Indian Removal Act

Agree or Disagree: The removal of Native Americans from their lands by the Indian Removal Act of 1830 violated their political, legal, and human rights.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830, was signed by President Andrew Jackson on May 28th. This act, stripped the Native Americans from their political, legal , and human rights by dragging them out of their homes, forcing them to move elsewhere just so that early Americans could expand their land capacity. The Native Americans were raped, tortured, and brutally killed for the better of the Americans.

President Andrew Jackson stated, "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms?" The president was all for this "Indian Removal act" that murdered hundreds upon thousands of our living history of America. How can such a powerful man, or monster, in which we voted to rule our country, do such a thing? Chief Justice John Marshall stated in the Excerpt from Cherokee Nation vs. State of Georgia, 1831, "If it be true that the Cherokee nation has rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future." He was totally against the Removal act, but that didn't stop President Jackson. He was determined to have this act placed upon the Native Americans.

Many memorials and protests took place, stating how happy and perfectly fine the Native Americans were with the treaties that were put into place, but when this act was proposed, their humanity was taken away from them. Although the constitution states that the Native Americans had virtually no rights to begin with, their rights as a human were physically removed for the better of the Americans. Cherokee Chief John Ross said, "We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defense" This quote was entirely true.

John G. Burnett, an eye witness of this brutal mass dehumanizing of the Native Americans, said, "I witnessed the execution of the most brutal order in the History of American Warfare. I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades." This experience must have been heart breaking to go through, for those who were not for this act. Just the thought of it can send tingles up the spine of any sane human.

Although the Native Americans were not all killed off, they were still affected physically and mentally. To think you are high than someone, because you are more "civilized", doesn't give the right to strip a human being of their human rights. This act is sickening in entirety. If this were to happen in present