Indian Removal Act

What happened

President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. Its title says it provides "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi."

The law did not order anyone to move. Section 1 lets the President divide land west of the Mississippi, outside any state or organized territory, into districts "for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there." Section 3 lets him assure a tribe the United States will "forever secure and guaranty" the new country, with a patent if the tribe prefers. The land would revert to the United States if the Indians became extinct or abandoned it. Section 4 has the United States pay for improvements on land given up. Section 5 provides help moving and a year of support, and Section 8 appropriates $500,000.

Section 7 says nothing in the Act authorizes violating an existing treaty. The National Archives says the Act authorized the President to negotiate removal treaties with tribes east of the Mississippi, mainly in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina, and that the goal was to send them to unsettled land in the west.

What followed is described by the Archives: the Cherokee were forced west in 1838-39, and "approximately 4,000 of 16,000 Cherokees died along the way." In Worcester v. Georgia (1832) the Supreme Court held the Cherokee nation was "a distinct community" in which Georgia's laws "can have no force."

Summarized with AI assistance from 5 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error