The Indian Removal Act (1830), the Native Ameican Culture in the United States - Essay Example

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 shaped Native-American culture negatively and positively. This Act made the Native American populations of the southern states relocate to environments that were unknown. The Native Americans did not know how to farm, hunt, or make a living in unfamiliar territory. Because of this lack of knowledge, poverty stricken reservations were created. Since Native American tribes were community orientated, they remained together in poverty. The loss would impact the Native American to this day.

On the other hand, the American government granted the Cherokee’s right to self rule. This allows Native Americans to rule their own affairs, including taxes, Casinos, and criminal matters. Now the Native Americans make their livings off tourists, after turning their reservations into tourist hot spots. Before the 1830 Indian Removal Act, southern immigrants and other white Americans wanted more land to expand. Not just any land would do. These whites wanted the rich fertile land of the Indians in Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, and other southern states possessed.

The Indian and whites farmed differently (Unrau, 48). White farmers planted in one area using various crops, like cotton, wheat, and other lucrative crops. Native Americans planted crops for food, migrating so as not to deplete the land. This method of farming did not make the money that white way would. The whites did not understand the concept of respecting the land and only taking what is needed. As a result, the Native Americans were sent to the West. The water shortages, wind, and different climates made the new land settled difficult to farm.

In addition, since more and more Native American tribes were being sent west, Native American tribes were being mixed. For example, the Shawnee tribe had to remove various tribes from land promised them in Missouri (Unrau, 52). The crowded condition, restrictions on travel, and limited resources caused reservations to be dusty poverty ridden places. Native Americans felt a strong resentment to being evicted from their lands. Some Native Americans felt:We are not willing to remove, and if we could be brought to this extremity, it would be, not by argument, not because our judgment was satisfied; not because our condition will be improved-but only because we cannot endure to be deprived of our national and individual rights, and subjected to a process of intolerable oppression.

(Levy, 95) The resentment would cause a rift between white and Native American. Andrew Jackson and the whites looked on while the Native Americans walked The Trail of Tears. Over five thousand Native Americans died on that trail, of the forty six thousand removed (Katz). That is about eleven percent. The most important outcome of the 1830 Indian Removal Act was the Native American’s right to rule their tribe. “The court ruled in favor of the Cherokee, declared their right to self-government and said the state law extended over them was unconstitutional” (Katz).

At the time the implications were not clear. Today, when an individual travels through a state like New Mexico or Oklahoma where gambling is illegal, casinos are advertised at every exit. The ruling in favor of the Cherokee’s self rule allows all Native American tribes the right to decide issues, despite laws of the white man. Native Americans can live and make laws independently. That is the reason cheap cigarettes can be bought on Native American land, no taxes. The Indian Removal Act was one of the cruelest acts in American history.

Native Americans still feel the effects of this Act. The reservations still exist. Different tribes conduct business on Indian land in self rule. None of these would be possible with Indian Removal Act. BibliographyKatz, A. (n.d.). Andrew Jackson and the Indian removal policies. Accessed 23 Oct. 2008 from http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~landc/2002/projects/projects2001/diplomacy/judiciary.html Levy, P. B. ed. Leuchtenburg, W.E. Foreword. (1994). 100 Key Documents in American Democracy. "Appeal of the Cherokee Nation (1830).

" Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Unrau, W. E. (2007). The rise and fall of Indian Country, 1825-1855. USA: Kansas University Press.