativeAmericans who inhabited
the land were initially peaceful, and some tribes ceded land to the settlers through treaties. But very
quickly, as the European population increased and the settlers claimed more and more land in the
17th and 18th centuries, they came into increasing conflict with the Indians. Fierce wars broke out up
and down the eastern part of the continent, and debate was equally fierce over how to address the
conflict between the Indians and settlers.
The pressures of expansion were particularly strong in the southeastern United States, which
contained land suitable for growing cotton. Cotton agriculture was rapidly expanding, and settlers
sought more and more arable land. However, that part of the country was home to the so-called Five
Civilized Tribes of NativeAmericans—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole—
who had to some extent adopted the settlers' culture and assimilated. As settlers sought more land,
the states increasingly began to pass legislation seeking to force the Indians to leave.
As early as 1803, the U.S. government had espoused a policy of removing the Indians from their
lands in the east to an "Indian territory" west of the Mississippi River. However, that policy gained
ground during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (D, 1829-37), who had gained prominence fighting
in Indian conflicts in the early 1800s. At the time, few in the United States envisioned white
settlements expanding beyond the Mississippi, and to Jackson and others seeking to expand their
holdings, Indian removal—enticing the Indians to trade their lands in the east for sovereign territory
in the west—seemed a practical solution.
In May 1830, after long, often heated debates, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. The law
granted the president the power to negotiate agreements with Indian tribes to exchange Indian lands
for money and territory in the west and provided $500,000 to carry out removal. Over the next two
decades, as many as 100,000 Indians were relocated to land west of the Mississippi River. Untold
numbers of those removed died along the way. [See Indian Removal Act (Excerpts) (primary
document)]
Jeremy Eagle
While many Indians relocated voluntarily, others resisted leaving their ancestral home for unknown
lands in the west. Those tribes came under heavy pressure by the government to negotiate removal
treaties. One such tribe was the Cherokee, who had largely assimilated and had adopted many
European customs, such as setting up a government and establishing schools. When the majority of
the Cherokee resisted leaving their ancestral lands, the federal government signed a removal treaty
with a small faction that supported it. Federal troops then rounded up the Cherokee and forced them
to march west in what became known as the "Trail of Tears." During the trip, an estimated 4,000
Cherokee died from hunger, disease, and exposure to the elements.
The key to fully understanding the events surrounding the Indian Removal Act is the shifting notion
of federalism, the system of government wherein the central government is given power by a group
of semi-independent states. The U.S. Constitution implicitly reserved to the states all rights and
powers not explicitly granted in the Constitution to the federal government. However, because the
language of the Constitution was intentionally vague, the federal and state governments were left
with the task of interpreting which rights were not reserved to the states.
As a result, many of the central issues facing the United States as it matured as a nation were about
how much power the states had to regulate their own affairs. Chief among those issues, and of vital
import to the many farmers, hunters, and land surveyors pushing westward across North America,
was the right of the Indians to claim autonomy over the lands they had inhabited before the arrival of
white settlers, and the right of the states to exercise jurisdiction over all those who lived in their
borders. As the states increasingly passed legislation bringing the Indians under state jurisdiction,
and encouraged settlers to "squat" on Indian lands, many people argued that the federal government
was bound to protect the Indians. The states, meanwhile, argued that the government was bound to
uphold the sovereignty of the states.
While it was widely agreed that the conflict between the settlers and Indians had to be resolved,
many disagreed over whether the Indian Removal Act was the best means of doing so. Was removal
of the Indians the only way to protect the Indians? Or was it simply an atrocity committed against the
Indians, essentially forcing them to leave the lands of their ancestors so that white settler could
expand their holdings?
Supporters of Indian removal asserted that it was necessary; the inevitable rise in population created
a combustible situation, they argued, and the creation of a separate, independent territory for the
various Indian tribes in the west was the only viable solution. Supporters of the act argued in
particular that the Indians would have a greater chance of survival if they were moved to an
autonomous territory in the west, away from white settlers. It would be, proponents claimed, a way
for the Indians to remain together, and to keep their heritage from blending completely into white
culture.
