Andrew Jackson's attitude toward the Indians Essay

Andrew Jackson's attitude toward the Indians - Essay Example His past involvement, in the defeat of the Creek Indians, could have been his motivation to champion the removal of Cherokee Indians to avoid a repeat of what happened with the Creeks. This essay aims to determine the reasons behind his support for the Removal Act and establish if there were any other underlying factors or ambitions to encourage this. Andrew Jackson’s attitude towards the Indians was based on his past encounters with the Indians in war and peaceful negotiations. He was the commanding general in the defeat of the Creek Indians, and he experienced the devastation the war brought to the Indian tribes. He wanted to help the Cherokee Indians avoid the ravages of war (Stewart 11). Jackson addressed the congress in the first Annual Message of 1829, elaborating his stand on the Indian issue by castigating the congress over their support of the idea of assimilating the tribes. He instead promoted the idea of relocating the Cherokee Indians to the West of the Mississippi from the Eastern side. The reason for Jackson’s support of the Removal Act was because, as the leader of the Tennessee militia he had tried along with his troops, to make sure that the whites and the Indians respected each other’s rights. This endeavor proved to be a losing battle because white civilization had a greater, impact on the native Indian’s lifestyle, than they had on the white population who saw them as savages. His deployment of hundreds of soldiers to quell the friction between the settlers and the natives led to more casualties than was projected. As president, Andrew Jackson proposed to congress that the best way to deal with the Indian situation; as he considered it, was to offer them more treaties; guaranteeing their rightful ownership of land that they occupied west of the Mississippi. He did this by rooting for the dissolution of the American Bank that gave him powers to control the finances of the state’s largest sole source of revenue. He used this monetary power to issue incentives to Indians who were willing to leave on their own accord. He promised compensation to every woman, child, and man, who voluntarily left the Eastern Mississippi territory for the Western Mississippi frontier (Stewart 23). Jackson’s ethical grounding was based on the fact that his administratio n wanted to save the Cherokee Indians, of the humiliation of going against the United States, which would eventually lead to their defeat as witnessed by the Indian Creek war. The Cherokee Indians would not prosper under the Georgian laws because they had a different way of life and their customs did not rhyme with those of the white settlers. Their youths, especially the young men were already used to frequenting the local bars and getting intoxicated, and their response to this new found past time was a reaction that was not tolerated by the then laws. He thus offered the Cherokee Indians a better alternative of the leaving the Eastern banks of the Mississippi. The Jackson administration offered to compensate the Indian Cherokees for whatever land they had occupied in the Eastern banks (Stewart 31). Jackson reiterated to the people that his sole ambition was to protect the Cherokee Indians from extinction as other Indian tribes had perished The discovery of gold in the state of Ca rolina could have been an underlying factor to Jackson’s increased zeal to get rid of the Cherokee Indi