May 28, 1830
U.S. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which relocated Native Americans to federal territory west of the Mississippi River. Jackson believed his population transfer was a “wise and humane policy” that would save the Indians from “utter annihilation.” He wrote: “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?″