Other proponents argued that the Indians were merely occupants of the land, and had no claim to it;
the European explorers who discovered the land had a right to it. Furthermore, supporters
contended, although the Indians would be giving up the land of their ancestors, whites did no less
than that when they left their homeland and ventured to America.
The principal argument made by opponents of the act was that the Indians were indigenous to the
land, and that there was no justification for allowing settlers to force them to give up what was
rightfully theirs. Opponents also argued that it was wrong having asked the Indians to assimilate by
taking up "civilized" customs such as farming and practicing Christianity to then turn around and
send them out into the wilderness and the unknown.
Critics pointed out that the Indian Removal Act violated the numerous treaties the U.S. government
had previously signed with the Indians. The Indians had ceded land to the federal government in the
early 19th century, in part in exchange for promises that their remaining land would be protected by
the government. Now, critics asserted, the government was forcing them to leave that same land for
more empty promises.
European Settlement Creates Land Ownership Conflict
When European explorers first arrived on the eastern shores of what is now the United States, about
10 million American Indians were living in the area of North America north of present-day Mexico.
After a very brief period of largely peaceful coexistence between the European settlers and the
Indians, the two came into increasingly violent conflict as the settler population grew and expanded
further into Indian lands.
Localized wars between the settlers, particularly the British settlers, and Indians started to become
increasingly common in the mid-17th century. The British had far more sophisticated weapons and
usually prevailed. Most Indians in the east were forced under British rule, and were also forced to
either give up their nomadic lifestyles and remain confined to specific land or remove themselves to
the west.
During the American Revolution (1775-83) between the colonists and Britain, both the
revolutionaries and Britain sought to convince the Indians to fight on their side. Many Indians,
including the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek, fought alongside the British against the colonists. After
the American Revolution, the United States as a young nation faced the dilemma of how to interact
with the Indians. In the end, the Constitution, drafted in 1787, specifically granted to Congress the
exclusive right to "regulate Commerce...with the Indian Tribes." However, as more white settlers
came into conflict with Indians living within what had become state borders, what it meant to
"regulate commerce," and how that determined the right of the states to control the land within their
borders, became matters of great debate.
In 1790, the U.S. government passed the Trade and Intercourse Act, further regulating interaction
with the Indians living on federal lands (the act did not apply to Indians living in Indian country).
Ostensibly intended to ensure that the Indians were not cheated in their dealings with non-Indians,
the act served to make all interaction with the Indians the responsibility of the federal government,
rather than of the states.
Starting with the first president, George Washington (Federalist, 1789-97), the U.S. government
sought to "civilize" the Indians, educating them and convincing them to take on a "white" way of life.
Several tribes did make some effort to assimilate, most notably the Cherokee, who even adopted a
constitution and system of government similar to that of the federal government. They also
developed a written language and newspaper. Despite this, many white Americans gradually came
to believe that the Indians could not be civilized. At the same time that it was supporting a policy of
assimilation, the government was also advocating their voluntary removal to the west as the U.S.
population grew and the need for land increased.
President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican, 1801-09) was an early supporter of Indian
removal. With the purchase of Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, the United States gained a
large area of western land to which eastern Indians could be relocated. Indian removal was provided
for in an 1804 act setting up governance of the Louisiana Territory. Under the act, "The President of
the United States is hereby authorized to stipulate with any Indian tribes, owning lands on the east
side of the Mississippi, and residing thereon, for an exchange of lands the property of the United
States, on the west side of the Mississippi, in case the said tribes shall remove and settle thereon."
