Question

How does Jackson's handling of the Native Americans fit into his own perception of what it means to be the President?

Explain in Detail and with Evidence

Answer 1

Jackson, who served as president from 1829 to 1837, is regarded as a strong-willed, argumentative and combative character, inspiring opposing reactions. Admirers cite him as a populist leader who questioned the political elite and ushered in a crucial period of American exploration and migration to the west. Critics argue it's unfair to respect him because he possessed enslaved persons, brutally abused them, and coerced the expulsion of Native Americans from their ancestral territories, causing thousands of deaths. Jackson, once so respected that his profile was picked for the $20 note, has more recently inspired a battle between successive Treasury secretaries about whether to retain him there. And in 2018, reports that the grave of Jackson was vandalised at The Hermitage, his Nashville, Tennessee, farm, infused new energy into the discussion.

The only citizens Jackson felt should be subservient to rich white men were not African Americans. Probably best known for his brutality to Native Americans is his presidency. Jackson sought to strip newly conquered lands of the Native Americans who lived there, a supporter of "Indian relocation," so that white settlers could claim the territory and its natural resources as their own.

The Indian Relocation Act of Jackson resulted in the forced expulsion of nearly 50,000 Native Americans and opened up millions of acres to white settlement on their ancestral land. He maintained that it was for the best; in a grand push to gain progress for white Americans, the Native Americans, whom he saw as savages and responded paternalistically to as "my red ones," were, to him, merely collateral harm. The programmes, meanwhile, undermined and ruined the lives of Native Americans. During forced removals like the Trail of Tears, tens of thousands died.

When Native Americans were compelled to assimilate, languages died out. And with poverty and intergenerational trauma, Native Americans who have been displaced also suffer.