Jackson's Second Annual Speech Before Congress, 1830

Andrew Jackson explains the Indian Removal Policy.

It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the
government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the
Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two
important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last
session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining
tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to
individual states, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it
promises to the government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to
all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the general and state
governments on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population
in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the
whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the
settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and
render the adjacent states strong enough to repel future invasions without remote
aid. It 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.

It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free
them from the power of the states; enable them to pursue happiness in their own
way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is
lessening their numbers, 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, and Christian community. These
consequences, some of them so certain and the rest so probable, make the
complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress at their last session an
object of much solicitude.

Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than
myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits
and make them a happy, prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon
them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the general
government in relation to the state authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by
the states within the scope of their reserved powers they are not responsible to this
government. As individuals we may entertain and express our opinions of their acts,
but as a government we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe
laws for other nations.

With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw tribes have
with great unanimity determined to avail themselves of the liberal offers presented
by the act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi River.
Treaties have been made with them, which in due season will be submitted for
consideration. In negotiating these treaties, they were made to understand their true
condition, and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the Western
forests to submitting to the laws of the states in which they now reside. These
treaties, being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are
characterized by great liberality on the part of the government. They give the Indians
a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable subsistence on their
arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest to maintain a separate
existence, they will there be at liberty to do so without the inconveniences and
vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and
Mississippi.

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and
philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its
progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many
powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race
and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true
philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of
one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an
unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the
memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated or has disappeared to
make room for the existing savage tribes. 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 million happy
people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

The present policy of the government is but a continuation of the same progressive
change by a milder process. 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 cannot 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.

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home
than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of
his fathers than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of
the general government toward the red man is not only liberal but generous. He is
unwilling to submit to the laws of the states and mingle with their population. To
save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the general
government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense
of his removal and settlement.

In the consummation of a policy originating at an early period, and steadily pursued
by every administration within the present century--so just to the states and so
generous to the Indians--the executive feels it has a right to expect the cooperation
of Congress and of all good and disinterested men. The states, moreover, have a
right to demand it. It was substantially a part of the compact which made them
members of our Confederacy. With Georgia there is an express contract; with the
new states an implied one of equal obligation. Why, in authorizing Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama to form constitutions and become
separate states, did Congress include within their limits extensive tracts of Indian
lands, and, in some instances, powerful Indian tribes? Was it not understood by both
parties that the power of the states was to be coextensive with their limits, and that,
with all convenient dispatch, the general government should extinguish the Indian
title and remove every obstruction to the complete jurisdiction of the state
governments over the soil? Probably not one of those states would have accepted a
separate existence--certainly it would never have been granted by Congress--had it
been understood that they were to be confined forever to those small portions of
their nominal territory the Indian title to which had at the time been extinguished.

It is, therefore, a duty which this government owes to the new states to extinguish
as soon as possible the Indian title to all lands which Congress themselves have
included within their limits. When this is done the duties of the general government
in relation to the states and the Indians within their limits are at an end. The Indians
may leave the state or not, as they choose. The purchase of their lands does not
alter in the least their personal relations with the state government. No act of the
general government has ever been deemed necessary to give the states
jurisdiction over the persons of the Indians. That they possess by virtue of their
sovereign power within their own limits in as full a manner before as after the
purchase of the Indian lands; nor can this government add to or diminish it.

May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more zealously than
those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the states, will
unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true
condition, and by a speedy removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or
imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be
threatened.

Excerpted from http://www.britanica.com/elections/pri/Q00054.html
Know Your History!

Andrew Jackson (and the State of Georgia, insisting
on "States' rights") was instrumental in creating the
Trail of Tears - believing in the white man's 'god-given
right' to attain land at whatever cost, his policies
pushed the Native Americans off their home
territories. His policy was furthered by the Supreme
Court, which denied nationhood status to Native
American, making them subject to American laws
without the privilege of being American citizens (the
court would reverse the decision, but the damage had
been done). This 'manifest destiny' spurred westward
expansion, imperialism, and genocide - as well as
helped perpetuate the Southern slave system.
Expansion was wholly advocated by southern
plantation owners, as they wanted more land to grow
more cotton crops.

