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Article: Removal Act of 1830
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- Dictionary of American History
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REMOVAL ACT OF 1830
REMOVAL ACT OF 1830.
On 28 May 1830 the Indian Removal Act became law, passed by Congress after
heated debate and by a close vote. The purpose of this legislation was the removal of those Native Americans still residing east of the Mississippi to new homes west of that river. The measure had been proposed by President Andrew Jackson in his first message to Congress in 1829, but efforts to accomplish this ethnic cleansing go back at least to the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. In 1803 Jefferson proposed a constitutional amendment to permit turning the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase into a vast Indian reservation, relocating the white inhabitants to the ...