View source for Indian Removal Act

{{short description|Law authorizing the removal of Native Americans from US states}}
{{Distinguish|Indian Relocation Act of 1956}}
{{Use American English|date=June 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}}
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| longtitle = An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.
| acronym = 
| enacted by = 21st
| effective date = 
| public law url = 
| cite public law = {{USPL|21|148}}
| cite statutes at large = {{usstat|4|411}}
| acts amended = 
| title amended = 
| sections created = 
| sections amended = 
| leghisturl = 
| introducedin = Senate
| introducedbill = {{USBill|21|S.|102}}
| introduced by = 
| introduced date = 
| committees = 
| passedbody1 = Senate
| passeddate1 = April 24, 1830
| passedvote1 = [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/s104 28–19]
| passedbody2 = House
| passeddate2 = May 26, 1830
| passedvote2 = [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/h149 101–97]
| conference date = 
| passedbody3 = 
| passeddate3 = 
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| signedpresident = [[Andrew Jackson]]
| signeddate = May 28, 1830
| amendments =
| short title = 
}}
{{Andrew Jackson series}}

The '''Indian Removal Act of 1830''' was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States president [[Andrew Jackson]]. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the [[Mississippi River|river Mississippi]]".{{efn|The [[U.S. Senate]] passed the bill on April 24, 1830 (28–19), and the [[U.S. House]] passed it on May 26, 1830 (102–97).<ref>{{cite book |last=Prucha |first=Francis Paul |author-link=Francis Paul Prucha |url=https://archive.org/details/greatfatherun01pruc |title=The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians |date=1984 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=0803236689 |volume=I |place=Lincoln, NE |p=[https://archive.org/details/greatfatherun01pruc/page/206/mode/1up 206] |url-access=registration}}</ref>}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=21st United States Congress |author-link=21st United States Congress |orig-date=May 26, 1830 |title=TO PASS S. 102. (P. 729). |url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/h149 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418234924/https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/h149 |archive-date=April 18, 2023 |access-date=November 19, 2025 |website=govtrack.us |publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC |publication-date=2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents of Americas History |url=https://guides.loc.gov/indian-removal-act/digital-collections |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250731084956/https://guides.loc.gov/indian-removal-act/digital-collections |archive-date=2025-07-31 |access-date=March 3, 2024 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> During the presidency of Jackson (1829{{nbnd}}1837) and his successor [[Martin Van Buren]] (1837{{nbnd}}1841), more than 60,000 American Indians<ref>{{cite web |title=Andrew Jackson was called 'Indian Killer' |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/11/28/andrew-jackson-was-called-indian-killer-trump-honored-navajos-in-front-of-his-portrait/ |website=Washington Post, November 23, 2017 |access-date=November 10, 2022}}</ref> from at least 18 tribes<ref name="Oxford Reference">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2013 |title=Native American Removal |encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History |publisher=[[Oxford Reference]] |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199743360.001.0001/acref-9780199743360-e-0308?rskey=gnzeYs&result=30 |access-date=November 19, 2025 |last=Abram |first=Susan M. |orig-date=2012 |editor-last=Dumenil |editor-first=Lynn |isbn=978-0-19-974336-0}}</ref> were forced to move west of the Mississippi River where they were allocated new lands. The southern Indian tribes were resettled mostly into [[Indian Territory]] ([[Oklahoma]]). The northern Indian tribes were resettled initially in [[Kansas]]. With a few exceptions, the United States east of the Mississippi and south of the [[Great Lakes]] was emptied of its American Indian population. The movement westward of Indian tribes was characterized by a large number of deaths due to the hardships of the journey.<ref name="Lewey2004">{{cite journal |author=Lewy |first=Guenter |date=September 1, 2004 |title=Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide? |url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/were-american-indians-the-victims-of-genocide/ |url-status=dead |journal=Commentary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815233620/https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/were-american-indians-the-victims-of-genocide/ |archive-date=August 15, 2017 |access-date=March 8, 2017}} Also available in reprint from the [http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/7302 History News Network].</ref>

