Answer to Question #320111 in History for Myreen

Question

Relate the reasons and methods used in the relocation of Indians to the West side of the Mississippi River, and include Jackson’s role in the process.

Answer 1

Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians' land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. Similarly, they  believed that removing Indians to territories west of the Mississippi River would be the only means of ensuring Native American survival during a time of encroaching American settlement.

The Indians were moved between the 1830 Indian Removal Act and 1850, the U.S. government used forced treaties and/or U.S. Army action to move about 100,000 American Indians living east of the Mississippi River, westward to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.

President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy.