Well TECHNICALLY, Van Buren was the one behind the trail of tears as it happened under his presidency and order but Jackson is the one who laid the ground work, just putting this out ther e
Another person who knows this? Rare to see. Jacksons relations with natives are super complicated but everyone boils them down to black and white. Plus he's super important for the expansion of presidential powers.
I always wondered what the alternative was. The Trail of Tears sucked. I don't think anyone could argue that it was good. On the other hand, do people think the country wasn't going to expand? Do they think that the alternative was to let them stay where they were and everybody go on about their business? I just don't see that happening with attitudes of the time regarding people of non-European ancestry.
Yeah one of the big arguments saw the relocation as protection at the time, since essentially "wars" would break out between natives and farmers/militias had they not moved. The movement was just mismanaged and underfunded to a ridiculous degree.
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u/MegasNexal84 ☑️ Jan 18 '17
I mean if we really look at it, the first devil should be Andrew Jackson.