Jefferson's successors, James Madison (Democratic-Republican, 1809-17) and James Monroe
(Democratic-Republican, 1817-25) also supported voluntary removal. [See President Monroe Says
Removal Needed to Protect the Indians (Excerpts) (primary document)]
Several Indian tribes signed treaties ceding portions of their lands to the federal government. They
hoped that this would guarantee that they retained autonomy over, and gained some government
protection of, the remainder of their land, or be favored with land in the new territories. Others
voluntarily removed to the west. But other Indian nations refused to leave their tribal lands, and
some groups, such as the Creek and the Seminole, actively fought against giving them up.
In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v. McIntosh ruled that while Indians were entitled to
occupy land within the U.S. borders, they could not hold title to that land; the Court recognized the
settlers' "right of discovery" as being preeminent. The case had been brought after Indian chiefs had
sold land to private citizens rather than to the federal government. In response to the ruling, a
number of Indian tribes, including the Creek, Cherokee, and Chickasaw, adopted policies to restrict
the sale of Indian land to the U.S. government.
The states, meanwhile, began to undertake their own efforts to force the Indians off the land. They
passed legislation by which the Indians had to become citizens of the state, subject to state—rather
than Indian—laws. Indian governments were abolished, and they were not allowed to hold tribal
councils. Some states also encouraged squatters to take possession of the Indian lands, and
confrontation between the squatters and the Indians sometimes turned violent. There was a widely
held belief that something had to be done to resolve the issue, whether motivated by concern for the
fate of the Indian or by a desire to get the Indians off the land to make way for white settlers.
President Jackson Introduces the Indian Removal Act
Long before Jackson became president of the United States, he was strongly involved in Indian
affairs. He defeated the Creeks in a war in 1814, which resulted in the Creeks ceding 22 million
acres in southern Georgia and central Alabama. U.S. troops led by Jackson again acquired land
when he attacked the Seminole Indians in Florida in 1818. Furthermore, Jackson played a major role
in negotiating nine different treaties between the United States and American Indian tribes that
resulted in the exchange of Indian lands in the east for western territory.
By the time of his election to the presidency in 1828, Jackson was adamantly pushing for the
removal of the Indian tribes to territories west of the Mississippi River. He and his supporters
introduced in Congress the Indian Removal Act, which would give the executive branch the authority
to negotiate with the Indian nations for the removal of the Indians to western territories and the
acquisition of their land. [See President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress Advocating Indian
Removal (Excerpts) (primary document)]
Jackson argued that removal was necessary to save the Indians. In his first annual address to
Congress in December 1829, he laid out his case for Indian removal:
Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our
sympathies.... Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the
resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the
Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That
this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt.
Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity.
There was immediate opposition to the proposed act, both from Indians and Americans. During that
time, John Ross, who by then was serving as the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, went to
Washington, D.C., to deal with the land and money disputes between the Cherokee Nation and the
state of Georgia, where many Cherokee resided. Finding an uninviting executive branch, Ross
sought out support in Congress, and was met warmly by a powerful group of politicians, among
whom were Senator Henry Clay, who had run against Jackson for the presidency in 1824 (and
would again in 1832), and two leading Anti-Jacksonians (members of a political party that had
sprung up in opposition to Jackson), Senator Daniel Webster (Massachusetts) and Representative
David (Davy) Crockett (Tennessee).
After months of divisive debate, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act on May 26, 1830, and
Jackson signed it two days later. Jackson immediately began a full-scale effort to begin the removal
process, using the power delegated to him by the act to negotiate removal treaties with several
Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. Under those treaties, the Indians would agree to give up their
land in exchange for lands to the west and funds for their "support and sustenance" in their first year
in their new homes. (In 1834, Congress approved an act creating Indian territory consisting of land in
the present-day states of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.)
Under the act, removal was voluntary. But any Indians who chose to remain in the east had to agree
to become citizens of the U.S. state in which their land was located, living under that state's laws.
However, many who stayed became victims of land speculators who defrauded them out of their
land; in many cases, white settlers simply "squatted" on the land, living there as though it were their
own. While the government made some effort to protect the Indians, in the end it could not control
the force for expansion into their lands.