The [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] approved the Act by a narrow majority in the [[United States House of Representatives]]. The Indian Removal Act was supported by President Jackson and the Democratic Party,<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://economics.emory.edu/documents/carlson-len-indian-lands-squatterism-and-slavery.pdf |title=Indian lands, "Squatterism," and slavery: Economic interests and the passage of the indian removal act of 1830 |last1=Carlson |first1=Leonard A. |last2=Roberts |first2=Mark A. |journal=[[Explorations in Economic History]] |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=486–504 |date=July 2006 |doi=10.1016/j.eeh.2005.06.003}}</ref> southern politicians and white settlers, and several state governments, especially that of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. Indian tribes and the [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig Party]] opposed the bill, as did other groups within society (e.g., some [[Christian missionaries]] and clergy). Legal efforts to allow Indian tribes to remain on their land in the eastern U.S. failed. Most famously, the [[Cherokee]] (excluding the [[John Ridge#Political life|Treaty Party]]) challenged their relocation, but were unsuccessful in the courts; they were forcibly removed by the United States government in a march to the west which later became known as the [[Trail of Tears]]. Since the 21st century, scholars have cited the act and subsequent removals as an early example of state-sanctioned [[ethnic cleansing]] or [[Genocide of Indigenous peoples|genocide]] or [[settler colonialism]]; some view it as all three.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hixson |first=Walter L. |date=2016 |title=Policing the Past: Indian Removal and Genocide Studies |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26782722 |journal=Western Historical Quarterly |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=439–443 |doi=10.1093/whq/whw092 |jstor=26782722 |issn=0043-3810|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Anderson |first=Gary Clayton |date=2016 |title=The Native Peoples of the American West: Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26782720 |journal=Western Historical Quarterly |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=407–433 |doi=10.1093/whq/whw126 |jstor=26782720 |issn=0043-3810|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Perdue |first=Theda |date=2012 |title=The Legacy of Indian Removal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23247455 |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=78 |issue=1 |pages=3–36 |jstor=23247455 |issn=0022-4642}}</ref>

==Background==
[[File: AndrewJacksonCongress.jpg|thumb|left|upright|President [[Andrew Jackson]] called for a Indian Removal Act in his first (1829) State of the Union address.]]

===History of European cultural assimilation in the New World ===

Many [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonists]] saw [[Tribe (Native American)|American Indian tribes]] as [[Savage (pejorative term)|savages]]. However, Euro-Indian relations varied, particularly between the [[French colonization of the Americas|French]] and [[British colonization of the Americas|British colonies]].{{sfn|Esarey|1992||p=8}} [[New France]], which was established in the [[Great Lakes region]], generally pursued a cooperative relationship with the Indian tribes, through the existence of certain traditions such as the [[marriage à la façon du pays]], a marriage between French-Canadian tradesmen (''[[coureur des bois]]'') and American Indian women. This tradition was seen as a fundamental social and political institution that helped maintain relations and bond the two cultures. Many of the missionaries are known to have taught the tribes how to use iron tools, build European-style homes, and improve farming techniques; the teachings of the [[Wyandot people|Wyandot]], who maintained a century long friendship with [[French Canadians]], would spread on to other tribes as they relocated to the [[Maumee River]].{{sfn|Esarey|1992||p=6}} Throughout the 17th and 18th century during the [[Beaver Wars|Beaver]] and [[French and Indian War]]s, the greatest number of tribes—and the most powerful—tended to side with the French, though other tribes such as the [[Iroquois]] supported the British for various strategic reasons. For strategic economic and military purposes, the French had a practice of building forts and trading posts within tribal villages, such as that of [[Fort Miami (Indiana)|Fort Miami]] in [[Indiana]] within the [[Miami people|Miami]] village of [[Kekionga]]. However, the belief in European cultural, religious and technological superiority was generally widespread among high ranking European colonial officials and clergymen in this period.

