Acto+de+RemocíonIndio

The **[|Indian Removal] Act** was signed into law by [|President] [|Andrew Jackson] on May 28, 1830 to authorize the removal of Indian tribes to federal territory west of the Mississippi River.[|[][|1][|]][|[][|2][|]] President Andrew Jackson called for an Indian Removal Act in his 1829 speech on the issue. The Indian Removal Act is today highly controversial. While [|Native American] removal was, in theory, supposed to be voluntary, in practice great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. Most observers, whether they were in favor of the Indian removal policy or not, realized that the passage of the act meant the inevitable removal of most Indians from the states. Some Native American leaders who had previously resisted removal now began to reconsider their positions, especially after Jackson's [|landslide re-election in 1832]. Affected tribes included the [|Cherokee], [|Chickasaw], [|Choctaw], [|Creek], and [|Seminole].[|[][|3][|]] The Removal Act was strongly supported in the [|South], where states were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the [|Five Civilized Tribes]. In particular, [|Georgia], the largest state at that time, was involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the [|Cherokee] nation. President Jackson hoped removal would resolve the Georgia crisis.[|[][|3][|]] Most European Americans favored the passage of the Indian Removal Act, though there was significant opposition. Many Christian [|missionaries], most notably missionary organizer [|Jeremiah Evarts], protested against passage of the Act. Future U.S. President [|Abraham Lincoln] also opposed the Indian Removal Act. In Congress, [|New Jersey Senator] [|Theodore Frelinghuysen] and Congressman [|Davy Crockett] of [|Tennessee] spoke out against the legislation. The Removal Act was passed after bitter debate in Congress.[|[][|4][|]] The Removal Act paved the way for the reluctant—and often forcible—emigration of tens of thousands of American Indians to the West. The first removal treaty signed after the Removal Act was the [|Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek] on September 27, 1830, in which [|Choctaws] in [|Mississippi] ceded land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West. A Choctaw chief, thought to be Thomas Harkins or Nitikechi, was quoted in the //Arkansas Gazette// as saying the 1831 Choctaw removal was a "trail of tears and death".[|[][|5][|]][|[][|6][|]] The [|Treaty of New Echota], signed in 1835, resulted in the removal of the Cherokee on the [|Trail of Tears]. The Seminoles did not leave peacefully as did other tribes; along with fugitive slaves they resisted the removal. The [|Second Seminole War] lasted from 1835 to 1842 and resulted in the forced removal of Seminoles, only a small number to remain, and around 3,000 were killed amongst American soldiers and Seminoles.[|[][|7][|]] In the 1823 case of //[|Johnson v. M'Intosh]//, the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands.[|[][|8][|]] Jackson, as was common before the Civil War, viewed the union as a federation of sovereign states. He opposed Washington’s policy of establishing treaties with Indian tribes as if they were foreign nations. Thus, the creation of Indian jurisdictions was a violation of state sovereignty under [|Article IV, Section 3] of the Constitution. As Jackson saw it either Indians comprise sovereign states (which violated the constitution) or they are subject to the laws of existing states of the Union. Jackson urged Indians to assimilate and obey state laws. He believed he could only accommodate the desire for Indian self-rule in federal territory and that required re-settlement west of the Mississippi River on federal land.[|[][|9][|]][|[][|10][|]]