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Arjun Rajesh
5/7/2010 10:54:03 pm

There were many reasons why Andrew Jackson wanted to have the Native Americans moved to the West. He felt so strongly about it, that he refused to enforce a direct law passed by the supreme court to let the Native Americans stay where they were in the East. Native Americans were not citizens, they could not vote, they had no representatives in Senate, and they were not part of the settler community. I think that Jackson thought that they were a waste of space and that he should position them somewhere far away where they can't bother anyone or do any harm. Also they were occupying valuable tracts of farmland. Obviously Jackson was upset that the Natives were getting the good farmland and felt that he and the settlers would use the land in a better way by farming it while the natives were worshipping it. Also he didn't trust Native Americans. He was afraid that Native Americans would raid or attack his people. He wanted them far out of the way. Also he had personal grudges against the Native Americans. Things like the creek wars made him hate the Naitve Americans and he wanted the worst for them. I think that Jackson had a couple of good reasons for wanting to get rid of the Indians, but when the Supreme Court passes a law it is the president's job to follow it. Also Jackson had no business to push them off their land. The least he could have done was provide them with a better way to transport themselves instead of having to take the Trail of Tears.

Textbook
Class Notes
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/andrew.htm

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fail
4/10/2013 11:42:51 pm

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Molly
5/9/2010 05:33:39 am

There were many reason why Andrew Jackson wanted to move the Native Americans to the west. The main reason was that the white settlers that were there already and trying to plant food and grow whatever they needed to grow couldn't because the Native Americans had so much land. The white settlers really wanted the Native Americans to move so that they could use that land for other things. They complained about their "obstacle" to the federal government. In 1814, Jackson mad it so that the Creeks actually lost like 22 acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. They then got more land in 1818 when Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida. And from 1814 to 1824, Jackson negotiated with the Native Americans. He said that they could have more land in the west if the white settlers could have their eastern lands, and the Native Americans agreed.

In my opinion, i think that whole thing was very wrong. Like Jackson didn't have to make the native Americans move away from their homes. Why did they have to be the ones to leave? They white settlers could've have gotten their land from other places, not just exactly where the Native Americans were living. But also, the Native Americans didn't have to be pushed around like that, they could have stayed and not agreed to Jackson's negotiation.

sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html
class notes

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Jiayi diao
5/9/2010 12:20:59 pm

There were many reasons why Andrew Jackson wanted to have the Native Americans moved to the West
I think it's because the Native Americans own large land in the east, if the Native Americans still own that land they had, it will be very hard for the white settlers to grow food or build anything, because the land was owned by the Native Americans . So Andrew Jackson wanted them to move west, to get away from all the new cities and states

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Jessica Reed
5/13/2010 09:56:20 am

Andrew Jackson wanted to move the Native Americans west for two main reasons. First of all, Andrew Jackson believed in supporting the common man. His whole presidency and platform was centered on this idea. However, the common man did not include minorities such as African Americans and Native Americans. Consequently, when these minorities tried to disrupt his efforts of helping the common people, Jackson would not be happy. As a result, when white settlers, who were also, considered common people, tried to move into Native American lands and were denied, Jackson became upset. The people he had been helping were being resisted and he had to do something about it. So, he did two things. First, he ignored the Supreme Court decision that allowed the Native Americans their right to their land. Secondly, he created the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced the Native Americans to move west and out of the area where the white settlers wanted to live. Jackson’s interest in the advancement of the common people and the not the Native Americans was one the reasons of forcing them west. A second reason Jackson claimed he wanted to more the Native Americans west was that he wanted it for their own benefit. He felt that if they moved west they would not be harassed by the white settlers, and that they could resettle in the west and live peacefully. Yet, this was seen as an excuse to many people, and I think it was. I think that the first reason for why Jackson wanted the Native Americans to move west was the most candid. The second reason was most likely an excuse to make the first reason not seem as bad.

Personally, I think that Andrew Jackson should have not only put the welfare of the common people in mind, but the Native Americans as well. In fact, the Native Americans most likely needed government help more than the white settlers because of the degradation they had suffered through in previous years. They were just trying to rebuild themselves as a society, and continuous harassment and exclusion was not helping.

Sources:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h335.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/betterment

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