The Age of Andrew Jackson

Chapter Five: Seeking the Mainstream

john t. ellisor 64 Chapter Five Seeking the Mainstream The Historiography of Indian Removal John T. Ellisor During the whole of the nineteenth century, historians showed little or no interest in exploring Indian removal, despite the fact that Andrew Jackson considered it the most difficult of his presidential duties, and numerous congressmen serving with him thought it the most important question they faced. Guided by Manifest Destiny and social Darwinism, nineteenth-century historians simply saw no need to discuss Indian removal any more than they would the cutting of forests or the killing of wild beasts, all mundane events as Americans cleared the natural environment to build a nation. But with the dawning of the twentieth century, a few scattered rays of light fell on the dusty removal records. Frederick Jackson Turner heralded the closing of the American frontier and contended that the frontier had been a key element in the development of American democracy. Consequently, more historians became interested in studying the frontier and events related to it, including Indian affairs. At that point, the first booklength publications involving Indian removal appeared, the most important being Annie Heloise Abel’s The History of Events Resulting in Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi.1 Yet, despite Abel’s excellent beginning, historians for the most part remained uninterested in Indian removal. Then came Grant Foreman, an Oklahoma lawyer. He published Indian Removal: The Historiography of Indian Removal 65 The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes, which, despite its age and some flaws, remains one of the best single volumes on the emigration of the southern Indians.2 Foreman followed that book with another devoted to the removal experience of the northern tribes, The Last Trek of the Indians.3 Undoubtedly, Foreman’s books sensitized many Americans to the injustices of Indian removal, but few were convinced of its historical significance. As proof of this fact, one need look only so far as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s famous work, The Age of Jackson, published in 1945. This book, considered a must-read for all selfrespectingAmericanhistorians ,saysnothingaboutIndianremoval. Representing the view of many of his contemporary academicians, Schlesinger did not consider Jackson’s Indian policy in any way crucial to understanding Jacksonian democracy. Nor, it would be safe to say, did these scholars see Indian removal as a major event in the nation’s history. Natives and their misfortunes still stood outside the mainstream of American history and historiography.4 Such was the case throughout the 1950s, that decade of consensus history when so many scholars sought to highlight all the good things Americans held in common and to glorify the great national achievements. Indian removal did not fit the paradigm, so historians continued to neglect it as a topic of study. But, fortunately, things changed with the coming of the tumultuous 1960s. During that decade, blacks, Natives, women, and others pushed for full equality in American society. Simultaneously, a great youth movement challenged the nation’s stifling conservatism and destructive militarism. In the midst of all this, historians tended to become more liberal, even radical, and take a greater interest in the histories of America’s subaltern groups. In fact, the 1960s gave birth to Native American history as a distinct discipline, and, not surprisingly, works on Indian removal began to appear in greater abundance. Mary E. Young kicked off the new era in removal historiography with her book Redskins, Ruffleshirts and Rednecks: Indian Allotments in Alabama and Mississippi, 1830–1860. This book’s significance lies in the fact that it shows how important Indian policy was in defining what Jacksonian democracy really meant. After john t. ellisor 66 all, that democracy depended on economic opportunity in the form of territorial expansion, and that expansion depended on acquiring Indian land. In Alabama and Mississippi, that acquisition depended in turn on the Indian allotment system, a process whereby the government divided the Native lands out to individual families in severalty and allowed them to sell or retain those allotments as they saw fit. This seemingly democratic and fair system, which seemed to respect Native property and contract rights, then allowed the Jackson administration to use the tender mercies of the marketplace to coerce the Indians into removal. Speculators moved in to cheat the Indians out of their lands and leave them no choice but to emigrate beyond the Mississippi. Thus Young shows how an aggressive, free-for-all acquisitiveness lay at...