Andrew Jackson and Indian
Removal
Please be in your seats when class
begins
Agenda
•
•
•
•
Weekends
TOTW
A Song
Lecture
Purpose
In order to:
• Practice using a 2 column note
taking strategy
• Develop “Lecture Endurance”
We will listen to a short lecture about
President Andrew Jackson and the
Indian Removal Act
Big Ideas
There are three big ideas to consider
after today’s lecture
• People tend to judge the acts of the
past
• It is important to connect our
emotional reactions to historical facts
when judging the past
• Judging a historical event is
complicated
Andrew Jackson
Date
March 15, 1767
April 1781
Person, Place, Event
Birth of Andrew
Jackson
14 year old Andrew
Jackson is
imprisoned after
refusing to lick to
boots of a British
Soldier
Andrew Jackson
Date
July 8, 1815
Person, Place,
Event
Jackson leads
American Forces
to victory over
the British at the
Battle of New
Orleans
Andrew Jackson
1828
May 26, 1830
Andrew Jackson is
elected president
of the United
States
Andrew Jackson
signs the Indian
Removal Act into
law
“Righteously considered, the policy of the
general government toward the red man is not
only liberal but generous. He is unwilling to
submit to the laws of the states and mingle
with their population. To save him from this
alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the
general government kindly offers him a home,
and proposes to pay the whole expense of his
removal and settlement.” Andrew Jackson Indian Removal Message to Congress 1829
Why?
• Land for farming was growing scarce in the
Southeastern USA
• War, Taxes and trade tariffs (taxes charged
on certain exports) were causing the
Southern economy to struggle
• Most politicians saw conflict between
Whites and Native Americans as inevitable
• Removal would preserve the tribes
Indian Removal Act
This act gave the President the power
to negotiate treaties with tribes
living east of the Mississippi. The
President could:
• Trade land west of the Mississippi for
land currently occupied by tribes
east of the Mississippi
Indian Removal Act
Murder is murder, and somebody must
answer. Somebody must explain the
streams of blood that flowed in Indian
Country in the summer of 1838.
Somebody must explain the 4,000
silent graves that mark the trail of the
Cherokees to their exile. Private John G.
Burnett - December 11, 1890
Trail of Tears
• Soldiers rounded up at gun-point tribe
members into “removal forts”
• Forced out of forts with little but the
clothes on their backs
• Forced on 5 month, 1,000 mile journey
• Travel by wagon, horse and foot
• 15,000 - 20,000 travel
• Estimates of between 4,000 and 8,000
Cherokee dead
The Outcome
• 25 million acres of land is now available for
white farmers east of the Mississippi
• Violence between Indians and Whites east
of Mississippi decreases
• Many tribes see a huge decrease in
population and begin a cycle of oppression
and poverty
• Eventually these same people would be
forced off their reservations west of
Mississippi and sent farther west
Consider
Was this good for America?
Big Ideas
There are three big ideas to consider after today’s
lecture
• People tend to judge the acts of the past
• It is important to connect our emotional reactions to
historical facts when judging the past
• Judging a historical event is complicated