Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, , authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders.
A steamboat carrying Creeks up the Mississippi collided with another boat and was cut in two, killing Indian passengers. Anywhere from 20 to 25 percent of Eastern Cherokees died either being rounded up or transported West. The problem was not one of faulty implementation; Jackson's own actions made the process of removal bloodier and crueler.
The actual death toll of removal is uncertain. But thousands more Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and other Indians died in the process as well, direct victims of the signature policy of the Jackson administration. It's genuinely bizarre that some modern liberals, like Sean Wilentz and Arthur Schlesinger , have claimed Jackson for liberalism, ostensibly for his embrace of "populism" read: rejection of northern anti-slavery white men in favor of Southern pro-slavery white men.
In reality, Jackson's economic policy views were almost cartoonishly right wing. Context is important here. Jackson was succeeding John Quincy Adams, a truly great, scandalously underrated president who was an enthusiastic supporter of government intervention to build necessary infrastructure "internal improvements" and fuel economic development. Adams believed that "taxing and being taxed were essential to responsible self-government; the country required a modern, national, and regulated banking system … and the federal government had an important role to play regarding the 'general welfare' in the creation of educational, scientific, and artistic institutions, such as the Smithsonian Museum, the national parks, the service academies, and land grant universities," according to recent biographer Fred Kaplan.
Jackson believed none of that. He believed government was a threat to be contained, that national banks like the one originated by Alexander Hamilton were abominations and threats to freedom, and that the federal government's role in building infrastructure should be limited. He vetoed a bill to run a road in Kentucky, arguing that federal funding of such infrastructure projects was unconstitutional.
Jackson was a strict adherent to the gold standard, a position as silly in the s as it remains today. Contrary to Jacksonian propaganda, the Second National Bank worked quite well. It produced reliable paper currency of consistent value across the country. But Jackson, as an avowed opponent of paper money and of national economic institutions like the Bank, vetoed the renewal of its charter in His rhetoric against the bank drew upon populist anti-bank sentiment, but its real crime in Jacksonian eyes was propping up a powerful government.
Jackson's war on the bank, combined with his intent on paying off the national debt, would lead to one of the worst depressions in American history. Once the government started running a surplus, Jackson had nowhere to put the money, without the bank around.
So he divided it among the states. The land bubble was out of control. Not all economic historians accept this story of the Panic. Others think Jackson screwed up in other ways that caused it. Vanderbilt's Peter Rousseau , for instance, blames two actions Jackson took in — requiring public lands be purchased with coins rather than paper money, and "supplemental" transfers of money between banks by the Treasury that summer — for causing the crash.
Leaving aside whether Jackson's acts of ethnic cleansing against Native Americans technically count as war crimes or just ordinary crimes against humanity, his career as a general included numerous actions which would absolutely warrant criminal action today.
Before and after Jackson's career-making victory in the Battle of New Orleans in — won after the war was technically over — he ruled the city as a tyrant, as Caleb Crain notes in the New Yorker:. He censored a newspaper, came close to executing two deserters, and jailed a state congressman, a judge, and a district attorney. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves, but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love.
As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Until the administration of Andrew Jackson, proposals for Indian removal were based on the assumption that Indians would go voluntarily or be absorbed by American society.
In the issue of Indian removal became official with the passage of the Indian Removal Act. Native Americans developed varying strategies for dealing with the encroachment of white settlers. Accommodationists and nativists stood together on the issue of retaining all of their remaining territory. Leaders like John Ross, who became Principal Chief of the Cherokee in , were convinced that the only effective way to protect their landholdings and thus maintain their identity was by making modernist accommodations.
Some who remained traditional in their beliefs made superficial accommodations as a way to protect themselves and their lands. Regardless of their position on modernism versus tradition, most Cherokee who remained east of the Mississippi in the s agreed that no more land could be alienated without destroying the integrity of the people. Rather than convincing whites that they had indeed become civilized and thus entitled to remain on their homelands, their prosperous farms merely made their property more attractive and led to even more adamant demands for appropriation.
Southern states demanded that the federal government abrogate all treaties with Indians and extinguish all Indian land titles. With the discovery of gold on Indian lands in the state, pressure for removal became even more intense. After all, he had become a national hero through his military exploits against Native Americans, as well as against the British, and had already been responsible for the cession of millions of acres of Indian lands.
Jackson was motivated not only by his view of Native savagery but also by his belief in states rights and by political considerations. To organize and unite the Democratic Party he needed Southern support, which he could best secure by supporting states rights and Indian removal. The goal of his military campaigns had been to secure the future of the Republic, and he believed that Indian autonomy within the Union threatened the security of the Republic.
He also justified Indian removal on the grounds that it was the only way to ensure the survival of the tribes. So determined were white settlers to take control of Indian lands that they seemed likely to annihilate those who stood in their way. Defending Indian interests within the Union seemed an impossible task to Jackson, one that at any rate was not worth its costs in lives or money.
Indians must be removed for their own safety, he insisted. He had no patience for those who spoke and wrote in defense of Indians. His annual message to Congress in made his position clear:. Nor is there anything in this which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted.
Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,, happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion?
With Jackson clearly on the side of the Southern states, Georgia proceeded to adopt an agenda that ensured final victory over the Five Civilized Tribes. The state legislature moved quickly to abolish the Cherokee government, making it illegal for the National Council to meet except for the purpose of ceding lands, which was illegal under Cherokee law. Because Indians were forbidden to testify against whites, defending their claims became impossible. The remaining 6, square miles of Indian lands were to be seized, divided into gold lots and land lots, and distributed to white settlers by lottery.
Earlier that night, the men were driving from Brooklyn to Queens, when Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. The film follows the economic impact of GM shutting down several auto factories in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan. Though Moore leavened his movie with goofy anecdotes and In one of his first acts as the new commander in chief of the German army, Adolf Hitler informs General Franz Halder that there will be no retreating from the Russian front near Moscow.
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