INIDAN REMOVAL ACTS OF 1860

Inidan Removal Acts of 1860

[Name of tihe writer]

Abstract

This study aims define the effects of the indians act of 1860 on the life of native american red indians. In May 1860, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the Indian Removal Act that authorized the president of the United States to exchange land west of the Mississippi River for Indian land in the east and appropriated $500,000 to assist tribes in the move west. Three days later the House also passed the Preemption Act of 1860, giving squatters a right of first refusal to purchase land they had occupied prior to its being opened for sale. In a recent paper, Kanazawa (1996) finds that the willingness of squatters to illegally occupy federal lands greatly raised the cost of enforcing property rights and this was a significant factor behind the passage of the first general Preemption Act in 1860. We build on his work to test the hypothesis that Congressmen who favored squatters' rights would also favor moving Indian tribes out of the old southwest. A logit analysis of the vote on the Removal Act of 1860 shows three statistically significant variables. Democrats, representatives from slaveholding districts, and those who voted for preemption were more likely to vote for removal. Congressmen from slave states were very likely to favor both Acts, which stands in contrast to southern opposition to a homestead act in the late 1850s. In the last week of May 1860, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two important pieces of legislation that critically shaped the settlement of the West. On May 26, 1860 the House passed the Indian Removal Act, officially titled “An act to provide for an exchange of lands with Indians residing in any of the States or Territories, and their removal west of the Mississippi river.” The Act authorized the president to negotiate with tribes to trade their land in the east for land west of the Mississippi River and appropriated $500,000 to help tribes move west. The vote in the House was a dramatic showdown between Andrew Jackson's supporters, who favored removal, and Jackson's opponents, who supported allowing southeastern tribes such as the Cherokee to remain in control of tribal land. The Act was important to Jackson and his opponents hoped to hand him a major defeat. After fierce debates first in the Senate and then the House, the Indian Removal Act narrowly passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 102 to 97. The Act passed the Senate earlier on a vote of 28 to 18.

Introduction

The main prupose of the paper is to focus the impact of the removal act of 1860 on the indians. May 26, 1860 Indian Removal Act 1860 was enacted on the twenty-first Congress of the United States of America. After four months of strong debate, Andrew Jackson signed the bill into law. Land greed was more reason for the federal government position on the Indian removal. It is the desire of Indian lands was ...