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Andrew Jackson

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 3 months ago
 
 
 
 
 
 

 Andrew Jackson and The Indian Removal

 

 

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15th, 1767, in Lancaster County, South Carolina.  The town in which Jackson was born bordered South Carolina as well as North Carolina. To this day both North and South Carolina claim Andrew Jackson as their Native son. At the young age of thirteen, Jackson joined in The American Revolutionary War as a courier.  He was captured by the British and almost starved to death.  While captured Jackson was beatin for not cleaning a British officer's boots.  Jackson was later released but not after receiving scars on his left hand and head.  Due to  the  American Revolutionary War all of Andrew Jackson's immediate family died from war time adversities, leaving him an orphan at the young age of fifteen.  Jackson blamed all this on the British and had a very strong hatred for the British as well.

 

After becoming orphan Jackson moved to Tennessee and became a lawyer in 1787.  Jackson did not have a distinguished family name to fall back on, so he had to work very hard to obtain what he had.  Jackson began to excel at his job as a lawyer dealing mostly with disputed land claims, and assault and battery charges.  Jackson went on to be elected Tennessee's tenth Congressmen upon Tennessee's statehood in 1796, as well as the only person to represent the state of Tennessee in the House of Representatives in 1796.  Jackson ran for and won a seat as a U.S. Senator, but resigned within a year.  For the next four years of his life Jackson made his living as a judge in the Tennessee Supreme Court. 

 

After Jackson had played his part in the Judicial System, he tried his hand in the military. He became a colonel for the Tennessee militia. During Creek war, a part of the War of 1812, Jackson defeated the Red Stick Creeks, with help from the Southern Creek Indians. After Jackson’s victory he imposed his treaty called the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The Treaty of Fort Jackson took over twenty million acres from the Creek Indians and gave it to the United States government for the white settlers. Jackson land grabbing policy was not only used against his enemies the Red Sticks it was also used against his allies the Southern Creek Indians. The fact that Jackson would punish his enemies is one thing but the fact that he would punish his allies is another. This act of punishing his allies is more than likely due to the fact of their race as a Native American and shows Andrew Jackson’s views of racial dominancy of the white man over the Native Americans.  This is Jackson’s first major land grab for the United States against the Native Americans, and it will not be his last. 

 

After a very successful military career, and obtaing more than twenty million acres of Native American land for the United States.  Jackson was nominated for the Presidency race by the state of Tennessee but narrowly lost out to Adams in 1824.  Jackson was again nominated by Tennessee and won becoming President of the United States in 1828.

 

The Indian Problem

Since the early 1800's the United States' policy toward Native Americans was that the Native Americans could remain in their homelands as long as they became "civilizied." The Native American were to settle in one place, farm the land,  Public land into private properties for individual families to live on, and to adopt some sort of democracy. Basically as long as they became a white man, in red skin then it was perfectly acceptable in the early 1800’s for the Native Americans to live east of the Mississippi River.  If the Native Americans could not follow these guidelines they were to move to so called Indian Territories which were west off the Mississippi River. By 1830 some Indians had left to live in the designated Indian Territories, but many remained. The ones that remained were some what educated, they had learned to read and write their own language, adopted a white mans religion, Christianity, and some even wrote their own newspaper. These tribes that stayed east of the Mississippi River were called the Five Civilized Tribes. The Five Civilized Tribes included the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Creek, the Seminole, and the Cherokee.  The fact that the white man can come into the Native Americans own land that they have lived on for generations definity shows the white mans racial dominancy over the Native Americans. 

 
During this time in the United States, America was increasingly growing in size.  Many of the settlers were running out of room to live.  Cities and towns were beginning to grow.  Fresh, fertile farm land was becoming harder to find.  Many white American settlers were beginning to venture into Native American lands looking for new land to live on. Individual states also wanted the Indians land. The states themselves wanted all tribal lands within the states boundaries to be under the states jurisdiction. In 1802 the state of Georgia legislature signed a compact giving the federal government all of the state’s claims to western lands in exchange for the United States government’s promise to abolish all Native American titles to lands in the state of Georgia. But after twenty years of waiting for the government to act on their deal the state of Georgia began to wander if the United States would hold its end of the deal.  In 1830 the state of Georgia passed a law which prohibited all non Native Americans, the whites from living on Indian Territory without a license from the state. At first this law may seem like Georgia was trying to help the Native Americans out by outlawing trespassing from the white man onto Native American Lands. But in all actuality Georgia was doing the exact opposite. Georgia was trying to secure their chances of gaining the Native American’s land because the law was not passed to help the Native Americans but to hurt them by making it illegal for white missionaries which were living on Native American lands and were trying to help out the Indians resist removal. The missionaries were removed actually before the law was written. Nevertheless missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts insisted on the Cherokee Nation taking their case to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Judge John Marshall ruled that the states had no rights on tribal lands in Worcester verses the state of Georgia in 1832. President Andrew Jackson was outraged by this outcome and is rumored to have said on the outcome of the case, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” (Andrew Jackson) The Native Americans went to President Andrew Jackson for help, and Andrew Jackson came back with a solution to the Problem.  Jackson relied on his old skills, and his past incounters with the Native Americans.  He looked back on his Treaty of Fort Jackson and used that idea in helping the Native Americans and so Jackson came up with the Indian Removal Act.
   
