ANDREW JACKSON ANNOUNCES HIS INFAMOUS INDIAN REMOVAL POLICY.


President's Message. Washington: Tuesday, December 7, 1830. Folio broadside (640 x 395 mm). 2 pp recto and verso. Disbound. Leaf creased, mild separation at folds, some toning.THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE INDIAN REMOVAL POLICY. In this address to the joint houses of Congress delivered on December 6, Jackson announces that "the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements, is approaching to a happy consummation."Jackson gives his reasons for the removal policy: besides pecuniary advantages, there will be an "end to all possible danger of collusion between the authorities of the General and State Governments on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north, and Louisiana on the south, to the settlement of the whites, it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier, and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasion without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi, and the western part of Alabama, of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth and power." It will also, he rather disingenuously suggests, will "enable them to pursue happiness in their own way," adding, "Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself."