Andrew Jackson's Indian Policies Analysis

Andrew Jackson's Indian Policies: Unbridled Aggression or Pragmatic Solution? "It seems not to be an established fact that they can not live in contact with a civilized community and prosper." Andrew Jackson believed that Indians were savages, incapable of any "civilized" intercommunication between themselves and whites. Through this belief Jackson declared that Indians need not be in contact with white settlers. Throughout Jackson's life he had fought Indians, beginning with his campaign against the Northern Creek Indians of Alabama and Georgia. He led the Tennessee militia to fight Seminoles in Florida in a war known as the "First Seminole War" just seven years before his election into the presidency . Jackson's land policies, which he
The Treaty of New Echota, was signed by a faction of prominent Cherokee leaders, but not by the elected tribal leadership. In theory, this removal was supposed to be voluntary, and many American Indians did remain in the East. In practice, however, the Jackson administration put great pressure on tribal leaders to sign removal treaties. This pressure created bitter divisions within American Indian nations, as different tribal leaders advocated different responses to the question of removal. During the Treaty of New Echota U.S. government officials ignored tribal leaders who resisted signing removal treaties and dealt only with those who favored removal. Though the Trail of Tears took place during Van Buren's presidency, through Jackson's numerous removal acts such as the treaty of New Echota he set up the framework for the Trail of Tears. Van Buren's administration only had to enforce the Treaty of New Echota, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. Jackson had carried out his plans to relocate the Indians west of the Mississippi, and then some. His land policies were very unfair to Indian tribes, because they were not written for the tribes' advantages, but rather for the taking of their