Jackson’s Indian Policy

Thomas Jefferson believed that the native population would over time blend into American society, settle down and become farmers. Attitudes towards the Indians changed after the war of 1812 ( the Indian's supported the British)by 1824, many were calling for the removal of all American Indians.

 

Many native tribes attempted to assimilate to white culture, giving up hunting and a semi nomadic lifestyle.

The Cherokees for example began farming and built towns with thriving agricultural economies. they established governments based on the U.S. model, including writing a constitution and establishing a non-tribal judicial system. 

Native America's effort did little to change attitudes. Indians occupied rich lands that American farmers and land speculators were eager to get their hands on. They pressured the government and Pres. Jackson to open the lands to white settlement.  Jackson claimed that for their own protection, the eastern Indian population should move west where, "their white brothers will not trouble them."  

Jackson

1830- Indian Removal Act  In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the "Indian Removal Act" through both houses of Congress.

It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west.

Those wishing to remain in the east would become citizens of their home state.

Tribes affected:

Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole nations

By the end of the century, most native Americans had been removed from the southeast. few went willingly, they had little reason to believe what Jackson promised them. Some wrote appeals to congress

Osceola

Although neither a hereditary nor an elected chief, Osceola was the defiant young leader of the Seminole in their resistance to Indian emigration

 

 

In 1835 he plunged his knife into the treaty he was asked to sign that would move his people from their swamplands in the Southeast to the unoccupied territory west of the Mississippi

This prompted a war between the U.S. and the Seminole people.

Trail of Tears............

The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation in 1838 of the Cherokee Native American tribe to the Western United States, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokees.  

This picture, The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal. If any depictions of the "Trail of Tears" were created at the time of the march, they have not survived.