1830 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which denies Native Americans their land rights and forcibly relocates them. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States president Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi".[a][2][3] During the presidency of Jackson (1829–1837) and his successor Martin Van Buren (1837–1841), more than 60,000 American Indians[4] from at least 18 tribes[5] were forced to move west of the Mississippi River where they were allocated new lands. The southern Indian tribes were resettled mostly into Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The northern Indian tribes were resettled initially in Kansas. With a few exceptions, the United States east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes was emptied of its American Indian population. The movement westward of Indian tribes was characterized by a large number of deaths due to the hardships of the journey. Most famously, the Cherokee (excluding the Treaty Party) challenged their relocation, but were unsuccessful in the courts; they were forcibly removed by the United States government in a march to the west which later became known as the Trail of Tears. Since the 21st century, scholars have cited the act and subsequent removals as an early example of state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing or genocide or settler colonialism. The Removal Act was strongly supported in the American South. Many white Christian missionaries protested against it, most notably missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts. In U.S. Congress, New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, and Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett spoke out against the legislation. The Removal Act passed only after a bitter debate in Congress. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French philosopher, witnessed the Choctaw removals while in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1831: "In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The Indians were tranquil but somber and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the Chactas were leaving their country. "To be free," he answered, could never get any other reason out of him. We ... watch the expulsion ... of one of the most celebrated and ancient American peoples."
