Indian Removal

Indian Removal was the U.S. government’s 19th-century policy of forcibly relocating Indigenous nations from eastern homelands, chiefly to territory west of the Mississippi River.

Indian Removal Act: An 1830 U.S. law authorizing the president to negotiate exchanges of Indigenous lands east of the Mississippi for lands farther west. It supplied the federal authority used to pursue the policy.
Manifest Destiny: The 19th-century belief that U.S. expansion across North America was justified or destined. Expansionist ideology helped legitimize taking Indigenous homelands.
Andrew Jackson: The seventh U.S. president, who supported Indigenous removal and signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. His administration drove the federal policy from legislation to forced migration.
Five Civilized Tribes: A historical U.S. label for the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole nations of the Southeast. These five nations were among those most affected by removal.
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: An 1831 Supreme Court case that classified the Cherokee Nation as a domestic dependent nation rather than a foreign state. The decision narrowed the Cherokee Nation’s options for challenging Georgia in federal court.
Treaty of New Echota: An 1835 agreement ceding Cherokee lands in the southeastern United States in exchange for territory west of the Mississippi. The U.S. used this disputed treaty to claim Cherokee consent to removal.
Cotton Kingdom: The plantation region of the American South where cotton production and slavery expanded rapidly in the 19th century. Demand for fertile cotton land intensified pressure to expel southeastern nations.
John Ross: A principal chief of the Cherokee Nation who led resistance to removal in the 1830s. He challenged the treaty used to justify Cherokee displacement.
Muscogee people: An Indigenous people whose historic homelands include much of present-day Alabama and Georgia. Muscogee communities were forcibly displaced from southeastern homelands.
Indian treaty rights: Rights and obligations established by treaties between Indigenous nations and governments. Treaty protections conflicted with the coercive agreements used to authorize removal.

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