Strategic Alliances and Trail of Broken Treaties 1700-1799

1776-1779

Thomas Jefferson promotes Indian removal

Thomas Jefferson. Image: Mather Brown, National Portrait Gallery
Thomas Jefferson. Image: Mather Brown, National Portrait Gallery

Jefferson recommends the forced relocation of Cherokee and Shawnee tribes to lands west of the Mississippi. This policy foreshadows his first act as president, in which he makes a deal with the State of Georgia to release its claims to discovery of lands in the West in exchange for U.S. military expulsion of Cherokee people from Georgia, ignoring Cherokee rights to the land based on U.S. treaty with the tribe (Miller, 2006).

Settler Colonial Policy