The first tribe to sign a removal treaty was the Choctaw Nation, in 1830. Some Choctaw chose to
remain in their homes in Mississippi. However, after the government could not protect them from the
speculators and settlers, the Choctaw eventually chose to move to Indian territory in the west. The
journey was made during a harsh winter, and estimates of those who died of disease, starvation, or
exposure to the elements are as high as 25 percent.
In 1832, the Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole all signed treaties with the government. Under the
Creek treaty, Creek lands were divided into allotments, which they could either choose to sell and
relocate westward, or to live on under Alabama law (which is where the Creek were concentrated by
that time). However, violence broke out between the Creek and squatters on their land, leading to
the Creek War of 1836. After that, the federal government forced the Creek's removal, declaring it
militarily necessary.
Removal of the Seminole led to greater violence. Only a small faction of the Seminole signed the
removal treaty, and it was later rejected by the majority of the tribe. The Seminoles refused to obey
the terms of the treaty and leave their land, and the situation escalated into the Second Seminole
War (1835-42), which cost thousands of lives. In the end, however, most of the Seminole ended up
relocating to the west.
The Cherokee faced a situation similar to that of the Seminole, with a rogue faction signing a treaty
with the United States that the rest of the Indian nation claimed was fraudulent and illegitimate. How
the Cherokee tried to deal with the treaty came to have great bearing on the Cherokee's fate.
U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Cherokee Rights
Two court cases originating in Georgia, and based on alleged violations of Georgia law, led to two
major Supreme Court cases in 1831 and 1832. In 1802, the Georgia state legislature had signed a
compact with the federal government in which Georgia relinquished its claim to all lands west of the
Mississippi. In return, the federal government agreed not to honor any Indian claims to land within
the state's new borders.
However, the Cherokee tribe remained firmly ensconced on the land it claimed in Georgia, North
Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. In the ensuing two decades, Georgians tried to push into the
territories on which the Cherokee lived, and skirmishes continually broke out. Indians complained of
settlers stealing their crops and animals and defacing their property, some settlers attempted to
claim Cherokee land outright, and the Georgian legislature attempted to pass laws that would
effectively push the Indians out of Georgia.
The Cherokee responded to the laws and to what they viewed as the settlers' illegal encroachment
in several ways. In particular, two Cherokee leaders, both of whom had fought with Jackson against
Indians of the Creek Nation to protect both Cherokee and white settler interests in 1813-14, played
important roles in the conflict between the United States and the Cherokee tribe. The leaders, John
Ross and Major John Ridge, together created a new constitution for the Cherokee Nation, which
sought to establish a sovereign, self-governing nation that would be independent of, and on a par
with, the U.S. government.
The Cherokee National Council adopted the constitution in 1827. However, the Cherokee
Constitution was wholly rejected as illegitimate by Georgia, which increased pressure on the federal
government to remove the Indians. In response, the Georgia legislature passed legislation extending
state jurisdiction over the Cherokee, disbanding the tribal government, and establishing a method by
which their land could be seized and given to white settlers. After the discovery of gold on Cherokee
land in 1829, settlers increased their calls for Indian removal.
While the Georgia government asked President Jackson to help with the removal process and
passed laws designed to force the Cherokee to leave, the Cherokee took to the courts to challenge
the constitutionality of the Georgia laws. Led by Ross, the Cherokee argued that the laws Georgia
had passed that attempted to control activities on Indian soil violated their sovereign rights as a
nation and were a violation of their exclusive treaty relationship with the United States.
In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Cherokee took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing
that they comprised a foreign state as the term was used in the Constitution. As a result, they
argued, the Cherokee Nation should be allowed to sue the state of Georgia in federal court.