During the [[colonial history of the United States]], many European colonists felt their civilization to be superior to that of the Indians due to their own notions of [[private property]] as a superior system of [[land tenure]] in addition to their Christian practices. Colonial and frontier encroachers inflicted a practice of cultural assimilation, meaning that tribes such as the Cherokee were forced to adopt aspects of white civilization. This American [[acculturation]] was originally proposed by first President [[George Washington]], and it was well underway among the [[Cherokee]] and the [[Choctaw]] people by the beginning of the 19th century.<ref name="perdue">{{cite book |last=Thor |first=The Mighty |title=Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South |publisher=The University of Georgia Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8203-2731-0 |page=51 |chapter=Chapter 2: "Both White and Red"}}</ref> Indian tribes were encouraged to adopt European customs. First, they were forced to convert to Christianity and abandon their traditional religious practices. They were required to learn to speak and read [[English language|English]], although there was interest in creating a writing and printing system for a few [[Indigenous languages of the Americas|Native languages]], especially [[Cherokee syllabary|Cherokee]], exemplified by [[Sequoyah]]'s [[Cherokee syllabary]]. The American Indians also had to adopt white settler values, such as [[Monogamy|monogamous marriage]] and abandon the idea of [[Premarital sex|non-marital sex]]. Finally, they had to accept the concept of individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances, the ownership of black African people as slaves). Many Cherokee people adopted all, or some, of these practices, including [[John Ross (Cherokee chief)|Cherokee chief John Ross]], [[John Ridge]], and [[Elias Boudinot (Cherokee)|Elias Boudinot]], as represented by the newspaper he edited, the ''[[Cherokee Phoenix]]''.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Perdue |first1=Theda |last2=Green |first2=Michael |title=The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-670-03150-4 |publisher=Viking |location=New York |oclc=74987776 |page=47}}</ref>

===Perceived failure of the policy===
Despite the adoption of white cultural values by many natives and tribes, the United States government began a systematic effort to remove Native peoples from the Southeast.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1999 |title=Indian removal: 1814 - 1858 |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20251004142403/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html |archive-date=2025-10-04 |access-date=2025-11-19 |website=PBS Africans in America |series=Part 4: Judgement Day |publisher=WGBH Educational Foundation}}</ref> The [[Chickasaw Nation|Chickasaw]], [[Choctaw Nation|Choctaw]], [[Muscogee (Creek) Nation|Muscogee-Creek]], [[Seminole]], and [[Cherokee Nation (1794–1907)|original Cherokee]] nations{{efn|These distinct ethnic and political groups were referred to in the United States as the "[[Five Civilized Tribes]]".}} had been established as [[autonomous#Politics|autonomous]] [[nation]]s in the southeastern United States.

Andrew Jackson sought to renew a policy of political and military action for the removal of Natives from these lands and worked toward enacting a law for "Indian removal".<ref name="letterharrison1803">{{cite web |last=Jefferson |first=Thomas |year=1803 |title=President Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory |url=http://courses.missouristate.edu/ftmiller/Documents/jeffindianpolicy.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180120091110/http://courses.missouristate.edu/ftmiller/Documents/jeffindianpolicy.htm |archive-date=January 20, 2018 |access-date=July 14, 2012 |website=courses.missouristate.edu |publisher=[[Missouri State University]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| last=Jackson| first=Andrew| title=President Andrew Jackson's Case for the Removal Act| url=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/andrew.htm| publisher=Mount Holyoke College| access-date=May 28, 2013| archive-date=June 1, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130601183515/https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/andrew.htm| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":1"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dunbar-Ortiz |first=Roxanne |author-link=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |title=An indigenous peoples' history of the United States |title-link=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States |date=2014 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-0040-3 |series=ReVisioning American history |location=Boston}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gilio-Whitaker |first=Dina |title=As long as grass grows : the indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock |date=2019 |isbn=978-0-8070-7378-0 |location=Boston, Massachusetts |oclc=1044542033}}</ref> In his 1829 [[State of the Union]] address, Jackson called for [[Indian removal]].<ref>{{Cite web| title = Andrew Jackson calls for Indian removal – North Carolina Digital History| url = http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4350| website = www.learnnc.org| access-date = April 7, 2015| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150412211745/http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4350| archive-date = April 12, 2015| url-status = dead}}</ref>

