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| Long title | An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal east of the river Mississippi. |
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| Enacted by | the 21st United States Congress |
| Citations | |
| Public law | Pub. L. 21–148 |
| Statutes at Large | 4 Stat. 411 |
| Legislative history | |
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Military career Presidential aspirations 7th President of the United States First term Second term Post-presidency   |
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The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal east of the river Mississippi".[a][2][3] During the presidency of Jackson (1829–1837) and his successor Martin Van Buren (1837–1841) more than 60,000 Native Americans[4] from at least 18 tribes[5] were forced to move west of the Mississippi River where they were allocated new lands. The southern tribes were resettled mostly in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The northern tribes were resettled initially in Kansas. With a few exceptions, the United States east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes was emptied of its Native American population. The movement westward of indigenous tribes was characterized by a large number of deaths occasioned by the hardships of the journey.[6]
The U.S. Congress approved the Act by a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. The Indian Removal Act was supported by President Jackson and the Democratic Party,[7] southern and white settlers, and several state governments, especially that of Georgia. Indigenous tribes and the Whig Party opposed the bill, as did other groups within white American society (e.g., some Christian missionaries and clergy). Legal efforts to allow Indian tribes to remain on their land in the eastern U.S. failed. Most famously, the Cherokee (excluding the Treaty Party) challenged their relocation, but were unsuccessful in the courts; they were forcibly removed by the United States government in a march to the west that later became known as the Trail of Tears. Since the 21st century, scholars have cited the act and subsequent removals as an early example of state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing or genocide or settler colonialism; some view it as all three.[8][9][10]
- ^ Prucha, Francis Paul, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians, Volume I, Lincoln: the University of Nebraska Press, 1984, p. 206.
- ^ The Congressional Record; May 26, 1830; House vote No. 149; Government Tracker online; retrieved October 2015
- ^ "Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents of Americas History". Library of Congress. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
- ^ "Andrew Jackson was called 'Indian Killer'". Washington Post, November 23, 2017. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
- ^ Native American Removal. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History. 2012. ISBN 978-0-19-974336-0. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
{{cite book}}:|website=ignored (help) - ^ Lewey, Guenter (September 1, 2004). "Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?". Commentary. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved March 8, 2017. Also available in reprint from the History News Network.
- ^ https://economics.emory.edu/documents/carlson-len-indian-lands-squatterism-and-slavery.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Hixson, Walter L. (2016). "Policing the Past: Indian Removal and Genocide Studies". Western Historical Quarterly. 47 (4): 439–443. doi:10.1093/whq/whw092. ISSN 0043-3810. JSTOR 26782722.
- ^ Anderson, Gary Clayton (2016). "The Native Peoples of the American West: Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing?". Western Historical Quarterly. 47 (4): 407–433. doi:10.1093/whq/whw126. ISSN 0043-3810. JSTOR 26782720.
- ^ Perdue, Theda (2012). "The Legacy of Indian Removal". The Journal of Southern History. 78 (1): 3–36. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 23247455.
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