Thomas Jefferson And Andrew Jackson: Policies Regarding The Native Tribes

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson both had different policies regarding the Native tribes that lived throughout the Southern area. The two differentiating policies which are systems based off their own understandings of the conflict, both impacted the tribes in either a positive or negative nature, in other words, Jefferson did what was seen to be civilized and handled it with a profound compromise, whilst Jackson handled it in a more abrupt manner and made questionable actions that drastically changed the lives of the Indians, but his actions also led to a black mark in American history.

Jefferson established a policy distributed throughout the Native Americans living throughout the South, that primarily stated if the Natives adopted and interpreted Western rules and lifestyles they could remain in the lands, this was called the “Civilization Policy”. “ The forced adaptation to a way of life similar to the white settlers resulted in major shifts in culture and livelihood. … After the American Revolution, the new United States government created a “civilization” policy that it promoted among Indian groups.” (NPS). This policy enforced on Indians to endorse and maintain Western principles and standards, such as religion, development of agriculture, and other Western-culture related things, “Thomas Jefferson, who showed most clearly the conflicted Euro-American conceptions of Native Americans.”(Colonial Williamsburg). Generally include an upbringing of European economic style. In regards to the situation, Jefferson decided to manage the uprising conflict in a civilized order, he regulated many treaties and compromises in order to get the Native Americans to adopt Western practices, one of the reasons justifying this to benefit hunting grounds of the Natives to be acquired as white settlement. The Indians reacted willingly to the policy of Jefferson, they were liberal towards the compromise and remained in unison with the ideas incorporated in the policy. Indians adopted the European religion, Christianity, they built up missionaries and followed biblical laws Christianity taught. The Indians also took on Euro-agriculture, and developed plantations of their own, and even was present in the slave-trading community. This harmony entitled the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cree, and the Seminole to acquire the name ‘The Five Civilized Tribes”.

When Andrew Jackson took office, he completely disregarded Jefferson’s civilized policies and followed his rather ‘racist’ ideology, and took favor towards the white settlers’ demands instead of remaining consistent with the five civilized tribes. Settlers and poor southern farmers wanted the land for their own natural benefits, “Although Americans recognized the success of the Five Civilized Tribes, they did not respect their rights. In fact, some white people wanted the Native Americans’ lands for themselves.” (USH&G p.372). Due to this desire, they took this demand up to the federal government, to relocate the Native Americans to lands West of the Mississippi. Jackson nonetheless supported and met their demands, therefore leading to the enforcement of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 in which he urged Congress to enforce the act which made it mandate for federal government to have the authority to pay the Native Americans to transfer. Jackson spread this idea that the Indians had created conflict in the past, therefore if they moved, ultimately conflict would be nonexistent, “Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal.” As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida–campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers.” ( HISTORY). And clearly, he would’ve made a biased assumption of the Southerner’s demands and believed their judgment was justified, as he was a Southerners himself. Although the Indians won in the Supreme Court’s eyes, Jackson ignored this and followed what he believed was sound in his own judgment. This resulted in “The Trail of Tears” an infamous event in history known for it’s part in injustice towards the Natives, “When the relocation was over, about one-quarter of the Cherokee population was dead.” (USH&G p.375).