The Indian Removal Act was put in place to annex Native land and then transfer that ownership to Southern states, especially [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. The Act was passed in 1830, although dialogue had been ongoing since 1802 between [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] and the [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]] concerning the possibility of such an act. Ethan Davis states that "the federal government had promised Georgia that it would extinguish Indian title within the state's borders by purchase 'as soon as the such purchase could be made upon reasonable terms'".<ref>{{cite journal | title=An Administrative Trail of Tears: Indian Removal | last= Davis | first= Ethan | journal= The American Journal of Legal History|volume=50|issue=1 | pages= 50–55}}</ref> As time passed, Southern states began to speed up the expulsions by claiming that the deal between Georgia and the federal government was invalid and that Southern states could pass laws extinguishing Indian title themselves. In response, the federal government passed the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830, in which President Jackson agreed to divide the United States territory west of the [[Mississippi River]] into districts for tribes to replace the land from which they were removed.

In the 1823 case of ''[[Johnson v. McIntosh]]'', the [[United States Supreme Court]] handed down a decision stating that Indians could occupy and control lands within the United States but could not hold title to those lands.<ref name="pbsremoval">{{cite web | url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html| title=Indial Removal 1814–1858| publisher=Public Broadcasting System| access-date=August 11, 2009}}</ref> Jackson viewed the union as a [[Federalism|federation of highly esteemed states]], as was common before the [[American Civil War]]. He opposed Washington's policy of establishing treaties with Indian tribes as if they were sovereign foreign nations. Thus, the creation of Indian jurisdictions was a violation of state sovereignty under [[Article Four of the United States Constitution#New states|Article IV, Section 3]] of the Constitution. As Jackson saw it, either Indians comprised sovereign states (which violated the Constitution) or were subject to the laws of existing states of the Union. Jackson urged Indians to assimilate and obey state laws. Further, he believed he could only accommodate the desire for Native self-rule in federal territories, which required resettlement on Federal lands west of the Mississippi River.{{sfn|Brands|2006|p=488}}<ref>{{cite book | author-link=Woodrow Wilson | last=Wilson| first=Woodrow| title=Division and Reunion 1829–1889|year=1898| publisher=Longmans, Green and Co.| pages=[https://archive.org/details/divisionandreun00corwgoog/page/n57 35]–38| url=https://archive.org/details/divisionandreun00corwgoog| quote=Indian question. }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/indian-treaties |access-date=April 4, 2025 |website=history.state.gov}}</ref>

==Support and opposition==
[[File:  Register of Debates, Senate, 21st Congress, 1st Session - "The Indians".gif|thumb|upright|Congressional debates concerning the Indian Removal Act, April 1830]]

