Jackson signs Indian Removal Act authorizing forced Native displacement

President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. The law authorizes the president to negotiate removal treaties that force Native nations east of the Mississippi River to give up their homelands for territory farther west.\n\nSupporters describe removal as a way to open land for white settlement and avoid conflict between states and Native nations. In practice, the policy leads to mass dispossession, coerced treaties, and deadly forced migrations including the Trail of Tears.\n\nThe event belongs in the racism timeline because federal law uses race, sovereignty, and land policy to remove Native peoples and expand a white settler republic.