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The Effects Of The Indian Removal Act

Decent Essays

“The Cherokees are nearly all prisoners. They have been dragged from their houses, and encamped at the forts and military posts, all over the nation” (Jones 1838). This is an excerpt from a letter Evan Jones, a Baptist missionary to the Cherokees, wrote to the Baptist Missionary Magazine. Jones lived with the Cherokees for forty-seven years he even translated the Bible into Cherokee. Although when President Jackson pushed the Indian Removal Act he claimed it would be beneficial for the indigenous people Evan Jones painted a much different picture. The Indian Removal Act was signed into effect by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, starting a mass migration later referred to as the trail of tears. The American government compromised their integrity with their self-serving reasons for the Indian Removal Act, coercing signatures on the Treaty of Echota, and the deplorable treatment of Cherokees upon the Trail of Tears.
The faulty reasoning behind the Indian Removal Act began almost forty years prior to President Jackson signature and ended with racism and a thirst for gold and land. The Indian Removal Act was not the first policy in place claiming to remove the Native Americans for their own benefit. It was first stated by Henry Knox on July 2, 1791, in the Treaty of Holston. Later when Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801 he began using more aggressive tactics for negotiating with the Native Americans such as threats, intimidation, and bribery. Jefferson’s

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