Once he became president, Andrew Jackson believed he needed to remove American Indians from their land to the territory west of the Mississippi River so white settlers and the government could use that land instead.
Several months after Jackson had become President, he signed and implemented the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. The act authorized Jackson to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their ancestral homelands in the Southern states, so white settlers could use the valuable land.
The act was not a form of negotiation with Native Americans instead, it obliged tribes like the Cherokees to relocate in the territory west of the Mississippi River. And when some of the tribe's members refused to relocate, the military force intervened to force compliance.
