Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 has been said to have been motivated by humanitarian impulses. Robert V. Remini argues that Jackson's actions where driven by the desire to save the culture and populace of the Native Americans from the expansion of white settlers into Indian territories. On the other hand Antony F. C. Wallace claims that Jackson's actions where in fact to do the exact opposite; destroy the Indian tribal culture and move the Native Americans from the southeastern United States to areas west of the Mississippi by force.

One of the people that spoke of Jackson's actions as humanitarian was historical biographer Robert V. Remini. Mr. Remini points out that Jackson believed that the only way for the Indians to be "protected from certain annihilation" was to remove them form their native land. To many Americans the Indians were inferior to them and that their culture...