U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in 1831 that a federal court in fact did not have jurisdiction
over such a case, because the Cherokee Nation did not have "standing" as a legitimate foreign state
to sue in federal court. He reasoned that Indian tribes were merely "domestic dependent nations"
that existed "in a state of pupilage" to the United States. He further claimed that the Indian tribes'
"relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian." The result of that decision
was that Georgia's laws were not struck down at that time, and Georgia continued to actively strip
the Cherokee of their lands within its borders.
During that same period, the Georgia government began to recognize that white Christian
missionaries living on Cherokee land were exerting much influence over the Cherokee, and in
particular were instructing them to resist. In response, in 1830 the Georgia legislature had enacted
"an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power by all persons, under pretext of
authority from the Cherokee Indians." The law prohibited "white persons" from residing in the
Cherokee Nation territory without an express license from the state permitting them to do so.
In 1831 the Georgia authorities repeatedly arrested missionary Samuel Worcester for violating that
law (his family resided in Cherokee Nation territory). He was convicted and sentenced to four years
of hard labor. Worcester sued the state of Georgia, claiming that the Georgia law should be struck
down as unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court agreed and in Worcester v. Georgia, decided in 1832, the Court clearly
recognized Indian sovereignty. Marshall wrote that the Indian nations were "distinct, independent
political communities retaining their original natural rights," as clearly recognized in the treaties
between the United States and the Cherokee. Marshall's opinion reproached the Georgia
government and firmly declared that the Cherokee had the right to exist free from the state's
unconstitutional intrusion.
Despite that unambiguous ruling, the Georgia legislature ignored the Supreme Court's decision and
Jackson refused to force Georgia to enforce the Court's decision. Instead of heeding the decision,
Jackson demanded that the Cherokee either fall under Georgia's jurisdiction or relocate to the west.
Cherokee Forced to Move West along the "Trail of Tears"
In 1835, a small faction of the Cherokee led by Ridge, known as the "Treaty Party," went to
Washington, D.C., without the consent of the majority of the Cherokee Nation. That unendorsed
faction, believing removal was in the best interests of the Cherokee people, negotiated the Treaty of
New Echota with the federal government. In exchange for the lands of the Cherokee Nation situated
within the borders of such southern states as Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, the Treaty Party
accepted monetary compensation, tools, provisions, and livestock, as well as territory west of the
Mississippi River. [See The 1835 Treaty of New Echota between the Cherokee and the Federal
Government (primary document)]
The Treaty of New Echota ended up dividing the Cherokee Nation. A few years earlier, the
Cherokee National Council, the head government of the Cherokee people, had enacted a law that
called for the death penalty for any Cherokee who gave up tribal land. Indeed, during Ridge's
westward passage from Georgia territory, he was murdered by other Cherokees.
In the meantime, Cherokee leader Ross led the Cherokee people in opposition to the treaty. In an
impassioned letter to Congress in 1836, he wrote: [See Letter from Cherokee Chief John Ross
Refuting the Treaty of New Echota (primary document)]
By the stipulations of this instrument....[w]e are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility
for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed
on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We
are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We
have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own.
But his efforts were to no avail. President Jackson ordered the U.S. Army to enforce the treaties
signed as a result of the Indian Removal Act.