The Indian Removal Act
President Andrew Jackson was a strong believer in Indian Removal, after he became President he went to congress to try and sell his Idea. In his annual message to Congress President Jackson tells of his reasoning behind his push for Indian removal. Jackson explains that removing the Indians east of the Mississippi River and sending them west of the Mississippi River would be beneficial to everyone, The United States as a whole, the individual states, the white man and even the Native Americans themselves. Andrew Jackson said that “It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments on account of the Indians.” ( Jackson first congress speech)   Andrew Jackson is referring to the court case Worcester verses the State of Georgia. Jackson also says by removing the Indians, “It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by only a few savage hunters ( Jackson first congress speech) Jackson shows his greedy side here with this statement basically calling the Native Americans ignorant and incapable of making the best use of this land, so in Jackson’s mind if the Native Americans are not going to use the land then the United States might as well get good use out of it. Jackson also tells Congress that if they can obtain the land between Tennessee and Louisiana that it will definitely strengthen the southwestern frontier and help out the neighboring states and allow them to grow strong enough to repel any future invasions with out outside help. This little quote of Jackson’s is Jackson being a good politician, playing on every human beings weakness, their own personal safety. If we can have just this little amount of land, then we will be much stronger and more able to protect our families, towns, states, and America as a whole. Just at the cost of some savages homes, who would not by into this argument?   Jackson also goes on to plea to the wealthy mans ideals. Removing the Native Americans, “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.”   ( Jackson first congress speech) All the well off families would want America to grow more wealthy and if it most of them would find away to benefit from America’s success. Most if not all of the men that were in Congress came from a strong family background and more often than not a strong family background also means a wealthy family. Finally Jackson tells how the Indian Removal Act will benefit the Indians, “It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlement of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in the own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their number, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, Christian community. ” Jackson obviously feels that the Indians are inferior to the white man and the only way that the Indians would ever come close to being equal to the white man is to “whiten” them up.   President Andrew Jackson has an idea oh how in his eyes “equally” help out both the United States’ white men as well as the Native Americans. In his own word President Andrew Jackson tells Congress of his plan, “The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual. Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; 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. Our children by thousands yearly leave the land of their birth to seek new homes in distant regions. Does Humanity weep at these painful separations from everything, animate and inanimate, with which the young heart has become entwined? Far from it. It is rather a source of joy that our country affords scope where our young population may range unconstrained in body or in mind, developing the power and faculties of man in their highest perfection. These remove hundreds and almost thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival. Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it can not control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.” (Jackson congress speech) In Jackson’s mind his Indian Removal Act is a fair and more than equal trade for the Native Americans. In fact he feels that the Indians would be very happy with the deal and would gladly except it. The Indian Removal Act passed in congress and On May 28, 1830 President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into effect. The Indian Removal Act was supposed to be only voluntary but in all actuality most Native American leaders were strongly urged to sign removal treaties by government, state, and local officials.  President Andrew Jackson definitly shows his strong sinse of white mans pride in his speech to congress.  In his speech he basically discribes how the white mans problems are far more important than the Native Americans, and how that the Native Americans should step aside and let the white man rise to power and if they do not step aside then the white man will make them step aside.  This is a perfect example of racial dominace in a society.
 
Objections of the Indian Removal Act
 
The Cherokee Indians did not want to give up their land that had been theirs for generations. But the state of Georgia kept pushing more and more to make the Indians move farther west. The Indian Removal Act did not forcefully make the Indians move west of the Mississippi River, it was only if they wanted to and the government would buy their land at a so called fair price. So their were no legal ways for the states to force the Native Americans from their land. But on December 29 1835 a treaty was signed that sold the Cherokee Indian’s land east of the Mississippi River to the United States for $4.5 million which covered the cost of the land, covered the cost of relocating, the Cherokees also received equivalent land in the Indian Territory. This agreement between the Cherokee Indians and the United States government was called the Treaty of New Echota.  The only problem with this so called treaty is that it was not signed by any Cherokee official representatives of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation refused to recognize the legitimacy of the treaty. Chief John Ross wrote a letter to the senate and the House of Representatives urging the senate urging the Senate not to ratify the treaty. They described how the people who signed the treaty were not representing the Cherokee people and how unfair the treaty was, but it was to no avail. The treaty passed in 1836 with the help of Andrew Jackson who helped push the treaty all the way to the day it was ratified.
 
In the end their was nothing the Native Americans could do the white man had staked his claim centuries earlier when they first came to America and they staked their claim from “sea to shining sea.  The Native Americans were on the losing side of a racial dominated, land grabbing war.  "The white man thought of themselves as the superior race and they saw all other races including the Indians as savages that were merely wild animals in their backyard. So the white man treated them just like animals they pushed them out of their way when they needed more room, and they kept pushing and pushing until they all most pushed them off the face of the earth. And when the white man ran out of room to push the poor savages to, they then decided to “help” them out by “whitening” the poor savages up and converting them into white man. 
 
 

 

Work Cited
 
 
Andrew Jackson Speaks, Indian Removal Policy.  November 24th 2007. <http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jackson.htm>
 
Andrew Jackson’s Second speech before congress,1830.  September 15 2006. November 20, 2007.
 
Genevieve, Foster. Andrew Jackson. New York: Scribner, 1951.
 
  President Andrew Jackson's Case for the Removal Act First Annual Message to Congress April 9th 2006. December 8th 2007. <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/andrew.htm>
 
Meltzer, Milton. Andrew Jackson and His America. New York: F.Watts, 1993.
 
Remini, Robert Vincent. Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars: New York, 2001.
 
 

 

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