At the time Andrew Jackson became president in 1829, 125,000 Native Americans still lived east of the Mississippi River. Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek Indians - 60,000 strong - held millions of acres in what would become the southern Cotton Kingdom stretching across Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The political question was whether these Indian tribes would be permitted to block white expansion.

By 1840, Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren, had answered this question. All Indians east of the Mississippi had been uprooted from their homelands and moved westward, with the exception of rebellious Seminoles in Florida, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama, and small numbers of Indians living on isolated reservations in Michigan, North Carolina, and New York.

In this exploration, you will critically examine the assumptions that defined American Indian policies, why Jackson introduced the Removal Policy, and the human meaning of removal.

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