The treaty gave the Cherokee a two-year period to either voluntarily move or to become citizens of
the state of Georgia, beholden to Georgia law. By 1838, few of the Cherokee had left their lands,
and Jackson's successor, President Martin van Buren (D, 1837-41), put General Winfield Scott in
charge of the removal process. That act of removal came to be known as the "Trail of Tears," from
the Indian phrase for "trail where we cried." [See General Scott Orders the Cherokee to Remove to
the West (primary document)]
Under Scott, over the course of a single week in the summer of 1838, the U.S. Army rounded up an
estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Cherokee for transport to the west. Many of those rounded up were not
given time to collect any of their belongings, including their shoes. The army then looted and burned
many of the Cherokee villages. [See Cherokee 'Trail of Tears' (sidebar)]
The first few groups of Cherokee to be relocated traveled by boat along a water route, but later
groups traveled along a land route by wagon, and more often by foot when an insufficient number of
wagons were provided. About 14,000 Indians walked more than 1,000 miles through Tennessee,
Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas to reach their final destinations. An estimated 4,000
Cherokees died along the way to the Indian territory, the result of not enough food, harsh weather
conditions, and disease. [See Private Burnett's First-Hand Account of the Voyage Along the Trail of
Tears (primary document), Captain Drane's Letter Describing Removal of the Cherokee (primary
document)]
The Case for Indian Removal
Supporters of Indian removal asserted that the policy benefited both the United States and the
Indians. Conflict with the settlers had diminished Indian numbers, they argued, and those surviving
Indians were essentially being forced to adopt white culture. Removing the Indians from the settlers
would help them to preserve themselves and their native heritage.
A Baptist missionary to the Indians, Isaac McCoy, warned that the Indians were "rapidly decreasing
in numbers, and perishing under their accumulating misfortunes." He ardently called for the federal
government to remove the Indians to territories specifically designated for them and under federal
protection, so that their population could rebound and they could safeguard their heritage and unique
culture. Representative Wilson Lumpkin of Georgia starkly summed up his vision of the situation
during debate in the House of Representatives in May 1830: "Pass the bill on your table, and you
save them. Reject this bill, and you leave them to perish."
Some Indians themselves argued for passage of the Indian Removal Act, not so much because they
were happy with it but because they also viewed it as a means to stop the conflict between the
Indians and the settlers, whose increasing strength and population made the contest more and more
lopsided. Ridge, one of the leaders of the Cherokee who created the 1827 Constitution for the
Cherokee Nation, urged approval of a treaty for removal of the Cherokee to western territories as the
only option available. He explained his reasoning to the Cherokee people in December 1835, as
they debated whether to sign the Treaty of New Echota:
I am one of the native sons of these wild woods.... I know the Indians have an older title than theirs.
We obtained the land form the living God above. They got their title from the British. Yet they are
strong and we are weak. We are few, they are many. We cannot remain here in safety and
comfort.... There is but one path of safety, one road to future existence as a Nation.... Give up these
lands and go over beyond the great Father of Waters.
The United States would also benefit from the passage of the act, proponents argued. They asserted
that removing the Indians was vital to the expansion and growth of the country. Giving the eastern
lands of the Indians to white settlers would strengthen the frontier as a whole, they added, allowing
the communities to grow and flourish in the absence of fears of invasion or harm. The moreassimilated Indians from the east might also serve as a "civilizing" influence on the Indians in the
west, they asserted. In his annual message to Congress in 1830, Jackson stated:
It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage
hunters. 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.
Many defenders of the Indian Removal Act based their support on the claim that, as the
"discoverers" of the land, the settlers had the right to it. At the time the settlers had claimed the land,
they claimed, it was completely uncultivated. Because the Indians those first settlers had
encountered were a "savage" lot, they contended, the settlers could rightfully claim the land. They
pointed out that the Supreme Court had recognized that principle early on. "What is the Indian title?
It is a mere occupancy for the purpose of hunting," the court had ruled in an 1810 case, Fletcher v.
Peck. "It is not like our tenures; they have no idea of a title to the soil itself. It is overrun by them,
rather than inhabited." [See Two Competing Views of the Indians (primary document)]
Supporters also argued that removal of the Indians to the west was a vital step in mending the rift
between the states and the federal government created by the question of which government had
the right to make laws concerning Indian lands located within the borders of a state. Jackson
claimed that passage of the act, and the attendant removal, "puts an end to all possible danger of
collision between the authorities of the General [federal] and State Governments on account of the
Indians."
