Indian Removal Act: Relocation of Native Americans

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 allowed government to relocate native Americans to the west of the Mississippi river in promises that the government would support them and compensate for their loss. While majority of the native Americans went voluntarily, others fought and/or didn’t take them seriously until they sent the U.S army to physically remove them themselves (history, 2009). Under the Indian removal act, military soldiers relocated thousands of Indians on foot, chained together, for thousands of miles without food and water, and contracted many diseases causing many Indians to not survive the journey. (president n.d) In remembrance of this cruel time the path they took became a national historic trail known as the trail of tears. “The trail of tears is over 5,043 miles long and covers nine states: Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. (history, 2009).

President Jackson’s rationale for relocating the American Indians wasn’t to make them more civilized but instead making them feel powerless and inhuman and making it as though that the “white man” is more powerful and authoritative. Based on the original plans of the Indian removal act, which was supposed to be fair and willing not forceful and greedy, the removal act did not have its “intended” impact. (president, n.d) In my opinion the original meaning of the removal act was to relocate the Indians in a similar area in which the white settlers where trying to acquire and also trying to include the Native Americans to be more involved in their customs to live at peace and have treaties to enforce the promises that were given. The Indian removal act should have been called something else if they were meaning to do something positive instead of killing thousands of people during an unnecessary and cruel journey.

The responsibilities given to President Jefferson under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was ordered by congress, Thomas Jefferson then brought it upon himself to remove the native American’s by, all means necessary. He didn’t really care how or what would happen to them, all that he was focused on, was expanding, gaining more land, and power (president, 2009). Jackson's actions toward Native Americans in the context of his First Inaugural Address with the path of events during the Trail of Tears was that he didn’t really care he told the people that they are trying to “protect them” and guide them towards the right direction but his actions suggested otherwise.

The removal of the Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River violated the principles found in the Declaration of Independence starting with the preamble it violated at least 99% of it. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security” (preamble, n.d).

Not only did the government contradict what they had stated in the declaration but the fact that no one really stood up to them in society. I feel that this continues still, on a daily basis, allowing people get away with it for so long, it gets overlooked and brushed under and never taken seriously until tragedy seeps from it. I only hope that one day we all come together as a society and overthrow unfairness, racism, and injustice.