Andrew Jackson in United States

President Andrew Jackson’s Message to Congress ‘On Indian Removal’ (1830)

On December 6, 1830, in a message to Congress, President Andrew Jackson called for the relocation of eastern Native American tribes to land west of the Mississippi River, in order to open new land for settlement by citizens of the United States.

With the onset of westward expansion and increased contact with Indian tribes, President Jackson set the tone for his position on Indian affairs in his message to Congress on December 6, 1830. Jackson’s message justified the removal policy already established by the Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830.

The Indian Removal Act was passed to open up for settlement those lands still held by Indians in states east of the Mississippi River, primarily Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, and others. Jackson declared that removal would “incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier.” Clearing Alabama and Mississippi of their Indian populations, he said, would “enable those states to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power.”

White inhabitants of Georgia were particularly anxious to have the Cherokees removed from the state because gold had been discovered on tribal lands. Violence was commonplace in Georgia, and in all likelihood, a portion of the tribe would have been decimated if they had not been removed.

Removal of the Indian tribes continued beyond Jackson’s tenure as President. The most infamous of the removals took place in 1838, two years after the end of Jackson’s final term, when the Cherokee Indians were forcibly removed by the military. Their journey west became known as the “Trail of Tears,” because of the thousands of deaths along the way.

President Andrew Jackson’s Message to Congress ‘On Indian Removal’ (1830) is one of the 100 Most U.S. Influential Documents

Source: The People’s Vote, National Archives of the United States.

Jackson, Andrew (1767_1845)

United States Constitution

According to theEncyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled JACKSON, ANDREW (1767_1845) Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, was the son of Irish immigrant parents who had settled in the South Carolina backcountry. Drifting to North Carolina after the Revolutionary war, he read enough law to gain admission to the bar. When only
(read more about Constitutional law entries here).

Some Constitutional Law Popular Entries

Election of 1828: Andrew Jackson

Election of 1832: Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson in the U.S. Legal History

Summary

As major general during the War of 1812, he defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and a British army at the Battle of New Orleans. In 1818, he led an American incursion into Spanish-held Florida. He served as seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837.

Andrew Jackson