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Indian removal was the United States government policy of
forced displacement Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: dis ...
of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a designated Indian Territory (roughly, present-day
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
). The Indian Removal Act, the key law which authorized the removal of Native tribes, was signed by
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame a ...
in 1830. Although Jackson took a hard line on Indian removal, the law was enforced primarily during the Martin Van Buren administration. After the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, approximately 60,000 members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole,
Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classifi ...
, and
Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw peop ...
nations (including thousands of their black slaves) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands, with thousands dying during the Trail of Tears. Indian removal, a popular policy among incoming settlers, was a consequence of actions by European settlers in North America during the colonial period and then by the United States government (and its citizens) until the mid-20th century. The policy traced its origins to the administration of James Monroe, although it addressed conflicts between European and Native Americans which had occurred since the 17th century and were escalating into the early 19th century (as European settlers pushed westward in the cultural belief of
manifest destiny Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special vir ...
). Historical views of Indian removal have been reevaluated since that time. Widespread contemporary acceptance of the policy, due in part to the popular embrace of the concept of manifest destiny, has given way to a more somber perspective. Historians have often described the removal of Native Americans as
paternalism Paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good. Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expres ...
,
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
, or genocide.


Revolutionary background

American leaders in the Revolutionary and early US eras debated about whether Native Americans should be treated as individuals or as nations.


Declaration of Independence

In the indictment section of the Declaration of Independence, the Indigenous inhabitants of the United States are referred to as "merciless Indian Savages", reflecting a commonly held view at the time by the colonists in the United States.


Benjamin Franklin

In a draft "Proposed Articles of Confederation" presented to the
Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America, and the newly declared United States just before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. ...
on May 10, 1775,
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a m ...
called for a "perpetual Alliance" with the Indians in the nation about to be born, particularly with the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy:


Early congressional acts

The Confederation Congress passed the
Northwest Ordinance The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio and also known as the Ordinance of 1787), enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Co ...
of 1787 (a precedent for U.S. territorial expansion would occur for years to come), calling for the protection of Native American "property, rights, and liberty"; the U.S. Constitution of 1787 (Article I, Section 8) made Congress responsible for regulating commerce with the Indian tribes. In 1790, the new U.S. Congress passed the Indian Nonintercourse Act (renewed and amended in 1793, 1796, 1799, 1802, and 1834) to protect and codify the land rights of recognized tribes.


George Washington

President
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the ...
, in his 1790 address to the
Seneca Nation The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca (also in western New Y ...
which called the pre-Constitutional Indian land-sale difficulties "evils", said that the case was now altered and pledged to uphold Native American "just rights". In March and April 1792, Washington met with 50 tribal chiefs in Philadelphia—including the Iroquois—to discuss strengthening the friendship between them and the United States. Later that year, in his fourth annual message to Congress, Washington stressed the need to build peace, trust, and commerce with Native Americans: In his seventh annual message to Congress in 1795, Washington intimated that if the U.S. government wanted peace with the Indians it must behave peacefully; if the U.S. wanted raids by Indians to stop, raids by American "frontier inhabitants" must also stop.


Thomas Jefferson

In his '' Notes on the State of Virginia'' (1785), Thomas Jefferson defended Native American culture and marvelled at how the tribes of Virginia "never submitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government" due to their "moral sense of right and wrong". He wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux later that year, "I believe the Indian then to be in body and mind equal to the whiteman". Jefferson's desire, as interpreted by Francis Paul Prucha, was for Native Americans to intermix with European Americans and become one people. To achieve that end as president, Jefferson offered U.S. citizenship to some Indian nations and proposed offering them credit to facilitate trade. On 27 February 1803, Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Henry Harrison:
In this way our settlements will gradually circumbscribe & approach the Indians, & they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the US. or remove beyond the Missisipi. 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 & their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, & that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only.


