passed by the 21st Congress of the United States on May 26. The Indian Removal Act gave
authorization to the federal government to uproot Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes,
the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, living in the east and move them to unknown
territory west of the Mississippi River.
The Act stated it would provide the Indians with an exchange of lands. The Act stated it would
be lawful for the President to move as much or as many Indians west of the Mississippi to any
land that was not included in any state or organized territory. The Indians were guaranteed that
their new land would be forever secure to them, their heirs and successors. However; such lands
would revert back to the United States if the Indians became extinct or abandoned the land. The
area became known as Indian Territory.
In 1971 the Cherokee Nation was allocated land in Georgia by the United States Government. In
1828, the whites wanted their land back where coincidentally, gold had been discovered. Georgia
attempted to reclaim this land but the Indians protested and took their case to the United States
Supreme Court hoping to have their rights protected. In this Decision, Chief Justice John
Marshall described Indians as 'wards' of the government. Stating they needed paternal
protection from the government, they lacked the standing as citizens that would allow the Court
to enforce their rights. Although the Court agreed that the Indian people had a right to maintain
a separate political identity, they must be dealt with by the federal government, not by
individual states and their case was lost.
A part of the Cherokee tribe chose to resist. The federal army forcibly removed 18,000 men,
women and children and forced them to move west. During the winter of 1838-1839 at least one
quarter of the Indians Died while en route from Georgia to present-day Oklahoma. This removal
became known as the Trail of Tears.
Eventually, the majority of the southern tribes made the move peacefully. There was a group of
Seminoles and fugitive slaves who resisted. In the Second Seminole War, from1835 to 1842
approximately 1,500 American soldiers and 1,500 Seminoles were killed forcing the remaining
southern Indians to move west.
William Apess published the first important bibliography by an American Indian, "A Son of the
Forest," in 1831. In his book he pleaded for harmony between whites and American Indians. He
begged for peaceful coexistence. The alternative, as sen by the federal government, was
removal. By 1840 Indians were a curiosity east of the Mississippi, "a relic of an earlier period of
American History."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7402
http://www.studyworld.com/indian_removal_act_of_1830.htm
http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/trailoftears.html
