• The Indian Removal Act authorized the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders
• The Indian lands, located in parts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white settlers flooded the region.
• The Indian Removal Act opened up the lands to white settlement still held by Indians
• The five major tribes who were affected were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. They are known as the “Civilized Tribes”.
• One method was to adopt Anglo-American practices such as large-scale farming, Western education, and slave-holding. They adopted this policy of assimilation in an attempt to coexist with settlers and ward off hostility.
• This only made whites jealous and resentful.
• The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their land.
• The government sometimes violated both treaties and Supreme Court rulings to facilitate the spread of European Americans westward across the continent. …show more content…
• The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was gone for good.
1. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28: 1830
2. The five major tribes who were affected were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. They are known as the “Civilized Tribes”.
3. The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their land.
4. The government sometimes violated both treaties and Supreme Court rulings to facilitate the spread of European Americans westward across the continent.
5. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the