Indian Removal Act of 1830

On this date, the U.S. House of Representatives, in a vote of 102 to 97, passed S. 102, what has since become known as the Indian Removal Act, enabling the federal government to relocate American Indian tribes to a “permanent settlement” west of the Mississippi River once those tribes agreed, via treaty, to surrender their historic homelands. The act also appropriated money to compensate Native nations for what the government deemed was the value of their land and the costs of resettlement. In the mid-1820s, officials in the state of Georgia began pressuring the federal government to terminate land claims belonging to the Cherokee and Creek Nations throughout the southeast and called for their immediate removal to territory out west. When Andrew Jackson became President in 1829, his administration refused to protect the property rights of Indian nations. As a result, Georgia’s legislature declared that Cherokee Nation lands fell under state jurisdiction. In response, the Cherokee Nation petitioned Congress, lobbied federal officials, and mobilized public attention to their cause. In February 1830, during the 21st Congress (1829–1831), the House and Senate Committees on Indian Affairs considered bills that allowed for the rapid removal of Native nations. In the House, northern Members were almost universally opposed to the bill, while southern lawmakers called for its passage. During the two-week debate on the legislation, opponents tried to stall the bill by using parliamentary procedures including quorum calls, motions to adjourn, and a substitute amendment to replace the text of the bill, all of which failed. On three occasions, close divisions in the House forced Speaker Andrew Stevenson of Virginia to vote on motions to ensure the bill’s final passage. President Jackson signed the bill into law on May 28. The act enabled state and federal officials to facilitate the removal of roughly 100,000 American Indians from states east of the Mississippi River to regions further west. These removals persisted throughout the 1830s, the most well-known being the “Trail of Tears,” a forced march of Cherokees from four states (Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee) to what is now Oklahoma during the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, in which an estimated 4,000 Cherokee died.