Jeffersonian policy

As president, Thomas Jefferson developed a far-reaching Indian policy with two primary goals. He wanted to assure that the Native nations (not foreign nations) were tightly bound to the new United States, as he considered the security of the nation to be paramount. He also wanted to "civilize" them into adopting an agricultural, rather than a
hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
, lifestyle. These goals would be achieved through treaties and the development of trade. Jefferson initially promoted an American policy which encouraged Native Americans to become assimilated, or " civilized". He made sustained efforts to win the friendship and cooperation of many Native American tribes as president, repeatedly articulating his desire for a united nation of whites and Indians as in his November 3, 1802, letter to Seneca spiritual leader Handsome Lake: When a delegation from the Cherokee Nation's Upper Towns lobbied Jefferson for the full and equal citizenship promised to Indians living in American territory by George Washington, his response indicated that he was willing to grant citizenship to those Indian nations who sought it. In his eighth annual message to Congress on November 8, 1808, he presented a vision of white and Indian unity: As some of Jefferson's other writings illustrate, however, he was ambivalent about Indian assimilation and used the words "exterminate" and "extirpate" about tribes who resisted American expansion and were willing to fight for their lands. Jefferson intended to change Indian lifestyles from hunting and gathering to farming, largely through "the decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting insufficient". He expected the change to agriculture to make them dependent on white Americans for goods, and more likely to surrender their land or allow themselves to be moved west of the Mississippi River. In an 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison, Jefferson wrote: In that letter, Jefferson spoke about protecting the Indians from injustices perpetrated by settlers: According to the treaty of February 27, 1819, the U.S. government would offer citizenship and of land per family to Cherokees who lived east of the Mississippi. Native American land was sometimes purchased, by treaty or under duress. The idea of land exchange, that Native Americans would give up their land east of the Mississippi in exchange for a similar amount of territory west of the river, was first proposed by Jefferson in 1803 and first incorporated into treaties in 1817 (years after the Jefferson presidency). The Indian Removal Act of 1830 included this concept.


John C. Calhoun's plan

Under President James Monroe, Secretary of War
John C. Calhoun John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He ...
devised the first plans for Indian removal. Monroe approved Calhoun's plans by late 1824 and, in a special message to the Senate on January 27, 1825, requested the creation of the Arkansaw and Indian Territories; the Indians east of the Mississippi would voluntarily exchange their lands for lands west of the river. The Senate accepted Monroe's request, and asked Calhoun to draft a bill which was killed in the House of Representatives by the Georgia delegation. President John Quincy Adams assumed the Calhoun–Monroe policy, and was determined to remove the Indians by non-forceful means; Georgia refused to consent to Adams' request, forcing the president to forge a treaty with the Cherokees granting Georgia the Cherokee lands. On July 26, 1827, the Cherokee Nation adopted a written constitution (modeled on that of the United States) which declared that they were an independent nation with jurisdiction over their own lands. Georgia contended that it would not countenance a sovereign state within its own territory, and asserted its authority over Cherokee territory. When
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame a ...
became president as the candidate of the newly-organized
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...
, he agreed that the Indians should be forced to exchange their eastern lands for western lands (including relocation) and vigorously enforced Indian removal.


Opposition to removal from U.S. citizens

Although Indian removal was a popular policy, it was also opposed on legal and moral grounds; it also ran counter to the formal, customary diplomatic interaction between the federal government and the Native nations. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the widely-published letter "A Protest Against the Removal of the Cherokee Indians from the State of Georgia" in 1838, shortly before the Cherokee removal. Emerson criticizes the government and its removal policy, saying that the removal treaty was illegitimate; it was a "sham treaty", which the U.S. government should not uphold. He describes removal as
such a dereliction of all faith and virtues, such a denial of justice…in the dealing of a nation with its own allies and wards since the earth was made…a general expression of despondency, of disbelief, that any goodwill accrues from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel.
Emerson concludes his letter by saying that it should not be a political issue, urging President Martin Van Buren to prevent the enforcement of Cherokee removal. Other individual settlers and settler social organizations throughout the United States also opposed removal.


Native American response to removal

Native groups reshaped their governments, made constitutions and legal codes, and sent delegates to Washington to negotiate policies and treaties to uphold their autonomy and ensure federally-promised protection from the encroachment of states. They thought that acclimating, as the U.S. wanted them to, would stem removal policy and create a better relationship with the federal government and surrounding states. Native American nations had differing views about removal. Although most wanted to remain on their native lands and do anything possible to ensure that, others believed that removal to a nonwhite area was their only option to maintain their autonomy and culture. The U.S. used this division to forge removal treaties with (often) minority groups who became convinced that removal was the best option for their people. These treaties were often not acknowledged by most of a nation's people. When Congress ratified the removal treaty, the federal government could use military force to remove Native nations if they had not moved (or had begun moving) by the date stipulated in the treaty.