Furthermore, supporters claimed, the settlers were asking no more of the Indians than they
themselves had already done: picked themselves up and moved to a new land in search of a better
life. "Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers," Jackson stated, "but what do
they more than our ancestors did or than our children are now doing. To better their condition in an
unknown land our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects." And in contrast to the case of
the settlers, the government was offering to pay the relocation expenses and support the Indians
until they settled. "How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of
removing to the West on such conditions!" Jackson declared.
Finally, some supporters claimed that opposition to the removal act was purely political, motivated by
opponents' personal dislike of Jackson. "Where do you find one solitary opponent of President
Jackson in favor of the measure on your table?" Representative Lumpkin asked. "If any President of
the United States has deserved the appellation of friend and father to the Indians, it is him who is
now at the helm....This opposition is not to the policy proposed, but to the man who recommends it."
The Case Against Indian Removal
Many individuals, including some members of Congress, argued that the Indian Removal Act went
against the very basis of the U.S. Constitution, as it negated treaties that had been formally signed
between the various Indian nations and the federal government. In April 1830, during Senate debate
on the act, Senator Peleg Sprague (Anti-Jacksonian, Maine) argued:
By several of these treaties, we have unequivocally guarantied them that they shall forever enjoy—
1st. Their separate existence, as a poetical community; 2d. Undisturbed possession and full
enjoyment of their lands, within certain boundaries, which are duly defined and fully described; 3d.
The protection of the United States, against all interference with, or encroachments upon their rights
by any people, state, or nation. For these promises, on our part, we received ample consideration—
By the restoration and establishing of peace; By a large cessions of territory; By the promise on their
part to treat with no other state or nation; and other important stipulations. These treaties were made
with all the forms and solemnities which could give them force and efficacy.
Along with the treaties, the federal government had pledged to protect the Indians, critics asserted.
They noted that the treaty between the Cherokee Nation and the United States contained a provision
by which "all white people who have intruded, or may hereafter intrude, on the lands of the
Cherokee, shall be removed by the United States." The government had failed to uphold that pledge,
they contended.
Furthermore, critics argued that the Indians had absorbed much of the white settlers' sophisticated
culture. To force them to move to western territories would not only strip them of the protection that
the United States had promised them but would also undermine their acculturation, critics argued.
As John Ross stated:
Little did [the Cherokee] anticipate, that when taught to think and feel as the American citizen, and
to have with him a common interest, they were to be despoiled by their guardian, to become
strangers and wanderers in the land of their fathers, forced to return to the savage life, and to seek a
new home in the wilds of the far west, and that without their consent.
Indian removal was also immoral, critics argued, because the Indians had an unfettered right to the
land, which they had inhabited before the white settlers arrived on the continent. Being no less
human than the settlers, critics asserted, the Indians had equally legitimate claims to the land.
Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen (Anti-Jacksonian, New Jersey), another fierce opponent of
removal, argued that "by immemorial possession, as the original tenants of the soil, they hold a title
beyond and superior to the British Crown and her colonies, and to all adverse pretensions of our
confederation and subsequent Union." He continued, "I ask in what code of the law of nations, or by
what process of abstract deduction, their rights have been extinguished?...Where is the decree or
ordinance that has stripped these early and first lords of the soil?"
Critics denied the claim of "right of discovery," which supporters used to justify the act. From the
beginning, they noted, the federal government recognized the Indians as the inhabitants of the land
and negotiated treaties for the acquisition of that land. "Has it not been the established principle of
this government to recognise the Indian title?" asked Representative William Ellsworth (AntiJacksonian, Connecticut). "Has it ever taken their land upon this title by discovery without their
consent? How can we, the United States, deny a right which we have recognised, aye, guarantied
thousands of times?"
Once it was established that the Indians had a right to the land they inhabited, opponents of the
Indian Removal Act stated, one of the strongest claims against the act was that the Indians did not
wish to be relocated. "We have the expression of the Indians reiterated upon us. They do not wish to
remove," Ellsworth stated. "For years have we been laboring to make them remove—have made
them liberal offers...but it is all in vain; like others, they prefer to live and die where their fathers lived
and died, and refuse, absolutely, to remove." As George Harkins, a Choctaw Indian leader, lamented
in 1832, as he was forced to leave his land, "Friends, my attachment to my native land is strong—
that cord is now broken; and we must go forth as wanderers in a strange land!"
