American Presidents and Their Attitudes, Beliefs, and Actions Surrounding Education and Multiculturalism

Multicultural Education, Spring 2004 by Baptiste, H Prentice, Araujo, Blanca

American presidents have a long and consistent history of supporting slavery, obstructing civil rights, and deliberately fanning racism (O'Reilly, 2002). Many times with a veto or a strong stance on racial issues a president can create much change in the racial tensions of the country and the advancement of all society. Historically, presidents have made choices based on personal interests or feelings and pressures by political groups that have hurt many and have not improved things. Jackson, Wilson, and Eisenhower have their place in history when it comes to making the wrong choices or remaining silent when strong action and leadership was greatly needed.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830

As was the case with slaves, Jackson felt Native Americans were inferior and likened their culture to that of the dark ages. As far as he was concerned, Native Americans were savages who needed to be removed and sent elsewhere where they would not "brutally" kill whites.

Jackson wanted to expand the United States. During the Monroe Administration, Andrew Jackson was sent to Florida with his army in search of Indians who had killed Americans. Jackson not only shattered Indian resistance, killed many Seminole chiefs and warriors, and destroyed their villages, but he seized Pensacola and St. Marks, raised the American flag over both Spanish towns, and executed two British nationals for arming the Indians and encouraging their assaults on American settlements (Remini, 2002).

At the time of Jackson's presidency, the United States had acquired Indian land through the treaty-making clause of the Constitution, necessitating Senate ratification. Those treaties implied that the tribes were sovereign, independent states, just like European powers. But the United States had no intention of recognizing the tribes as independent.

Still, rather than seize the land and fight off resisting "savages" (the Native Americans were just trying to defend their land), the government signed treaties that were rarely enforced and constantly violated by settlers who continued to move south and west and encroach upon Indian territory (Remini, 2002).

Jackson had never been a friend of the Indians. He participated in the removal of tribes from their native land and in the senseless murders of many Native Americans. First as a general he was in charge of the removal and killing of the Seminoles from Florida. Later as president he was responsible for passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This act authorized the government to establish an area west of the Mississippi to be divided into enough districts to accommodate as many tribes as might choose to go west, and then relocating them there. The scheme also involved an exchange of land for all the tribes residing in the east (Remini, 1988).

This bill was harsh, arrogant, racist, and was the doom of the Native American. Biographers argue that Jackson was afraid for the safety of the United States and was concerned that Indians living as tribes within the boundaries of the sovereign states constituted a distinct threat to the nation and must be expelled (Remini, 1988). Historians also claim that Jackson's objective was not the destruction of Indian life and culture, but rather that he thought that their removal was the Indians' only salvation against extinction (Remini, 1988).