Western Expansion

7 Pages 1682 Words

ve population increased 197 percent in the single decade of the 1830’s.” There was a bonanza to be made in the speculation of land and slaves.2
The whites in their quest for wealth, needed to move the Indians from valuable land that was held by them. It was these pursuits that led to such federally sponsored programs as, the “Indian Removal Act.” President Andrew Jackson often remembered as one of the top ten best presidents, helped to push the act through legislation. Having negotiated nine out of eleven treaties designed to relieve the Indians of their eastern lands, Jackson was clearly a proponent for the elimination of Native Americans.
The Indians had to decide whether it was better to give up their ancestral lands or to continue to live where they were left unprotected. Those tribes that did not move west were subject to continual harassment by the land-hungry whites that stole their livestock, burned their towns, and squatted on their land. Some tribes such as the Choctaws saw it was a fruitless venture to resist and were one of the first to sign over their land. The government traded the Indians l...