Last updated on: 1/30/2017 | Author: ProCon.org

1814-1850 – Native Americans Exempted from Naturalization and Forced from Tribal Land; Slave Populations in Ceded Land Increase Dramatically

“The [1790] Naturalization Act excluded from citizenship not only
nonwhite immigrants but also a group of people already here – Indians.
Though they were born in the United States, they were regarded as
members of tribes, or as domestic subjects; their status was considered
analogous to children of foreign diplomats born here. As domestic
‘foreigners,’ native Americans could not seek naturalized citizenship,
for they were not ‘white.’ …Tribe after tribe in the south was forced
to cede their lands to the federal government and move west of the
Mississippi River. Eleven treaties of cession were negotiated with these
tribes between 1814 and 1824; from these agreements the United States
acquired millions of acres of land… Sales of Indian lands were
followed by increases in the slave population: between 1820 and 1850 the
number of slaves jumped from 42,000 to 343,000 in Alabama, 33,000 to
310,000 in Mississippi, and 69,000 to 245,000 in Louisiana.”