The Indian Removal Act and the Trial of Tears were major sources of controversy for President Andrew Jackson.
President Andrew Jackson signed into law The Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830. The law was an autorization for the president to negotiate with southern Native American tribes to remove them to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for white settlement of their ancestral lands.
Trail of Tears is the name provided to the difficult journey that Native Americans made after being forced to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory,” in order to enable white settlers to grow cotton on the Indians’ land.