Indian Removal Act

When Andrew Jackson became president of the United States in 1829, his government took a hard line on Indian removal; Jackson abandoned his predecessors' policy of treating Indian tribes as separate nations, aggressively pursuing all Indians east of the Mississippi who claimed constitutional sovereignty and independence from state laws. They were to be removed to reservations in Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi (present-day
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
), where they could exist without state interference. At Jackson's request, Congress began a debate on an Indian-removal bill. After fierce disagreement, the Senate passed the bill by a 28–19 vote; the House had narrowly passed it, 102–97. Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law on May 30, 1830. That year, most of the Five Civilized Tribes—the
Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classifi ...
,
Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw peop ...
,
Creek A creek in North America and elsewhere, such as Australia, is a stream that is usually smaller than a river. In the British Isles it is a small tidal inlet. Creek may also refer to: People * Creek people, also known as Muscogee, Native Americans ...
, Seminole, and Cherokee—lived east of the Mississippi. The Indian Removal Act implemented federal-government policy towards its Indian populations, moving Native American tribes east of the Mississippi to lands west of the river. Although the act did not authorize the forced removal of indigenous tribes, it enabled the president to negotiate land-exchange treaties.


Choctaw

On September 27, 1830, the
Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw peop ...
signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and became the first Native American tribe to be removed. The agreement was one of the largest transfers of land between the U.S. government and Native Americans which was not the result of war. The Choctaw signed away their remaining traditional homelands, opening them up for European-American settlement in
Mississippi Territory The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 7, 1798, until December 10, 1817, when the western half of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Mississippi. T ...
. When the tribe reached Little Rock, a chief called its trek a "trail of tears and death". In 1831, French historian and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville witnessed an exhausted group of Choctaw men, women and children emerging from the forest during an exceptionally cold winter near Memphis, Tennessee, on their way to the Mississippi to be loaded onto a steamboat. He wrote,


Cherokee

While the Indian Removal Act made the move of the tribes voluntary, it was often abused by government officials. The best-known example is the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed by a small faction of twenty Cherokee tribal members (not the tribal leadership) on December 29, 1835. Most of the Cherokee later blamed the faction and the treaty for the tribe's forced relocation in 1838. An estimated 4,000 Cherokee died in the march, which is known as the Trail of Tears. Missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts urged the Cherokee Nation to take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Marshall court heard the case in '' Cherokee Nation v. Georgia'' (1831), but declined to rule on its merits; the court declaring that the Native American tribes were not sovereign nations, and could not "maintain an action" in U.S. courts. In an opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall in ''
Worcester v. Georgia ''Worcester v. Georgia'', 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court Vacated judgment, vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal ...
'' (1832), individual states had no authority in American Indian affairs. The state of
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...
defied the Supreme Court ruling, and the desire of settlers and land speculators for Indian lands continued unabated; some whites claimed that Indians threatened peace and security. The Georgia legislature passed a law forbidding settlers from living on Indian territory after March 31, 1831, without a license from the state; this excluded missionaries who opposed Indian removal.


Seminole

The Seminole refused to leave their
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
lands in 1835, leading to the
Second Seminole War The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans and ...
. Osceola was a Seminole leader of the people's fight against removal. Based in the
Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical climate, tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orland ...
, Osceola and his band used surprise attacks to defeat the U.S. Army in a number of battles. In 1837, Osceola was duplicitously captured by order of U.S. General Thomas Jesup when Osceola came under a flag of truce to negotiate peace near
Fort Peyton Fort Peyton was a stockaded fort built in August 1837 by the United States Army, one of a chain of military outposts created during the Second Seminole War for the protection of the St. Augustine area in Florida Territory. Established by Maj. ...
. Osceola died in prison of illness; the war resulted in over 1,500 U.S. deaths, and cost the government $20 million. Some Seminole traveled deeper into the Everglades, and others moved west. The removal continued, and a number of wars broke out over land.


Muskogee (Creek)

