I think it is important to approach the history of removals as a period of many removals because of how many individual tribes were affected. There have been many groups of Indigenous Tribes that have banned together to form a larger group, but none compared to the unity and size that the United States of America had. Many Native American groups along the eastern side of the United States were affected and forced to relocate to reserves that were hundreds of miles away. Andrew Jackson is a huge reason on why I would call this period of time the period of many removals because of what he did. He took out all the Native Tribes in the southeastern United States and sent them to reservations where modern-day Oklahoma is. The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminoles were all forced to walk there, and 4,000-6,000 of them died. This tragedy is known as the Trail of Tears and I think this is best example of “many removals.”
The expansion of slavery and the removal of Native American communities can be seen as interdependent processes. After listening to the hour-long podcast by Nakia Parker and Meredith McCoy I found out a lot that I did not know about these two topics and how they actually intertwine. At first, I found out that Native Americans and Africans were both enslaved, I knew this. However, Africans became the preferred race of enslavement, so not as many Native Americans were enslaved anymore. European powers also it found it useful to form alliances with the Natives, and enslaving their people would have not allowed them to be on good terms. They had opportunities that they took advantage of, and they started to become slave catchers. Some actually got so rich from this, that they started to start owing their own plantations and owing slaves.
The policies regarding Native Americans at the federal, state, and local levels all shifted during this time period. They all had the purpose to take away power from the Native people that lived there, making it known that they are living in America. After the three main cases, there were some later ones that happened that also took power away. The United States of America versus Kagama. This was a court case that happened in 1886 and this had a major standing. Kagama was a native who murdered another native on indigenous land, but he was arrested by officials of the United States. In the hearing, it was ruled that “the legislator could control jurisdiction.” So that means that the United States of America had complete control of Native American on Native American crime and the people living on those lands had no control on what happened to them. This case was so one sided that it was an unanimously vote in favor of the US. In the end, Native Americans lost control in power on the federal level, state level, and local level.