Intro to Indian Removal

The constitution of the United States reads; "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." In the early 1800's, there existed a deep division among the nation's white population regarding Native Americans. In their dealings with Native Americans, the first white settlers adopted policies that were formed by their own European worldview and experience. When the United States became a nation, the new government was built on this European foundation. Later, the United States transformed its Native American policy through changing perspectives and needs. The growing greedy white population hungry for new land and wealth began to encroach on Native American territory. Eventually the Native Americans were thought of as worthless uncivilized savages by those west of the Appalachians and redeemable savages by eastern philanthropists and humanitarians. To the white settlers in the trans-Appalachian frontier that ran from the mid-west to the southern states, Indians were considered a threat that had to be extinguished. Believers in Native American reform were largely from the industrial and commercial centers in the Northeast where only a few Indians lived. President Andrew Jackson did not fall into this latter category. He was a devoted Indian fighter who would eventually remove all but a few Indians from the southeast and move them to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

The era of Andrew Jackson was full of contradiction and paradox. Jackson brought the United States its first full taste of true democracy. A proponent of individual rights, he made the federal government more powerful than ever. He was also ridiculed as "King Andrew" a tyrant, because of his removal policy towards the Indians and his harsh treatment of some southern slave states when they threatened the power of his government. His reputation for the most part was built on the mistreatment and killing of Indians. For that reason, Andrew Jackson's most enlightened approach to the "Indian problem" was relocation (removal) from the East to the yet untouched and unwanted territory in and around what is now known as Oklahoma. This great "removal" opened the darkest chapter in Indian-white relations in the United States and also gave the Jackson administration a black eye