In the aftermath of the Treaties of Fort Jackson, and the Washington, the Muscogee were confined to a small strip of land in present-day east central
Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
. The Creek national council signed the
Treaty of Cusseta The Treaty of Cusseta was a treaty between the government of the United States and the Creek Nation signed March 24, 1832 (). The treaty ceded all Creek claims east of the Mississippi River to the United States. Origins The Treaty of Cusseta, ...
in 1832, ceding their remaining lands east of the Mississippi to the U.S. and accepting relocation to the Indian Territory. Most Muscogee were removed to the territory during the Trail of Tears in 1834, although some remained behind. Although the Creek War of 1836 ended government attempts to convince the Creek population to leave voluntarily, Creeks who had not participated in the war were not forced west (as others were). The Creek population was placed into camps and told that they would be relocated soon. Many Creek leaders were surprised by the quick departure but could do little to challenge it. The 16,000 Creeks were organized into five detachments who were to be sent to Fort Gibson. The Creek leaders did their best to negotiate better conditions, and succeeded in obtaining wagons and medicine. To prepare for the relocation, Creeks began to deconstruct their spiritual lives; they burned piles of
lightwood Lightwood may refer to: Trees * ''Acacia implexa'', Australian tree * Fatwood, the resinous core of the pine tree, in the Southern United States Places United Kingdom * Lightwood, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire * Lightwood, Derbyshire * ...
over their ancestors' graves to honor their memories, and polished the sacred plates which would travel at the front of each group. They also prepared financially, selling what they could not bring. Many were swindled by local merchants out of valuable possessions (including land), and the military had to intervene. The detachments began moving west in September 1836, facing harsh conditions. Despite their preparations, the detachments faced bad roads, worse weather, and a lack of drinkable water. When all five detachments reached their destination, they recorded their death toll. The first detachment, with 2,318 Creeks, had 78 deaths; the second had 3,095 Creeks, with 37 deaths. The third had 2,818 Creeks, and 12 deaths; the fourth, 2,330 Creeks and 36 deaths. The fifth detachment, with 2,087 Creeks, had 25 deaths. In 1837 outside of
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of count ...
over 300 Creeks being forcibly removed to Western prairies drowned in the Mississippi River.


Chickasaw

Unlike other tribes, who exchanged lands, the Chickasaw were to receive financial compensation of $3 million from the United States for their lands east of the Mississippi River. They reached an agreement to purchase of land from the previously-removed Choctaw in 1836 after a bitter five-year debate, paying the Chocktaw $530,000 for the westernmost Choctaw land. Most of the Chickasaw moved in 1837 and 1838. The $3 million owed to the Chickasaw by the U.S. went unpaid for nearly 30 years.


Aftermath

The Five Civilized Tribes were resettled in the new Indian Territory. The Cherokee occupied the northeast corner of the territory and a strip of land in Kansas on its border with the territory. Some indigenous nations resisted the forced migration more strongly. The few who stayed behind eventually formed tribal groups, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee (based in North Carolina), the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Creeks in Alabama (including the Poarch Band).


Removals


North

Tribes in the Old Northwest were smaller and more fragmented than the Five Civilized Tribes, so the treaty and emigration process was more piecemeal. Following the
Northwest Indian War The Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern ...
, most of the modern state of Ohio was taken from native nations in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Tribes such as the already-displaced
Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...
(Delaware tribe),
Kickapoo Kickapoo may refer to: People * Kickapoo people, a Native American nation ** Kickapoo language, spoken by that people ** Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, a federally recognized tribe of Kickapoo people ** Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, a federally recog ...
and Shawnee, were removed from Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio during the 1820s. The
Potawatomi The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
were
forced out ''Forced'' is a single-player and co-op action role-playing game developed by BetaDwarf, released in October 2013 for Windows, OS X and Linux through the Steam platform as well as Wii U. It is about gladiators fighting for their freedom in a fan ...
of Wisconsin and Michigan in late 1838, and were resettled in
Kansas Territory The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Slave and ...
. Communities remaining in present-day Ohio were forced to move to Louisiana, which was then controlled by Spain. Bands of Shawnee,
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Potawatomi The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
, Sauk, and Meskwaki (Fox) signed treaties and relocated to the Indian Territory. In 1832, the Sauk leader
Black Hawk Black Hawk and Blackhawk may refer to: Animals * Black Hawk (horse), a Morgan horse that lived from 1833 to 1856 * Common black hawk, ''Buteogallus anthracinus'' * Cuban black hawk, ''Buteogallus gundlachii'' * Great black hawk, ''Buteogallus ur ...
led a band of Sauk and Fox back to their lands in Illinois; the U.S. Army and Illinois militia defeated Black Hawk and his warriors in the
Black Hawk War The Black Hawk War was a conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis (Fox), and Kickapoos, known as the "British Band", cross ...
, and the Sauk and Fox were relocated to present-day Iowa. The Miami were split, with many of the tribe resettled west of the Mississippi River during the 1840s. In the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek (1838), the Senecas transferred all their land in New York (except for one small reservation) in exchange for of land in Indian Territory. The federal government would be responsible for the removal of the Senecas who opted to go west, and the Ogden Land Company would acquire their New York lands. The lands were sold by government officials, however, and the proceeds were deposited in the U.S. Treasury.
Maris Bryant Pierce Maris Bryant Pierce (1811–1874; also known as Ha-dya-no-doh, Swift Runner), was a Seneca Nation chief, lawyer, and teacher. He was a tribal land-rights activist, and a major influence to the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek of 1838. Early life a ...
, a "young chief" served as a lawyer representing four territories of the Seneca tribe, starting in 1838. The Senecas asserted that they had been defrauded, and sued for redress in the Court of Claims. The case was not resolved until 1898, when the United States awarded $1,998,714.46 in compensation to "the New York Indians". The U.S. signed treaties with the Senecas and the Tonawanda Senecas in 1842 and 1857, respectively. Under the treaty of 1857, the Tonawandas renounced all claim to lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for the right to buy back the Tonawanda Reservation from the Ogden Land Company. Over a century later, the Senecas purchased a plot (part of their original reservation) in downtown Buffalo to build the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino.


