Throughout their history, the indigenous people of present-day America faced many trials and tribulations. Arguably the worst of these hardships was the Indian Removal Act of 1830.  This act was President Andrew Jackson and the United States government robbing five Southeastern tribes of their collective 25 million acres of land (pbs). These tribes were forced to move West to far less fertile land, with essentially none of their former possessions, and no idea how to work this new land. Moreover, this act allowed racism and prejudice to reach the Native Americans with next to no punishment from the law.  Presidents Jackson's Indian Removal Act was not only an ethical catastrophe but was completely unjustified and remains a dark shadow on the United States and our history.

In 1830, the five tribes of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole (known as the Five Civilized Tribes)Indians, were told by the U.S government to leave their homeland and walk more than 1,000 miles to present-day Oklahoma (legendsofamerica). This was to allow more fertile land to be settled by white pioneers. The removal began with treaties in 1814, and over the next ten years nine treaties would be initiated, trading Indian land for land in the uncharted West (pbs). In 1823, it was said that while Indians had the right to be on these lands, they couldn't hold the title to them (pbs). According to PBS, "This was because their ‘right of occupancy' was subordinate to the United States' ‘right of discovery.'" Paraphrased, this means that the U.S government's  right to explore new lands was superior to the Native Americans right to own said land. Morally, this statement is biased and discriminatory. The Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal, and Jackson completely violates that statement with these treaties. Moreover, these treaties left the Indians with infertile land that was unable to hold crops and discarded them in alien lands.

The land West of the Mississippi River was not only foreign but distant. While some tribes were able to adapt, it was hard for most to acclimate their farming methods. The hardest hit were the Cherokees, whose first year of crops was washed away by the flooding of the Arkansas River(nationalhumantiescenter). Furthermore, the Chickasaws were essentially forgotten about and had no land designated for them (nationalhumantiescenter). Because of this, they leased land from the Choctaws, which led them into the economy, and according to National Humanities Center, "stifled their dependency upon the natural environment." Abandoned in an unfamiliar place, with next to no resources, the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast were yet to face their true adversary: the bigotry and intolerance of frontiersmen.
Jackson’s Indian Removal Act opened the doors for American pioneers and explorers to express their hatred in negative and harmful ways. "And it is supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian?" (prezi). This quote from Andrew Jackson in 1830 truly illustrates the prejudice and narrow-mindedness of the President when he signed the Indian Removal Act, as well as showcases the foundation of the nation-wide bigotry that would be a product of this act.

An example of said bigotry is in the case of Elias Boudinot and John Ridge. Both were Cherokee men who were attending the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall CT (cornwallhistoricalsociety). While studying there, they fell in love with two local white women, Sarah Northrup and Harriet Gold, and were soon married. These marriages brought outrage from the local community. According to the Cornwall Historical Society, "The marriage was denounced by several Gold family members, the school itself, the local church, and the town in general." Through this example, we see but a small sample of the discrimination that was fueled by President Jackson and his illiberality. Likewise, this bigotry led the way for many other similar biased crimes against the innocent Native Americans to take place, solely out of spite and resentment that was born from government-induced racism.

Based on the evidence shown, the Indian Removal Act was unwarranted and discriminatory. It ripped Southeastern land from its rightful owners, leaving them with nothing to their name. It abandoned them in strange lands, where they had to, in essence, start over. Furthermore, it opened the floodgates to racism and discrimination from colonizers and pioneers. The Indian Removal Act is one of the United States' greatest crimes, and will forever be remembered as a national act of discrimination and maltreatment.