Indian Removal Act of 1830

The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress on May 28, 1830, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, who signed it into law two days later. The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their ancestral homelands.

The act enjoyed strong support from the non-Indian peoples of the South, who were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the southeastern tribes. Christian missionaries protested against the law's passage.

This term was used to discuss the forced relocation of Native Americans from America-claimed states to lands west of the Mississippi River. There was a large amount of resistance from those indigenous people. Cherokee tribes came together as an independent nation to try to stop this relocation; however, they were unsuccessful.

In the early 1800s, the United States government began a systematic effort to remove Native American tribes from the southeast. The Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations—referred to as the "Five Civilized Tribes" by Anglo-European settlers in reference to the tribes' adoption of aspects of colonial culture—had been established as autonomous nations in the southeastern United States.

This acculturation (originally proposed by George Washington) was well under way among the Cherokee and Choctaw by the turn of the 19th century. In an effort to assimilate with white American culture, Indians were encouraged to "convert to Christianity; learn to speak and read English; and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances, the ownership of African slaves)."Thomas Jefferson's policy echoed Washington's proposition: respect the Indians' rights to their homelands, and allow the Five Tribes to remain east of the Mississippi provided they adopt Anglo-European behavior and cultural practices. Jefferson encouraged practicing an agriculture-based society. However, Andrew Jackson sought to renew a policy of political and military action for the removal of the Indians from these lands and worked toward enacting a law for Indian removal. In his 1829 State of the Union address, Jackson called for removal.

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