The Jacksonian legacy was an extension of George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson's anti-Indian
policies as well.
Although Indian Territory was meant to be an area of
settlement set aside for Native Americans, the Sooner
rush negated that promise.
When the eastern tribes entered into Indian Territory,
the Plains Indians resented the intrusion. Their culture
was very different from the agricultural easterners.
Above is a burial typical of Plains Indians; with the
arrival of the 'foreign' tribes and the whites, the Plains
Indians saw their ways disappear.
Letter from Chief John Ross, "To the Senate and
House of Representatives"

Chief John Ross replies to the Trail of Tears

[Red Clay Council Ground, Cherokee Nation,
September 28, 1836]

It is well known that for a number of years past
we have been harassed by a series of
vexations, which it is deemed unnecessary to
recite in detail, but the evidence of which our
delegation will be prepared to furnish. With a
view to bringing our troubles to a close, a
delegation was appointed on the 23rd of
October, 1835, by the General Council of the
nation, clothed with full powers to enter into
arrangements with the Government of the
United States, for the final adjustment of all our
existing difficulties. The delegation failing to
effect an arrangement with the United States
commissioner, then in the nation, proceeded,
agreeably to their instructions in that case, to
Washington City, for the purpose of negotiating
a treaty with the authorities of the United States.

After the departure of the Delegation, a contract
was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn,
and certain individual Cherokees, purporting to
be a "treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the
State of Georgia, on the 29th day of December,
1835, by General William Carroll and John F.
Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the
United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and
people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians." A
spurious Delegation, in violation of a special
injunction of the general council of the nation,
proceeded to Washington City with this
pretended treaty, and by false and fraudulent
representations supplanted in the favor of the
Government the legal and accredited
Delegation of the Cherokee people, and
obtained for this instrument, after making
important alterations in its provisions, the
recognition of the United States Government.
And now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified
by the Senate, and approved by the President
[Andrew Jackson], and our acquiescence in its
requirements demanded, under the sanction of
the displeasure of the United States, and the
threat of summary compulsion, in case of
refusal. It comes to us, not through our
legitimate authorities, the known and usual
medium of communication between the
Government of the United States and our nation,
but through the agency of a complication of
powers, civil and military.

By the stipulations of this instrument, we are
despoiled of our private possessions, the
indefeasible property of individuals. We are
stripped of every attribute of freedom and
eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property
may be plundered before our eyes; violence
may be committed on our persons; even our
lives may be taken away, and there is none to
regard our complaints. We are denationalized;
we are disfranchised. We are deprived of
membership in the human family! We have
neither land nor home, nor resting place that
can be called our own. And this is effected by
the provisions of a compact which assumes the
venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.

We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened,
our utterance is paralized, when we reflect on
the condition in which we are placed, by the
audacious practices of unprincipled men, who
have managed their stratagems with so much
dexterity as to impose on the Government of the
United States, in the face of our earnest,
solemn, and reiterated protestations.

The instrument in question is not the act of our
Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it
has not received the sanction of our people.
The makers of it sustain no office nor
appointment in our Nation, under the
designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other
title, by which they hold, or could acquire,
authority to assume the reins of Government,
and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our
possessions, and our common country. And we
are constrained solemnly to declare, that we
cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the
stipulations of this instrument on us, against our
consent, as an act of injustice and oppression,
which, we are well persuaded, can never
knowingly be countenanced by the Government
and people of the United States; nor can we
believe it to be the design of these honorable
and highminded individuals, who stand at the
head of the Govt., to bind a whole Nation, by the
acts of a few unauthorized individuals. And,
therefore, we, the parties to be affected by the
result, appeal with confidence to the justice, the
magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable
bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the
provisions of a compact, in the formation of
which we have had no agency.

From: The Papers of Chief John Ross, vol 1,
1807-1839, Norman OK
Gary E. Moulton, ed.
University of Oklahoma Press, 1985
Excerpted from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3083t.html
Andrew Jackson And the Trail of Tears
Fort Gibson became the end point for the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. Over 2,000
people, including Chief John Ross' wife, died on the trail.
Chief Justice John Marshall heard the Cherokee's challenge to Andrew Jackson's
legislation. At first, Marshall sided with the United States, but reversed his decision
on appeal - which meant that the Supreme Court had ruled Jackson's bill
unconstitutional. According to legend, Jackson said "Let the Supreme Court try to
enforce their decision," and proceeded to throw the Cherokees off their ancestral
lands.