The Removal Act was strongly supported in the [[Southern United States|American South]], especially in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], which was involved in a jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokee and was the largest state in 1802. President Jackson hoped that removal would resolve the Georgia crisis.<ref name=" history channel">{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/topics/indian-removal-act |title=Indian Removal Act |publisher=A&E Television Networks |year=2011 |access-date=February 20, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308081936/http://www.history.com/topics/indian-removal-act |archive-date=March 8, 2010 }}</ref> Besides the [[Five Civilized Tribes]], additional people affected included the [[Wyandot people|Wyandot]], the [[Kickapoo people|Kickapoo]], the [[Potowatomi]], the [[Shawnee]], and the [[Lenape]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Timeline of Removal |url=https://www.okhistory.org/research/airemoval.php |website=Oklahoma Historical Society |access-date=January 18, 2019 |archive-date=October 28, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028232933/https://www.okhistory.org/research/airemoval.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Indian Removal Act was controversial. Many Americans during this time favored its passage, but there was also significant opposition. Many white Christian [[missionary|missionaries]] protested against it, most notably missionary organizer [[Jeremiah Evarts]]. In U.S. Congress, [[New Jersey]] Senator [[Theodore Frelinghuysen]], Kentucky Senator [[Henry Clay]], and [[Tennessee]] Congressman [[Davy Crockett]] spoke out against the legislation. The Removal Act passed only after a bitter debate in Congress.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Howe |first=Daniel Walker |title=What hath God wrought: the transformation of America, 1815-1848 |date=2007 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-507894-7 |series=The Oxford history of the United States |location=New York |pages=348–52}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Farris |first=Scott |url=http://archive.org/details/almostpresidentm0000farr |title=Almost president: the men who lost the race but changed the nation |date=2012 |publisher=Lyons Press |isbn=978-0-7627-6378-8 |location=Guilford, CN |page=32}}</ref> Clay extensively campaigned against it on the [[National Republican Party]] ticket in the [[1832 United States presidential election]].<ref name=":0" />

Jackson viewed the demise of Native nations as inevitable, pointing to the steady expansion of European-based lifestyles and the decimation of Native nations in the U.S.'s northeast region. He called his Northern critics hypocrites, given the [[Northern United States|North]]'s history regarding Native nations within their claimed territory. Jackson stated that "progress requires moving forward."{{sfn |Brands |2006 |pp=489–98}}

<blockquote>Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country and [[philanthropy]] has long been busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress never has for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth... 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… 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 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?{{sfn|Brands|2006|p=490}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Statements from the Debate on Indian Removal |url=http://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/BC3180/removal.html |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250621150533/https://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/BC3180/removal.html |archive-date=2025-06-21 |access-date=March 21, 2014 |publisher=Columbia University}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Native American Voices: A History and Anthology|editor-first=Steven|editor-last=Mintz|volume=2|publisher=Brandywine Press|year=1995|pages=115–116}}</ref></blockquote>

According to historian [[H. W. Brands]], Jackson sincerely believed that his [[population transfer]] was a "wise and humane policy" that would save the Native Americans from "utter annihilation". Jackson portrayed the removal as a paternalistic act of mercy.{{sfn|Brands|2006|p=489-493}}

According to Robert M. Keeton, those in favor of the bill would use biblical stories, including the Story of Creation and the Story of [[Jacob and Esau]], to argue for the resettlement of Native Americans. This method was used by figures such as [[Wilson Lumpkin]], [[Richard H. Wilde]], and [[Andrew Jackson]] to justify the act from a righteous standpoint.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Keeton|first=Robert M.|url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/9781479895731-007/html|title=5. "The Race of Pale Men Should Increase and Multiply"|date=July 10, 2015|pages=125–149 |publisher=New York University Press|isbn=978-1-4798-9573-1|language=en|doi=10.18574/nyu/9781479876778.003.0006}}</ref>

==Vote==
On April 24, 1830, the Senate passed the Indian Removal Act by a vote of 28 to 19.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/s104 |title=To Order Engrossment and Third Reading of S. 102. |publisher=[[GovTrack]] |date=July 7, 2013| access-date=October 21, 2013}}</ref> On May 26, 1830, the House of Representatives passed the Act by a vote of 101 to 97.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/h149 |title=To Pass S. 102. (P. 729) |publisher=GovTrack |date=July 7, 2013 | quote= The bill passed 101–97, with 11 not voting| access-date=October 21, 2013}}</ref> On May 28, 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson.

'''Worcester v. Georgia'''

A legal case that took place in 1832 by the [[United States Supreme Court]] which held a final vote (5{{nbnd}}1) affirming that the states did not have the right to impose regulations on Native American Land. Despite President [[Andrew Jackson]]'s refusal to enforce the ruling, this ultimate decision led the formation basis for the subsequent law in the United States in regard to Native Americans.