Overall, opponents of the act asserted, forcing the Indians to leave their ancestral lands would be an
atrocity committed against them. "The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable,"
Representative Edward Everett (Whig, Massachusetts) argued during House debate. "Nations of
dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the
wilderness.... Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, we shall look back upon it, I
fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing."
The Debate over Indian Rights Continues
By 1837, the Jackson administration had removed some 46,000 Indians from their land east of the
Mississippi River. By the end of the 1840s, an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 Indians had been
removed to Indian territory. For about $68 million and 32 million acres of western land, Jackson
acquired for the United States approximately 100 million acres of land in the east, and area roughly
equivalent to the size of California. He thus played a critical role in expanding the United States and
opening regions to white settlers.
However, as the United States set its sights on expanding across the entire continent, believing that
the country had a "manifest destiny" to stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, little
room was left for the Indians. By 1870, Indian Territory had been reduced to the present-day state of
Oklahoma. The policy of removal eventually gave way to a policy of confining Indians to specially
designated Indian reservations. [See Manifest Destiny]
Today, there are two million Indians living in the United States. Most live on reservations and are
concentrated in the southwestern states, but some tribes remain in many parts of the country, such
as along the Allegheny River in New York and in regions of Minnesota. Though the Indians and the
rest of the population no longer resort to war to settle disputes, the courts continue to be filled with
disputes about the relative rights of the U.S. government, the individual states, and sovereign Indian
nations.
Much of the contemporary debate on Indian rights centers on the two opposing notions of
assimilation and independence. Elizabeth Ann Ho'oipo Kalaena'auao Pa, chairwoman of
the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), has made that clear. In her statement in NARF's 2004
Annual Report, she wrote:
Today our survival depends on the emergence of new Native leaders who embody traditionalism as
a personal identity and at the same time have the knowledge and skills required to bring traditional
objectives forward as the basic agenda of the political and social institutions they work within.
Promotion of traditional perspectives on power, justice and relationships is essential to the survival
of indigenous peoples. To defend our nationhood against co-optation it is essential to redirect our
energies and resources towards education for our young people and the development of a new
indigenous intelligentsia rooted in tradition and committed to preserving traditions and creating
conditions for harmonious coexistence with others.
Back in the 1800s, many argued that "harmonious coexistence" between the Indians and the settlers
was impossible and saw Indian removal as the only viable policy. Whether the government was
motivated more by a desire for land, at the expense of the Indians, or by a desire to protect the
Indians may never be resolved. But Representative Everett appears to have been correct when he
said that, in hindsight, compulsory Indian removal would be looked back on with regret; today the
forced removal that ensued as a result of the policy is widely viewed as one of the most lamentable
episodes in U.S. history.
Bibliography
Axelrod, Alan. Chronicle of the Indian Wars: From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee. New York:
Macmillan, 1993.
Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Garrison, Tim. The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty
of Native American Nations. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002.
Jahoda, Gloria. Trail of Tears. New York: Random House, 1995.
Moulton, Gary, ed. The Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 1, 1807-39. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1985.
Norgen, Jill. The Cherokee Cases: The Confrontation of Law and Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1996.
Remini, Robert. Andrew Jackson & His Indian Wars. New York: Viking Adult, 2001.
"Removal of the Indians." North American Review, January 1830, 62.
Wallace, Anthony. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1993.
Citation Information
MLA
Chicago Manual of Style
DeFrees, Allison. “Indian Removal Act.” April 18, 2006. Issues & Controversies in American History. Infobase Learning.
http://icah.infobaselearning.com/icahfullarticle.aspx?ID=107566 (accessed January 6, 2017).