of Jackson the "age of the common man?"" />of Jackson the "age of the common man?"" />
National Geographic Society, Caryl-Sue. “1830: Indian Removal Act.” This Day in Geographic History , National Geographic Society, 30 Apr. 2014, www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/may28/indian-removal-act/. Accessed 11 Nov. 2017.
[War and Pestillence! Horrible and unparalelled i.e. massacre! women and children falling victims to the Indian's tomahawk] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .
This broadside appeared as late as 1832 and was based on a true story about the murder of women and children on the frontier. Many best-selling books at the time involved Indian kidnapping and murder.
Image attribution: By The original uploader was BlueSalix at Wikipedia (http://www.clements.umich.edu/) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Great_Father_Andrew_Jackson_%281835%29.png
An engraving from the 1830s depicting Andrew Jackson as the Great Father. Jackson vigorously pursued the policy of removal that forced eastern Indian nations to move west of the Mississippi in the 1830s. Opponents of removal mocked Jackson's professed compassion for Native Americans by depicting him as a paternal figure comforting Indian "children."
The Trail of Tears is one of the greatest atrocities committed by the American government on its own people. But how did this happen? How did Andrew Jackson convince America to allow this awful Act
to pass into law?
December 5, 1830
It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent [kind] policy of the government. in relation to the removal of the Indians. is approaching to a happy consummation [end]. The consequences of [this act] will be important to the United States, to individual states, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary [monetary] advantages which it promises to the government are the least of its recommendations… It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters… [It] will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent [near] states strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will… enable those states to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the states; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will [slow] the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the government and through the influence of good counsels [advisors], to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community…
Toward the aborigines [Native Americans] of the country no one can indulge [enjoy] a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and philanthropy [volunteer work] has been long busily employed on devising [creating] means to avert [their death], but it’s [Native Americans’] progress has never for a moment been arrested [stopped], and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive republic, studded [filled] with cities, towns, and prosperous [rich] farms, embellished [decorated] with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12 million happy people and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?
