Transcript of President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress 'On Indian
Removal' (1830)
"It gives me pleasure to announce to
Congress that the benevolent policy of
the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty
years, in relation
to the removal of the Indians beyond the
white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation.
Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their
removal at the last session of Congress,
and it is believed
that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek
the same obvious advantages.
The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United
States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves.
The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government
are the
least of its recommendations.
It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between
the authorities of the General and State Governments on account
of
the Indians.
It will
place a dense and civilized population in large
tracts of
country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole
territory between
Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the
settlement
of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern
frontier
and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future
invasions without remote aid.
It will relieve the whole State
of Mississippi
and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy,
and 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
retard 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, to cast off their savage habits and
become
an interesting,
civilized, and Christian community.
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 embellished with
all the
improvements which
art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more
than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all
the blessings
of liberty,
civilization and religion?
Continue—Indian Removal speech
