Indian removal was a policy of the United States government in the 19th century whereby Native Americans were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River, thereafter known as Indian Territory. In a matter that remains one of debate by scholars, description of the policy—which clearly contributed to devastation in numbers, freedom and prosperity for those displaced—is sometimes elevated to being one of long-term genocide of Native Americans,[1] in any case, a consequence of actions first by European settlers to North America in the colonial period, then by the United States government and its citizens until the mid-20th century.[2][3] The policy traced its direct origins to the administration of James Monroe, though it addressed conflicts between European Americans and Native Americans that had been occurring since the 17th century, and were escalating into the early 19th century as white settlers were continually pushing westward. The Indian Removal Act was the key law that forced the removal of the Indians, and was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.
