28 Andrew Jackson (II)

A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 8: Andrew Jackson (I)

JACKSON’SMAJOR ISSUES

The Indian Removal Act of 1830Resolution of the Nullification CrisisDismantling of the national bank

JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY

• Expand suffrage to all white men, not just landowners.

• Increase the settlement of the west by yeoman farmers, since it is the destiny of the United States to reach the Pacific.

• Reward political supporters with patronage positions in government.

• Leave the federal government out of economic affairs to allow the economy to run itself.

• Dismantle the national bank.

IMPORTANT TRIBES AND LANGUAGE GROUPS

Algonquian (Pequot and Powhatan)Iroquois (Mohawk)Muskogean (Cherokee and Choctaw)Sioux (Lakota)

THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES: CHEROKEE, CHICKASAW, CHOCTAW, CREEK (MUSCOGEE), AND SEMINOLE

THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT (1830)

• Authorized the President to negotiate with the Five Civilized Tribes, offering to relocate them to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their tribal homelands.

• Until 1830, the Five Civilized Tribes were recognized as autonomous nations within the borders of the United States.

• Jackson believed that the tribes either had to be subject to the laws of the states they lived in, or had to live on federal territory in order to practice self-rule.

THE FOUNDING OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY

Although relocation was theoretically voluntary for the tribes, Jackson raised the possibility of military action against those

who did not accept their removal.

A portion of arid land in present-day Oklahoma was established as the

‘Indian Territory,’ and the tribes were sent there to start their lives anew.

THE TRAIL OF TEARS

• More than 16,000 Choctaw Indians moved to the Indian Territory. At least two thousand, and as many as six thousand, died of disease, exposure, and malnutrition along the way.

• 15,000 Creek were removed. They did not move peacefully, and at least two thousand of them were put in chains and marched westward by soldiers in the United States Army.

• 4,000 Chickasaw were removed. At least five hundred died of disease along the way.

THE TRAIL OF TEARS

• The Cherokee did not move peacefully. Their nation was invaded by federal troops, their homes and crops were burned, and they were rounded up into camps before being marched westward.

• Alexander de Tocqueville watched the Indians pass through Memphis, Tennessee, in 1831: “[T]here was an air of ruin and destruction… final and irrevocable… [O]ne couldn’t watch without feeling one’s heart wrung. They were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn.”

THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR

• The Seminole tribe resisted westward relocation and fought a war against United States military forces until 1839.

• Colonel Zachary Taylor won the war after years of bloodshed.

• The Seminole forces were led by the young war chief Osceola and a man known as John Horse, who was half Seminole and half African-American.

• Freed and runaway slaves fought alongside the Seminole.

JEFFERSON’S INFLUENCE

• The idea of Indian removal did not originate under Andrew Jackson. The possibility of moving the Indians westward was partly what motivated Thomas Jefferson to make the Louisiana Purchase.

• In 1803, Jefferson wrote to Attorney General John C. Breckinridge: “[T]he best use we can make of the [new western territory] for some time, will be to give establishments in it to the Indians on the East side of the Missipi, in exchange for their present country,… & thus make [the Louisiana Purchase] the means of filling up the Eastern side [with white settlers].”

WHY REMOVETHE INDIANS?

• Jackson appears to have had humanitarian motivations. He genuinely believed that moving the Five Civilized Tribes to the Indian Territory was the best thing for them because they faced danger from settlers.

• This belief came from what is now known as ‘dying race theory.’ Prevalent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this theory held that races of people who were ‘inferior’ to white people were effectively ‘destined’ to die out, and white people had a responsibility to make their last years as comfortable as possible.

A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 8: Andrew Jackson (I)