Don Wildman

Ryan, what led to the passing of the Indian Removal Act of 1830?

I mean, that's pretty radical stuff in terms of in the context of everything we're talking about, which had been pretty subtle event to event kind of things.

This is a sweeping new idea, obviously.

That's interesting to me because we're way down in the southwest of what is the United States at this point.

How is it that the Choctaw are the first versus other more northern tribes and so forth?

President Andrew Jackson figures centrally to all of this story.

He is able to pass, when he becomes president, the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

And let me just explain this for the audience.

This authorized the American government to liquidate any Native American title to lands claimed in the Southeast.

By the way, there would be no title.

I mean, that was not the point.

That was the point of their society.

It was not a deeded land on their terms.

It's amazing that such an eviction needs any kind of legal justification because that's what they're doing.

They're just moving on them militarily eventually.

But this must have been quite a challenge for any right-minded legal expert who were trying to figure out, you know, how do we even frame this in a kind of legality?

But that was the Indian Removal Act, right?

That was the idea, well, we need a law.

We need something to refer to that exists now.

So we'll pass this.