Portrait of President Andrew Jackson
Image from Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/pga.02501/)
From President Jackson’s Message to Congress, December 8, 1829.
The Constitution declares that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State,” without the consent of its legislature…
By persuasion and force, [the Indians] have been made to retire from river to river, and from mountain to mountain; until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants, to preserve, for a while, their once terrible names. Surrounded by whites…[who] destroy the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay; the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware, is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek…
As a means of effecting this end, I suggest, for your consideration, the [decency] of setting apart an ample district West of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory, now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes, as long as they shall occupy it: each tribe having a district control over the portion designated for its use…
This emigration should be voluntary: for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers, and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that, if they remain within the limits of the States, they must be subject to their laws.
The Constitution declares that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State,” without the consent of its legislature…
By persuasion and force, [the Indians] have been made to retire from river to river, and from mountain to mountain; until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants, to preserve, for a while, their once terrible names. Surrounded by whites…[who] destroy the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay; the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware, is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek…
As a means of effecting this end, I suggest, for your consideration, the [decency] of setting apart an ample district West of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory, now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes, as long as they shall occupy it: each tribe having a district control over the portion designated for its use…
This emigration should be voluntary: for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers, and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that, if they remain within the limits of the States, they must be subject to their laws.
Listen
Listen
Listen