As the United States entered the period of Jackson’s presidency, the country was progressing at a rapid rate. In order to do so, westward expansion was viewed as not only a necessity, but a right the country undoubtedly possessed. The United States inherited the European “‘right of discovery’” and used this notion to carry out a brutal ethnic cleansing, stripping the American Indians of their culture, land, and people in drastic number (66). Jackson’s way of thinking resonated with the people of his country at the time, many of whom desired land. The historian Theda Perdue provides a modern reflection of the cruelty toward such a fundamental group of the country in her essay entitled “Indian Removal.” On the other hand, Andrew Jackson himself …show more content…
One of the most apparent issues discussed by both Perdue and Jackson relates to the culture of the American Indians. The reigning justification behind Jacksonian America shunning the ways of life of the American Indians was that “distinct cultures reflected racial differences,” thus leading policy-makers to believe “that American Indians could not be assimilated” (65). This new concept of Romantic Nationalism differed from the Enlightenment era efforts to educate the American Indians in an honest attempt to integrate them into white America. The new way of thinking that arose in the 1820s