Indian Removal Act
Since the early political times in the United States, the Indians and the European settlers were engaged in conflict regarding the land and resources occupied by the Indians. The federal government came up with plans to relocate the Native Americans from their homeland to the west of River Mississippi.Georgia did not approve the bill brought before the House of representatives; hence it didn’t go through.
Quincy Adams, the then president, viewed that this issue was supposed to be settled peacefully. The Georgia state was a significant obstacle to the implementation of voluntary relocation of the Native Americans from their homelands’ Act came to be implemented later during the time of Andrew Jackson. The removal saw many Indian tribes lose their ancestral land in conflicts like the TrailTrail of tears with the Cherokee people (Bowes,2014).
Andrew Johnson’s administration employed the use of monetary compensation and provision of new land to the Indian communities. They asked the Indians to relocate willingly to avoid conflicts. They tried to persuade the Native Indians to move away from their homeland and move further east to avoid the influence of the American settlers. Johnsons Administration wanted there to be a fair exchange for the promising land money to support the Indians and cover their relocation costs (Bowes,2014).
In 1828 the Cherokee people’s constitution was revoked by Johnson, this move prompted the Cherokee people to move to the supreme court to be exempted from the rules of Georgian state as they were a different nation. The court found that the Cherokee people were a different community, but they weren’t a different nation. Chief Justice Marshall declared the Cherokee free of authority from the Georgia State (Purdue,2004).
Johnson was reluctant in enforcing the Supreme courts ruling and initiated the Indian removal act. In this Act, the Natives were supposed to relocate at will, but the Johnson Administration abused the Act and often engaged in Forced Relocation of the Indians. The forced removals saw the Trail of Tears, as well as many conflicts, rise.
The TrailTrail of tears saw many Cherokee people die in the conflict, and many fell ill during the TrailTrail and ended up death (Purdue,2004). The Indians lost their homelands as a result and had to lose most of their belongings. Their ancestral lands were left behind. The conflict between the Federal government and the Indians saw both sides have a lot of casualties, as the federal government lost a lot of resources in this conflict. The impacts of the disputes were detrimental to the Native Indians as most communities lost their members, leading to their numbers gradually decreasing.
The impact of Indian removal was very detrimental as the Indian communities lost a lot of warriors in the conflict. Many families were separated and their ancestral connections disrupted due to the invasion of their ancestral lands. The Indians lost their fertile lands, others lost their lives and most lost their religions and tradition. They ended up gaining a new education and religion. Specifically, the Cherokee people embraced western education (Bowes,2014). Why would the Cherokee People embrace the new religion and education despite suffering under the white settlers in their lands?
References
Bowes, J. P. (2014). American Indian Removal beyond the Removal Act. Journal of the Native
American and Indigenous Studies Association, 1(1), 65-87.
Purdue, T. (2004). Race and Culture: Writing the Ethnohistory of the Early
South. Ethnohistory, 51(4), 701-723.