Talk:Indian Removal Act/Archive 1

Date?
Encyclopaedia Britannica has the date that this Act was passed as May 15, 1830. –DeweyQ 16:14, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Good catch. The difference lies between "passed" and "signed": the House passed the Act on May 26, but Jackson signed it on May 28. I have no idea how or why May 26 came to be a Wikipedia "selected anniversary," but the signing is probably the more significant date. Regardless, I'll clarify the dates in the article. --Kevin Myers 23:31, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

ugh. someone edited the main page, please retype the facts... 67.86.27.20 23:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

According to the LOC, it was signed on 5/28. That would be the date it became law. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.43.24 (talk) 15:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality
This article is not presented from a neutral point of view. Saying that the Indian Removal Act "was a racist act" does not meet the standard for neutrality. Jrsightes (talk) 16:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The statement "All Indians who had adopted a civilized behavior could remain east of the Mississippi," is not neutral, not to mention that the tribes in question were referred to as "The Five Civilized Tribes." Wiktionary defines civilized as follows: 1. Having a highly developed society or culture. 2. Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, reasonable, ethical. This includes the Tribes here. I am not experienced in editing, nor am I a subject maven, so it would be good, I think, if someone good deal with this issue. (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I eliminated the POV language and the POV tag. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This is somebody else,(I don't know how 2 make a new comment), but we need to know what the act actually DOES, not who most supported it. This article should talk more about the events leading up to the trail of tears. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.225.196 (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.144.16 (talk) 20:45, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Map?
Please. IceDragon64 (talk) 00:02, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ GenQuest  "Talk to Me" 22:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Legality
This article should give a legality aspect that President Jackson went through. Through the 1870s, there was a great controversy if Jackson had the authority to pass an act within a state. My legality section that i'm pitching is supported by Ethan Davis and his article “An Administrative Trail of Tears: Indian Removal.” This article explains if the act was constitution for the President to pass or if it was out of his power to do so. Mebryant (talk) 15:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Native American name controversy
Choosing the right term to refer to an entire racial category has always been a Controversial topic. Especially in the case regarding North America, foreign settlers necessitated a term to refer to a broad spectrum of people that may or may not have had a cultural use for it. It's mainly an English exonym.

The current acceptable term is Native American. The debated other is American Indian. Simply using Indian is typically regarded as foolish and improper because it is already used to refer to the Indian people from India.

I suggest changing any reference to the indigenous racial groups of North America to Native American. Of course It's acceptable to refer to the "Indian Removal Act" in title and in reference to it's content as it is historical, but any contextual reference to the Native American racial group past or present, outside of the content of the "Indian Removal Act" legislation is not only inaccurate, but could be regarded as a veiled racial slander.

I apologize for editing this page with out a proper discussion first, but unless there is a reasonable objection in the next few days, I will revert the reversion from Jason from nyc. Cscawley (talk) 19:41, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You've basically gave us your POV on terminology. Sources use "American Indian" and, given the American context, "Indian" is a shortened version. Let's reflect the literature. When I'm back home I'll catch up on the discussion. Jason from nyc (talk) 00:50, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response, but this needs reasonable objection or I think my suggestion should be sustained. This isn't my point of view. This is an update to contextual terminology that's been out of use since the 1970s. Go to the the Native American Name Controversy Wiki page and notice the 9th salient issue, "'Indians' cannot be used to describe global indigenous cultures when it already accurately describes the Indian people from India." Go to the official wiki page for indigenous peoples of the United States Native Americans in the United States and notice the talk page has no debate over whether the page should use the title "Indians". The content of Indian Removal Act is valid. Referring to Native Americans as Indians in any context outside of historically written content is not.Cscawley (talk) 20:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no reasonable argument for abandoning the present consensus. Your reference, Native_American_name_controversy, shows that the traditional terms are acceptable to many and indeed preferable according to some polls. I see no convincing argument for a new consensus. Jason from nyc (talk) 02:12, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any consensus other than your opinion. Native_American_name_controversy doesn't refer to any polls. If you wont address the 9th salient issue and If there's no reasonable objection then I'll go ahead and revert it back to Native American.Cscawley (talk) 04:04, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The article was created by consensus. There is a consensus for the article as it is. Per WP:BRD you made a bold edit, it was reverted, and now you seek a new consensus. To declare unilaterally that your view is the new consensus violates all consensus building rules. We use both "Native American" and "American Indian" terminology in our article by consensus. I've discussed your "controversy article" and it makes clear both terminologies have their champions. They are both used by sources and we use them both here. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:55, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No. No one champions "Indian." There's no consensus to being wrong. Also I wont let this veiled bigotry stand. You must accept at the very least the quotes around the initial instance of Indian to indicate that this was the accepted terminology of our past and is no longer in use today. Ignoring the bigotry of calling Native Americans "Indian", you are pedaling ignorance on an encyclopedic forum.Cscawley (talk) 20:38, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: just my 2 cents. There is not a lot of controversy here.  "Indian" is an accepted term in America, as is "Native American."  My wife has two lines of indigenous peoples in her ancestry.  Her family members have always preferred being referred to as "Indian."  My experience is that most people who prefer "Native American" tend to be those that THINK there is bigotry with or a cultural bias against the former term (there is not), and most of these folks themselves are not of aboriginal stock.  I would caution you against taking your opinions and stating them as accepted fact, when in actuality they are still just a view, or personal opinion.  Generally, groups can self-identify anyway they want.  Perhaps, someday, there will be a decided consensus for one or the other term.  Today is not that day.  Regards,  GenQuest  "Talk to Me" 19:37, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: As terms change throughout social circles, "Indian American" has been seen as negative. But when looking at history and at how it is seen in scholarly novels and articles, I think we should keep the consistency, especially if the Native American/Indian American people are not offended by either choice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecorbett1 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Indian Removal Act. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100308081936/http://www.history.com/topics/indian-removal-act to http://www.history.com/topics/indian-removal-act

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 05:54, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Constitutionality
The Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional (Chief Justice John Marshall). The President ignored that (and should have been impeached and removed from office for it). Why isn't that mentioned in the article? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:40, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

The victors write history, as the saying goes
I just found this article because it's on the Wikipedia front page.

From my first impressions, I am really quite appalled at the way this article is written.

But that is how history is written, whoever wins (ie is left) records history.

Compare the language of this article to the one used in the one about Nazi Germany's dream of settling Europe when it won WWII: Lebensraum, therein lies the problem.

81.141.61.222 (talk) 22:30, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism
We've got a person, or multiple people, vandalizing the page with no apparent agenda beyond forcing real editors to waste time and energy on monitoring and reverting. It's been going on for a while now. Perhaps this page ought to be semi-protected? --ShorinBJ (talk) 03:52, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism without apparent edit code
Someone posted a "your mom" edit on the top of the page that I've been trying so hard for the past 15 minutes to edit out, but I couldn't find it in the edit tool. This may be done in some weird code that I have no knowledge with. Could somebody fix this? Thanks in advance! SkyFlubbler (talk) 04:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)