A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 3, part 2: Martin Van Buren
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 3, part 2: Martin Van Buren
Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government; Van Buren, Martin, 1782-1862
It will be seen by referring to the report of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs that the most sanguine expectations of the friends and promoters
of this system have been realized. The Choctaws, Cherokees, and other
tribes that first emigrated beyond the Mississippi have for the most
part abandoned the hunter state and become cultivators of the soil.
The improvement in their condition has been rapid, and it is believed
that they are now fitted to enjoy the advantages of a simple form of
government, which has been submitted to them and received their
sanction; and I can not too strongly urge this subject upon the
attention of Congress.
Stipulations have been made with all the Indian tribes to remove them
beyond the Mississippi, except with the bands of the Wyandots, the Six
Nations in New York, the Menomonees, Munsees, and Stockbridges in
Wisconsin, and Miamies in Indiana. With all but the Menomonees it is
expected that arrangements for their emigration will be completed the
present year. The resistance which has been opposed to their removal by
some of the tribes even after treaties had been made with them to that
effect has arisen from various causes, operating differently on each
of them. In most instances they have been instigated to resistance
by persons to whom the trade with them and the acquisition of their
annuities were important, and in some by the personal influence of
interested chiefs. These obstacles must be overcome, for the Government
can not relinquish the execution of this policy without sacrificing
important interests and abandoning the tribes remaining east of the
Mississippi to certain destruction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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