Thoughts on the Indian Removal Act
The entire history of the United States involved people relocating from their origins to
somewhere else for a different life. British citizens moving away across the sea away from the
British control and ruling to have independent religious and governmental control. The British
citizens developed their own country, through years of war/fighting to become United States of
America citizens, but at what cost? While developing their own country and moving west they
drove and forced Native Americans from their land. The Native Americans had lived on that land
for thousands of years and the colonist/Americans took it right from underneath them. The
Americans ended up forcefully removed Native Americans from their native lands and
relocating them. The action of the Indian Removal was both seen as an unhonourable and brutal
action of away the freedom of a native people and as the Americans taking a stand and creating
the country they need to succeed.
The actions and ideas of Indian Removal were looked down upon by people within the
country and others around the world. The United States had foreign observers who would come
into the country and watch everything that they are doing. One of those visitors was
Englishwoman Frances Trollope, she wrote in journals about what she saw in the government
and the people, along with what she witnessed with the Indian Removal. Trollope wrote about
the actions she saw the leaders and americans take that contradicted with what they fought for to
become a country. The Americans “boast of liberality and the love of freedom”
1
, because they
fought against the british power that was believed to have “favoured the powerful and oppressed
the weak”
2
However, the American leaders were almost becoming like the power they fought
against and not making honourable moves for the future.
Trollope stated “You will see them one hour lecturing … on the indefeasible rights of
man and the next driving from their homes the children of the soil.”
3
Trollope saw multiple
examples in her time in America of the countries leaders and citizens tearing down another
culture and overpowering them. Even though the Americans had fought for their freedom and
having land of their own they turned around and took the freedom and land from the native
people in America. There were even American Citizens that were against the Indian Removal
and relocation. These reformers went to the Congress fighting against the Act and warned them
that the president’s “plan would bring “enduring shame” on the nation.”
4
They fought with
everything that they could to stop the government from going through with the Indian Removal
