What Everybody Ought To Study About U.S. History From 1787 to 1838 For the CSET

Jul
05

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several paragraphs to the policy of Indian removal (without ever mentioning the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by name), along with other oblique references to the perception and treatment of

aboriginal Americans. To a certain extent the Indian issue defines his Presidency; no other policy spans Jackson’s entire eight-year term with such a steady concentration of resources.

Being a British Columbian, living in a Canadian province still struggling with both its Indian affairs legacy and its present relations with its aboriginal inhabitants, what disturbs me most when reading these documents is just how little our language for discussing these issues has changed in 170 years, how subtly and insidiously ingrained the patterns of thought apparent in these messages remain in our present culture.

First Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1829
In which, in the closing paragraphs of the speech, Jackson lays out his policy for relocating Indians of the east to territories west of the Mississippi. This policy becomes law as the Indian Removal Act by his next annual address. An excerpt from the speech:

“Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for awhile their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity.” — Andrew Jackson

Second Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1830
Jackson announces Indian Removal nearing consumation; the Chocktaw and Chickasaw peoples agree to relocation; this development will induce other tribes to follow; states his good-will toward aboriginal people;

“Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a

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