Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act (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) is part of the United States government policy known as the Indian Removal, which was signed into law by the President Andrew Jackson on May, 26th, 1830. In his State of the Union message in 1829, President Andrew Jackson called for an Indian Removal Act. This Act was strongly supported in the South where the states were eager to gain access to the lands inhabited by the Indian tribes. The largest state at the time, Georgia was particularly eager to do so, since it was caught in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokee nation. President Jackson hoped that the Indian Removal Act would put an end to the Georgia situation.
The Indian Removal Act was also very controversial since the Indian removal was, in theory, supposed to be voluntary, but in practice there was great pressure on the American Indian leaders to sign the removal treaties. The great majority of the observers, be they in favor of the Removal Act policy or not, understood that the signing of the Act meant the inevitable removal of most Indians from their home states. Most white Americans were in favor of the Indian Removal Act. Nevertheless there was significant opposition, such as the Christian missionaries, most notably the missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts, who was against the Act and was not afraid to say so. In Congress, too, there where voices, such as the ones of the New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen and the Congressman Davis Crockett of Tennessee, who spoke against the law. Nevertheless the Removal Act was passed after bitter debate in the Congress.
The Indian Removal Act paved the way for the reluctant emigration of tens of thousands of American Indians to the West. President Jackson insisted that the enactment of his wise and humane Indian Removal Act should be applied only with the negotiated agreement of afflicted tribes. The fulfillment of the written document