[[Worcester v. Georgia]] involved a group of white [[Christian missionaries]] who were living in the [[Cherokee]] territory in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], this included [[Cherokee]] messenger, Samuel Austin Worcester.

==Implementation==
{{Main|Indian removal}}
The Removal Act paved the way for the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of American Indians from the Cherokee tribe in 1838-39 into the West in an event widely known as the "[[Trail of Tears]]", a forced [[Population transfer|resettlement]] of the Indian population.<ref>{{cite book|last=Greenwood|first=Robert E.|title=Outsourcing Culture: How American Culture has Changed From "We the People" Into a One World Government|publisher=Outskirts Press|year=2007|page=97}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Rajani Kannepalli Kanth|title=The Challenge of Eurocentrism|url=https://archive.org/details/challengeeurocen00kant|url-access=limited|publisher=Palgrave MacMillan|year=2009|last=Molhotra|first=Rajiv|chapter=American Exceptionalism and the Myth of the American Frontiers|pages=[https://archive.org/details/challengeeurocen00kant/page/n216 180], 184, 189, 199|isbn=9780230612273}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Finkelman|first1=Paul|last2=Kennon|first2=Donald R.|title=Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism|publisher=Ohio University Press|year=2008|pages=15, 141, 254}}</ref> This event has been characterized as a genocide.<ref>{{cite book|last=BKiernan|first=Ben|title=Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2007|pages=328, 330}}</ref> The first removal treaty signed was the [[Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek]] on September 27, 1830, in which [[Choctaw]]s in [[Mississippi]] ceded land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West. The [[Treaty of New Echota]] was signed in 1835 and resulted in the removal of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears.

The Seminoles and other tribes did not leave peacefully, as they resisted the removal along with [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive slaves]]. The [[Second Seminole War]] lasted from 1835 to 1842 and resulted in the government allowing them to remain in south Florida swampland. Only a small number remained, and around 3,000 were removed in the war.<ref>{{cite book|first=Eric|last=Foner|author-link=Eric Foner|date=2006|title=Give me liberty|url=https://archive.org/details/givemelibertyame00fone|url-access=registration|publisher=Norton|isbn=9780393927825}}</ref>

==Legacy ==
In the 21st century, scholars have cited the act and subsequent removals as an early example of state sanctioned [[ethnic cleansing]] or [[Genocide of Indigenous peoples|genocide]] or [[settler colonialism]] or as all three Forms of these.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hixson |first=Walter L. |date=2016 |title=Policing the Past: Indian Removal and Genocide Studies |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26782722 |journal=Western Historical Quarterly |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=439–443 |doi=10.1093/whq/whw092 |jstor=26782722 |issn=0043-3810|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Anderson |first=Gary Clayton |date=2016 |title=The Native Peoples of the American West: Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26782720 |journal=Western Historical Quarterly |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=407–433 |doi=10.1093/whq/whw126 |jstor=26782720 |issn=0043-3810|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Perdue |first=Theda |date=2012 |title=The Legacy of Indian Removal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23247455 |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=78 |issue=1 |pages=3–36 |jstor=23247455 |issn=0022-4642}}</ref> Historian [[Richard White (historian)|Richard White]] wrote that because of "claimed parallels between ethnic cleansing and Indian removal, any examination of Indian removal will inevitably involve discussions of ethnic cleansing."<ref name="White 2002">{{cite journal |last1=White |first1=Richard |date=2002 |title=How Andrew Jackson Saved the Cherokees |url=http://www.greenbag.org/v5n4/v5n4_reviews_white.pdf |journal=Green Bag |pages=443–444 |access-date=April 14, 2023}}</ref> Other scholarship has focused on the historical comparisons between the United States concept of [[manifest destiny]] and [[Nazi Germany]]'s concept of ''[[Lebensraum]]'' and how American Indian removal policy served as a model for Nazi [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|racial policy]] during the ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' plan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Miller |first1=Robert J. |title=Nazi Germany's Race Laws, the United States, and American Indians |journal=St. John's Law Review |date=2020 |volume=94 |url=https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7173&context=lawreview |access-date=April 14, 2023}}</ref>

