The 1830 Indian Removal Act is best understood as an illustration of the widespread hatred of Indians during the Age of Jackson.
Explanation:
When Jackson rose to power the situation with the American Indians was extremely tense. Just a few years before, in 1815, the country began to expand towards the west and ran into the tribes of American Indians who had inhabited the country for centuries. Those occupied lands aroused the desires of the colonies, which initiated a series of campaigns to get the Natives to travel further west in exchange for all economic royalties.
In fact, already during Jefferson's tenure (in office between 1801 and 1809) it had been established that the only natives who could stay east of the Mississippi would be those who had "civilized" and could coexist with the "white man." Based on this, those that had remained in the region were the Chicksaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole and Cherokee tribes. These, in exchange for maintaining their territories, had fixed their settlements, tilled the land, divided their land into private property and had adopted democracy. Some became Christian (at least in appearance) so as not to be expelled from the area.
In 1830, just one year after taking power, Jackson decided to solve the Indian problem by the brave. That is, creating a law to deport them further west. That year, the Indian Removal Act was passed, which obliged the Indians to move to lands west of the Mississippi and authorized the president of the United States to act against all those located to the east of the Mississippi river.
Officially, the politician made this decision because of the need for land to produce cotton and for "national security" (to avoid conflicts between Indians and Americans). However, in addition to these two causes and his own racism, Jackson also sought to create a human barrier between the United States and the regions under the control of other transatlantic powers. With them, Jackson not only sought to empty the Indian territories colonized west of the Mississippi Indian conflicts, but also create a security belt to the Spanish and British threat that was still installed in large North American territories.
Regardless of the cause, in practice, tens of thousands of Indians were urged to leave the houses in which they lived (their lands for centuries) to leave for "reserved" territories.
At the official level, Jackson claimed that the natives had the possibility of refusing this "relocation" and keeping their home in the United States. However, the reality was that the government (at the head of which was the president) exerted a brutal pressure on the tribal chiefs to leave. In addition, they made it clear that, in the face of the refusal, they would use force.
