Treatment of Native Americans

After the American Revolution the new United States government hoped to maintain peace with the Indians on the frontier. But as settlers continued to migrate westward they made settlements on Indian lands and demanded and received protection by the Army. Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, organized several tribes to oppose further ceding of Indian lands. But they were defeated in 1811 by Gen. William Henry Harrison at the battle of Tippecanoe.

During the War of 1812 many of the Indians again sided with the British. Afterward, with the victorious United States secure in its borders, federal policy turned to one of removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi River--to the so-called Great American Desert, where, supposedly, no white man would ever want to live. To implement this policy, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830. It gave President Andrew Jackson, a dedicated foe of the Indians, the power to exchange land west of the Mississippi for the southeastern territory of the Five Civilized Tribes--the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles.

The removal policy led to a clash between Jackson and the United States Supreme Court, which had ruled in favor of the right of the Cherokees to re

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The Seminole War of 1835-42 cost the U. Their bitter trek during the dead of winter has become known as the Trail of Tears. Under Chief Keokuk, some of the Indians moved across the river to Iowa, but Black Hawk claimed the treaty was not valid. In the 1830s and 1840s, Seminoles under Osceola unsuccessfully resisted removal from their homes in Florida.

In 1832, Sauk and Fox Indians under Black Hawk in Wisconsin had been defeated after refusing to abandon their lands east of the Mississippi.

In 1808 Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, a religious leader called the Prophet, established a village in northern Indiana. An estimated 60,000 Native Americans were transplanted to the frontier in the 1830s. In the War of 1812 he was recruited by the British to fight against the United States government. At a council in Vincennes in 1810, Tecumseh demanded that land be returned to the Indians. Later he was allowed to return to Iowa.

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