Regarding Theodore Frelinghuysen - Senator from New Jersey

Meacham talked about the Senator from New Jersey who was against the Indian Removal Act.

http://www.nnp.org/nni/Publications/Dutc...

Congressional Biography:

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/bio...


Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Fr...

Under President Chester Arthur; he became the Secretary of State:

http://history.state.gov/departmenthisto...

He gave the eulogy for Henry Clay (so some of his objections may have been politically motivated):

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.ht...

As everyone can see there is a lot written about this issue (both very critical of Jackson, sympathetic to Jackson and others somewhere in the middle). Everybody had their opinion; if you were one who had lost a loved one to the Indians; you might have felt differently than those who were living in peace and harmony.

I guess it was all a matter of perspective; however, the way it was done to even those tribes who were loyal and doing everything right was not well founded; especially those who had fought on the side of Jackson and had been loyal to the Union. It was a shame.

Historynet:

http://www.historynet.com/andrew-jackson...

Latham's Quarterly:

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-i...

H-Net Reviews:

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php...

Here is a site that has all of the Annual Addresses to Congress by Jackson:

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/jacks...

Here is a copy of the Indian Removal Act of 1830:

http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/India...

Cherokee Letter:

Cherokee letter protesting the Treaty of New Echota
Letter from Chief John Ross, "To the Senate and House of Representatives"


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3083...

By 1837, the Jackson administration had removed 46,000 Native American people from their land east of the Mississippi, and had secured treaties which led to the removal of a slightly larger number. Most members of the five southeastern nations had been relocated west, opening 25 million acres of land to white settlement and to slavery.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959...

Andrew Jackson's Second Annual Message to Congress:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3437...

Andrew Jackson's Case for the Removal Act:
First Annual Message to Congress, 8 December 1830

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/and...

This was obviously a chapter which dealt with Jackson's determination to remove the Indians from their homes and especially from their land. What was done to the Native Americans in this country is inexcusable,

As Meachum stated: "As a people, the Indians were neither autonomous nor independent, but were to be manipulated and managed in the context of what most benefited Jackson's America - white America."

A lot of this is really true. Jackson tried to talk to the Indians as a father; but whether he realized it or not at the time he was speaking with a forked tongue.

Yes, he was concerned about security of the white people and of course that was important And he was concerned about the Alliances that some were making with Britain and Spain which spawned continued unrest. But I think he painted all of them with the same brush. To cut Jackson some slack; he was not the first to ask for removal (Washington, Adams, Monroe and Jefferson as well as Quincy Adams) all were thinking along the same lines even though Adams recanted such a notion when Jackson was trying to promote removal during his administration.

Jackson became the bad guy regarding the Indians and yet he was just the one who got done what the others were trying to execute and could not.

It was all about the land.

This is the thread to discuss Chapter Seven of THE AMERICAN LION.

This chapter title is: MY WHITE AND RED CHILDREN.