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Congressman: Indian Removal, 1830
Student Assignment
Before this lesson, have students complete the Student Reading and view the Video Clip from The History Channel documentary, Boone and Crockett: The Hunter Heroes, in the corresponding Students Section of this Web site.
Classroom Activity
Have students read the following primary documents about President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal policy. Ask them to identify the key argument in each document with regard to the Indian Resettlement Act of 1830. View and print the corresponding Classroom Worksheet.
Andrew Jackson
Annual message to Congress, Dec. 6, 1830
It gives me great pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of Government...in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation...Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge 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 has long been busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. 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...?
David Crockett
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, 1834
His famous, or rather I should say infamous, Indian bill was brought forward, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favourite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this I wouldn't go for him, or any other man in the whole creation. I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment.
Cherokee Nation
Memorial and Protest, June 22, 1836
The Cherokess were happy and prosperous under a scrupulous observance of treaty stipulations by the government of the United States, and from the fostering hand extended over them, they made rapid advances in civilization, morals, and in the arts and sciences. Little did they anticipate, that when taught to think and feel as the American citizen, and to have with him a common interest, they were to be despoiled by their guardian, to become strangers and wanderers in the land of their fathers, forced to return to the savage life, and to seek a new home in the wilds of the far west, and without their consent. This [legislation] is fraudulent, false upon its face, made by unauthorized individuals, without the sanction, and against the wishes, of the great body of the Cherokee people.
Discussion
Ask students to compare and contrast these three responses to the Indian Resettlement Act of 1830, using specific evidence from the documents.
Email the Experts
After this lesson, ask students to submit questions that they would like to ask the experts. Their questions might be about a specific event, legend, or artifact. Before, during, or immediately after the live Webcast, Email the Experts the most thoughtful or most frequently asked questions.
Extended Activities
1. Crockett adopted the motto, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." Ask students to explain how his opposition to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 demonstrates this motto. What examples in Crockett's life would lead them to expect him to support the bill? (The Student Reading in the corresponding Students Section of this Web site explains that Crockett was a veteran of the Creek Indian War and that his grandparents had been killed by Indians during the Revolutionary War.) What qualities did Crockett possess that helped him to follow this motto?
2. In a personal essay or short story, have students relate Crockett's motto, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead," to a personal experience when they made an important choice.
3. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 provided for the general resettlement of Native Americans to lands west of the Mississippi River. From 1830 to 1840 approximately 60,000 Native Americans were forced to migrate. Of some 11,500 Cherokees moved in 1838, about 4,000 died along the way. Ask students to research the "Trail of Tears" and to create a map showing the states and territories affected by the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the subsequent Trail of Tears. Have students trace the journey of one or more of the Southeastern tribes to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). View a map from the National Parks Service showing the individual major routes along which the Cherokees moved west in 1838-39.
Standards TEKS for Social Studies:
6th Grade: 21A-E, 22A-E
7th Grade: 21A-G; 22A-D
8th Grade: 5G; 6E; 30A-G
National Standards for U.S. History:
Historical Thinking Standards 1A, E; 2A-F; 3A-B, E, G-I; 4 C-D; 5A-G for Era 4, Standards 1B & 3A
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