An alternative view posits that the Indian Removal Act, despite the deaths and forced relocation, benefitted the removed peoples by saving their societies from a worse fate that likely awaited them were they to remain in their home territories to face a mass influx of settlers that the federal government was unable to prevent.<ref>{{Cite interview |last=Remini |first=Robert |subject-link=Robert V. Remini |interviewer=US History |title=Professor Robert Remini: The Jacksonian Era |url=https://www.ushistory.org/us/historians/remini.asp?srsltid=AfmBOooy2QQNc1GvY5DVjECW7YH8jBJ6byl_lM0QLSO-s3SVZsADBHvb |access-date=April 9, 2025 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250426130740/https://www.ushistory.org/us/historians/remini.asp?srsltid=AfmBOooy2QQNc1GvY5DVjECW7YH8jBJ6byl_lM0QLSO-s3SVZsADBHvb |archive-date=2025-04-26 |url-status=live |website=ushistory.org |publisher=Independence Hall Association |date=March 23, 1999}}</ref> As [[Robert V. Remini]] stated:<blockquote>Jackson genuinely believed that what he had accomplished rescued these people from inevitable annihilation. And although that statement sounds monstrous, and although no one in the modern world wishes to accept or believe it, that is exactly what he did. He saved the Five Civilized Nations from probable extinction.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Remini |first=Robert Vincent |url=http://archive.org/details/andrewjacksonhis00remi |title=Andrew Jackson & his Indian wars |date=2001 |publisher=Viking |isbn=978-0-670-91025-0 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/andrewjacksonhis00remi/page/281/mode/1up?view=theater 281]}}</ref></blockquote> Similarly, historian [[Francis Paul Prucha]] argued that removal was the best of the four options that presented themselves, the other three being genocide, assimilation into white culture, and protection of tribal lands against settler encroachment, the last of which Prucha, like Remini, saw as unachievable.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Prucha |first=F. P. |date=1969 |title=Andrew Jackson's Indian Policy: A Reassessment |url=https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-lookup/doi/10.2307/1904204 |journal=The Journal of American History |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=527 |doi=10.2307/1904204}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist|30em}}

===Cited works===
* {{Cite book |last=Esarey |first=Logan |title=The Indiana home |date=1992 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20742-5 |location=Bloomington}}
* {{cite book |last=Brands |first=H.W. |author-link=H.W. Brands |title=Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times |publisher=Anchor |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-4000-3072-9}}

==External links==
*[https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html Indian Removal Act and related resources], at the ''[[Library of Congress]]''
*[http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=25&page=transcript ''1830 State of the Union on Indian Removal'']; Text at 100 Milestone Documents
{{wikisource}}
{{Indian Removal}}
{{Native American rights}}
{{Aboriginal title in the United States}}
{{Cherokee}}
{{Andrew Jackson}}
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{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1830 in American law]]
[[Category:1830 in the United States]]
[[Category:19th-century colonization of the Americas]]
[[Category:American frontier]]
[[Category:Aboriginal title in the United States]]
[[Category:Presidency of Andrew Jackson]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing in the United States]]
[[Category:Genocide of Indigenous peoples of North America]]
[[Category:Forced migrations of Native Americans in the United States]]
[[Category:Indian Territory]]
[[Category:Legal history of Georgia (U.S. state)]]
[[Category:Native American history of Georgia (U.S. state)]]
[[Category:United States federal Native American legislation]]
[[Category:Trail of Tears]]
[[Category:Native American history of Florida]]
[[Category:Muscogee]]
[[Category:Seminole]]
[[Category:Legal history of Florida]]
[[Category:Race legislation in the United States]]
[[Category:Andrew Jackson administration controversies]]
[[Category:Indian removal in the United States]]