Indian Removal Act Of 1830 Flashcards, test questions and answers

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What is Indian Removal Act Of 1830?

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a legislation passed by the United States Congress, which authorized the President to negotiate with Native American tribes for their removal from lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for land west of the river. The Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830 and it was a major part of his policy agenda to relocate eastern tribes in order to make way for white settlers. This Act caused great suffering and hardship among many Native American communities as they were forcibly relocated and deprived of their ancestral homelands.The Indian Removal Act initially provided $500,000 to be used towards negotiating treaties with Native American nations that would remove them from lands east of the Mississippi River and relocate them westward. The government offered an inadequate amount of money as compensation for land that had been held by these communities for centuries and had immense spiritual, cultural, economic, and ecological significance for them. In addition to this monetary compensation, many tribal leaders were promised education and services such as food rations or annuities if they agreed to sign away their rights over their lands. Even with these promises made by the government officials present at treaty negotiations, most tribes refused at first due to insufficient terms or because they knew what other tribes had suffered when they gave up their land through previous acts such as this one. Despite resistance from many tribal leaders not all groups refused; some signed away rights over their ancestral homelands in exchange for minimal compensation or simply out of fear that refusing would result in further action against them by US forces. Those who did agree were then subjected to forced relocation during which thousands died due to disease epidemics or starvation; those who survived were sent on what has become infamously known as the Trail of Tears where more than 4 thousand Cherokee people died from exposure or illness along the way. The devastating effects that this act had on indigenous populations are still felt today; however it is also important to remember its role in furthering US national expansion and how entangled policies like this one continue even now within our current socio-political context especially since it has served as precedent for similar laws affecting Indigenous peoples throughout history such as termination policies enacted during 1950s-1960s America which sought out termination all recognition rights between tribal nations & federal government thus stripping away native sovereignty entirely (under guise promoting assimilation).