1830 - Indian Removal Act 1835 - Trail of Tears (31 dez 1829 ano – 13 fev 1835 ano)

Descrição:

Hard view on natives: President Andrew Jackson had a pretty harsh view on Native Americans, as he thought they were some sort of blocker for white American expansion. He believed that Native Americans should be relocated to the west of the Mississippi River so they could give up their southern territories which white Ameircans were coveting. This pretty much aligned with some policies Southern states had already implemented, which stripped the Natives from their land rights and political safety.
Indian Removal Act: In 1831, Jackson managed to convince the Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act, which allowed the US government to offer land west of the Mississippi River to Natives in exchange for their southern and eastern lands. By 1835, around 46.000 Natives had already been relocated, though the Southern states didn’t think this pace was fast enough.
Civilized Native Nations: There were some Nations in the USA that were considered civilized such as the Cherokees, Choctaw and Creeks. They were considered as such because they had created a constitution of their own, they had their own public institutions such as schools, and had a very organized farming system. The Cherokees for example had their own language system and they had their own newspaper. But things started to get complicated when the state of Georgia discovered gold mines in Cherokee land so they started to push for their relocation.
Supreme court help: The Cherokee resorted to ask for help to the Supreme court twice. The first time around, the court stated that there was nothing they could really do as under the US law, the Cherokee Nation was not considered as a foreign one. However, they did restate that they had legal rights to their land. On the second time, the court declared that Georgia state regulations didn’t apply to Cherokee land and that they didn’t have any legal rights to strip Cherokees of their land.
The Trail of Tears: Jackson, with complete disregard of what the Supreme Court had established, decided to forcefully and violently relocate the Cherokee Nation. In 1835, the Cherokee were forced to sign a treaty, giving up their lands and moving to present-day Oklahoma. They had to endure a harsh journey known as the Trail of Tears, in which the US Army forced 17,000 Natives to travel by foot 800 miles, in which 4,000 died of starvation, exhaustion and disease. This is known as one of the darkest and saddest events in American history.

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