Andrew Jackson and United States Policy
Removal of the Cherokee Nation
Introduction
Andrew
Jackson’s election to the presidency in November 1828 has been widely regarded
as a watershed in the history of United States Indian policy. Scholars have debated his motivations with
arguments ranging from his history as an Indian fighter and “hater,” to claims
that his main concern was national security, to assertions that he was anxious
to halt the decline and extinction of the Native peoples in the East. Despite
their disagreements, none have suggested that his role was unimportant.
Jackson’s
contemporaries also believed that his election was a turning point. The first
westerner to occupy the White House (Tennessee was then considered the West); his victory dramatized the
rapidly growing political power of the region west of the Appalachians. If one
believed that western needs and interests differed from those of the Atlantic
states, Jackson’s election seemed like the dawn of a new day. Jackson also
represented the coalescence of a new political movement, the Democratic party,
viewed by many as an important alternative to the political philosophy and
American system of John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay. Jackson,
in other words, personified change. While many welcomed a new order, others
feared and resented it.
Seen in this
light, the debate over Indian removal during 1829—1830 represented a larger set
of issues that went to the heart of American public life. What were the proper
relationships between the federal government and the states? Could the concept
of shared sovereignty that marked the H constitutional system be satisfactorily
defined? The emerging conflict over slavery made these questions increasingly
crucial, just as it polarized the attempts to answer them.
But, of
course, the debate over Indian removal was also much more than a part of the
ongoing dispute over constitutional interpretation. For forty years the United States government had followed a set of policies, including the
negotiation of treaties that recognized the sovereignty of the nations of
Native Americans and had committed itself to helping
them preserve and protect that status. None of Jackson’s
predecessors, even in their frustration over their failures to convince the
tribes to do as they wished, seriously considered rejecting such recognition.
But Jackson, on record for more than ten years as favoring such a step,
did so in 1829 when he decided to honor Georgia’s claims of jurisdiction over the Cherokees.
Congressional
implementation of Jackson’s views came in the form of the Indian Removal Act, a bill
that senators and representatives hotly debated. All claimed primary concern
for the best interests of the Indians, but the constitutional and legal
implications of removal remained central to the dispute. Indian policy became a
partisan issue in the debate over removal and continued to be so during the
next decade of party alignment known as the second party system.
The removal bill, enacted
largely along party lines, thus aligned Congress with the president in support
of Georgia’s claims to sovereignty over the Cherokees. The Supreme
Court’s rejection of state jurisdiction in the 1832 Worcester decision, an important moral victory for the Cherokees, had
little immediate effect. The Court neither designed nor implemented Indian
policy; that was the responsibility of the president and Congress. And in 1832,
in the midst of the larger debate over the nature of the federal system, there
was no agreement that either must abide by the decisions of the Court. As a
result, the president and Congress succeeded in achieving a dramatic
restructuring of the relations among the Indians, the states in which they
lived, and the federal government. Andrew Jackson was instrumental in making that
happen.
First Annual Message, Andrew Jackson
In his first
annual message, delivered December 8, 1829, President
Andrew Jackson outlined his Indian policy and called on Congress to enact
legislation that would remove eastern Indians to the region west of the Mississippi. Jackson had a reputation, won during the Creek War of
1813—14, as an Indian fighter, but this was not a blood and glory
pronouncement. He was critical, however, of the policies of his predecessors.
“Professing a desire to civilize and settle
them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and
thrust them further into the wilderness,” he explained. Thus, the
“civilization” policy, despite “lavish, expenditures,” had largely been a
failure, except in the South where the Cherokees “have lately attempted to
erect an independent government.” State legislation that subjected Indians to
state laws induced the Cherokees to call on the United States for protection. Can the government, Jackson asked, “sustain these people in their pretensions?” The answer
clearly was no. The Constitution expressly forbade the erection of one state
within the borders of another without the consent of the latter. The Indians,
therefore, had two choices: they could “emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States.”
Jackson’s address
publicly clarified his recognition of the sovereign rights of the states over
the Indian country within their borders. Previous administrations, even as they
defended removal as the ideal policy solution to the growing “crisis in Indian
affairs,” had been unwilling to force the Indians to move. Indeed, the course
of federal Indian policy since the 1790s had been the opposite as it sought to
exclude and remove state involvement and interference and to emphasize the
nation-to-nation relation between the United States and the tribes. Jackson’s decision to actively support
removal, therefore, was revolutionary, and political opponents seized on it as
another demonstration of the president’s regressive understanding of the nature
of the federal union.
First Annual Message to Congress (1829)
Andrew Jackson
It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them
the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a
wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly
incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them,
we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust
them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in
a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to
their fate.... A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much
with the whites and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have
lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of
Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within
their territories, extended their laws over the Indians, which induced the
latter to call upon the United States for
protection....
I informed the
Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their
attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the
Executive of the United States, and advised
them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to
the laws of those States....
Our ancestors
found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and
force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to
mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but
remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible name. Surrounded
by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the
resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the
Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast
overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate
surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not
admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should
be made to avert so great a calamity....
As a means of
effecting this end I suggest for your consideration the propriety of setting
apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limit of any
State or Territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as
they shall occupy it.... There they may be secured in the enjoyment of
governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United
States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and
between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the
arts of civilization....
This emigration
would be voluntary, for it would be as cruel and unjust to compel the aborigines
to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But
they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the
States they must be subject to their laws....
State of the Union Address, 1830, Andrew Jackson
The next
selection comes from Jackson’s second State of the Union message, presented on December 6,
1830. In it the president takes pride in the unfolding of his policy, extols
its virtues, and predicts success. But the president still looks for vindication
and is anxious for a speedy conclusion. Things will continue to go well, he
assures his opponents, encouraging everyone to join in the humane task of
convincing the tribes that so far have refused to retreat that for their own
good they must do so now.
What are the
benefits of removal that Jackson recounts? Are they important and valuable? Could they have
been achieved in some other way? What is the tone of his expressions of
sympathy for the Indians? How does Jackson position
himself as “helping” the Indians, much as a father would help his children?
ANDREW JACKSON
State of the Union Address
December 6, 1830
It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that
the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty
years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements
is approaching to a happy consummation…
Humanity has often wept over the fate of the
aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily employed in
devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been
arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth.
To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of
extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles
the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation
to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an unknown people,
spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a
once powerful race, which was exterminated or has disappeared to make room for
the existing savage tribes. Nor is there anything in this which, upon a
comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be
regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the
condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer
a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our
extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms,
embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute,
occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the
blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?
The present policy of the Government is but a
continuation of the same progressive change by a milder process. The tribes
which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were
annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of
population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to
acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair
exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land
where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual. Doubtless it
will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did or than our children are
now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land our forefathers left
all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children by thousands yearly leave
the land of their birth to seek new homes in distant regions. Does Humanity
weep at these painful separations from everything, animate and inanimate, with
which the young heart has become entwined? Far from it.
It is rather a source of joy that our country affords scope where our young
population may range unconstrained in body or in mind, developing the power and
faculties of man in their highest perfection. These remove hundreds and almost
thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and
support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival. Can it
be cruel in this Government when, by events which it can not control, the
Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give
him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and
support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would
gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If
the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with
gratitude and joy.
And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a
stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it
more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our
brothers and children? Rightly 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 new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and
settlement.