Andrew Jackson was not the first U.S. president to propose removing Indians from their lands east of the Mississippi River. As a topic of interest, in fact, removal first came up during the administration of Thomas Jefferson when he considered the opportunities presented by the land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Nevertheless, because the Indian Removal Act was written and passed with Jackson’s encouragement and during his tenure as president, Jackson has always been associated with the policy and its impact.

The following image by an unknown illustrator certainly helped put Jackson’s face more specifically on the policy of Indian removal and the justifications for its passage. It first appeared in print in 1835 and names Jackson as the Great Father, a term that, by the 1830s, had been used for decades by Indians to refer to U.S. presidents.

Evaluating the Evidence