Safi Ahmad
Fischer
US History
Oct. 29, 2014
Term Paper In 1830, in an effort to expand the United States further west, Congress issued a removal policy, putting great pressure on Native Americans to leave their ancestor’s land so various states could instead inhabit it. The government had originally tried to buy the land from the Native Americans, however, they refused to sell their sacred land, so the government felt obliged to move the Indians. Though the Removal Act was technically voluntary, most understood the Native Americans were actually being forced off of their land by extreme pressure from the government. Historians Francis Paul Prucha and Edward Pessen take opposing views on Andrew Jackson’s decision, with Prucha claiming Jackson …show more content…
Prucha argues that Jackson was unfairly portrayed as an “Indian-Hater”, a characterization that he says was very far from the truth. The removal policy was enacted to allow the citizens of the United States to receive more land and expand westward to promote the civilization of the land. Though by giving the citizens more land to expand, the government had to take it from the Indians, Prucha argues that there were no better options for the Indians. Instead of peacefully removing the Indians from their respective homes, Jackson could have ordered the merciless killings of the Indians, which would have served the same purpose as Jackson’s removal, to promote national security and allow settlers to cultivate new land. Another option was to force the Indians to assimilate to Western Culture, eventually taking over their land and their tribes. Prucha asserts that Jackson believed, the only way to truly protect the culture of the Native Americans was to extract them from the grasps of the dominating Western Culture that was so close to them. Based on this, Prucha believes that Jackson was strongly considering the well-being of the Indians and what they wanted when making …show more content…
He asserts that Jackson just wanted the southern tribes out of their land by any means so that the citizens of the US could move into the Indian land. One of his methods was justification based on the higher laws of nature, asserting that because the Indians were barbaric, they were lesser people than US citizens and could be taken from, a claim that was very far to the truth. Though the Removal Act was supposed to be voluntary, Pessen believes that the government forced the Native Americans into agreeing to sign over their land to the government. It is also claimed that Jackson did not care about the Indians because of how badly they were treated in their migration from their ancestral land to the new land they received from the government. The US failed to provide any support during their journeys and as a result, many died in the trek. Even after all of this, Jackson, in his last message to Congress, compliments the states on the removal of the Indians. Pessen believes that on how Jackson’s treatment towards the Indians, it is obvious that he did not care about them at all and just wanted them out of their land at any