South


Changed perspective

Historical views of Indian removal have been reevaluated since that time. Widespread contemporary acceptance of the policy, due in part to the popular embrace of the concept of
manifest destiny Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special vir ...
, has given way to a more somber perspective. Historians have often described the removal of Native Americans as
paternalism Paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good. Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expres ...
,
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
, or genocide. Historian David Stannard has called it genocide.


Andrew Jackson's reputation

Andrew Jackson's Indian policy stirred a lot of public controversy before his enactment, but virtually none among historians and biographers of the 19th and early 20th century. However, his recent reputation has been negatively affected by his treatment of the Indians. Historians who admire Jackson's strong presidential leadership, such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., would gloss over the Indian Removal in a footnote. In 1969, Francis Paul Prucha defended Jackson's Indian policy and wrote that Jackson's removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the hostile political environment of the Old South to
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
probably saved them. Jackson was sharply attacked by political scientist Michael Rogin and historian Howard Zinn during the 1970s, primarily on this issue; Zinn called him an "exterminator of Indians". According to historians Paul R. Bartrop and
Steven L. Jacobs Steven Leonard Jacobs (born January 15, 1947) is an American historian, Professor of the University of Alabama (Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies). He is specialized in Genocide and Holocaust Studies, Religion, History of Judaism, and ...
, however, Jackson's policies do not meet the criteria for physical or cultural genocide. Historian Sean Wilentz describes the view of Jacksonian "infantilization" and "genocide" of the Indians, as a historical caricature, which "turns tragedy into melodrama, exaggerates parts at the expense of the whole, and sacrifices nuance for sharpness".


See also

* Act for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory (Curtis Act), 1898 * Forced Fee Patenting Act (Burke Act), 1906 * Wheeler–Howard Act * Nelson Act of 1889, Minnesota's version of the Dawes Act * Cultural assimilation of Native Americans *
Aboriginal title in the United States The United States was the first jurisdiction to acknowledge the common law doctrine of aboriginal title (also known as "original Indian title" or "Indian right of occupancy"). Native American tribes and nations establish aboriginal title by a ...
*
Competency Commission Competency Commissions were established by the United States Government in the early 20th century to determine whether individual Indians were competent to utilize their lands allotted to them during the General Allotment Act of 1887. Individuals ...
* Land run * Diminishment *
Great Māhele The Great Māhele ("to divide or portion") or just the Māhele was the Hawaiian land redistribution proposed by King Kamehameha III. The Māhele was one of the most important episodes of Hawaiian history, second only to the overthrow of the Haw ...
* Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations * Checkerboarding (land) * Dawes Act


Citations and notes


Further reading

* Black, Jason Edward (2006)
''US Governmental and Native Voices in the Nineteenth Century: Rhetoric in the Removal and Allotment of American Indians''.
(PhD dissertation), College Park, MD: University of Maryland. See, for instance, the bibliography on pp. 571–615. * Ehle, John (1988). ''Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation''. New York: Doubleday. . * Jahoda, Gloria (1975). ''The Trail of Tears: The Story of the American Indian Removals 1813–1855''. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. . * * Strickland, William M. "The rhetoric of removal and the trail of tears: Cherokee speaking against Jackson's Indian removal policy, 1828–1832" ''Southern Speech Communication Journal'' (1982). 47#3: 292–309

* Young, Mary E. "Indian removal and land allotment: The civilized tribes and Jacksonian justice." ''American Historical Review'' 64.1 (1958): 31–45
online


Primary sources

* Martinez, Donna, ed. ''Documents of American Indian Removal'' (2018
excerpt


External links





* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120413104654/http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=638 Indian Removal from ''Digital History'' by S. Mintz {{DEFAULTSORT:Indian Removal 19th-century colonization of the Americas Aboriginal title in the United States Andrew Jackson Cherokee Nation (1794–1907) Ethnic cleansing in the United States Forced migrations of Native Americans in the United States Historical migrations History of United States expansionism Indian Territory Legal history of the United States Native American genocide United States federal Indian policy