Ok, for people who are not familiar with US history, the Indian Removal was an Act passed by the United States government during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, which require the removal of all Native Americans from the Mountains and settlements that are close to the whites to remote or far away settlements where the Indians will have no direct contact with white people.
Andrew Jackson argued the removal process will be beneficial to both Indians and whites. He also made a controversial claim that Indians were naturally unfitted to the land, and whites have tried to help Indians to survive but Indians could not take full advantage of the land, because they neither had the intelligence, the industry, the moral nor the desire of improvement which were essential to realizing the potential of the land. Jackson did not have any emotional feelings towards the Indians as to what it means to remove people from their communities to unknown settlements.
In the Cherokee Memorial, the invasion of Native’s land and property by whites in the state of Georgia was seen by the Cherokee nation as illegal and in violation of the treaty of Hopewell signed under Washington’s administration. It is clear the Cherokee nation was abiding by the treaties signed with the United States but people of the United States undermined such treaties and do not see them as independent nation. The Cherokee Nations were victims of the removal process, subjected to humiliation, which Jackson claimed was beneficial to Indians.
Samuel Cloud lost his parents during the harsh removal of his family from the mountains to a settlement they did not know. He hated the whites who removed them, who walked them through the cold winter and those who stood by to watch him. Samuel did not see the removal as beneficial as proclaimed by Jackson, but an Act that took away his parents and dismantled his clan and family members. Samuel and the Cherokee Nation agreed on the fact that the removal process was unfair, cruel and abuse on their individual rights.
It can be concluded the Indian removal benefitted only whites and exterminated the Indian tribes that originally owned the land. Jackson’s initial claim is wrong.
