American Historical Ephemera & Photography

4pp., folio, 15 1/2 x 22 in. Disbound (partially separated at central fold, chipping, creasing, and short tears at edges, toning and occasional spotting). The newspaper contains the front page headline, “The Indian Bill," with a full printing of the Indian Removal Act.

The Removal Act, part of a US government policy known as Indian Removal, was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on 28 May 1830. It passed in order to facilitate the relocation of Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River in the United States to lands further west.

In the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the US had acquired a claim to a vast amount of land west of the Mississippi River. Before the passage of the Removal Act, treaties had been conducted to encourage Indian tribes to settle on this land - which would eventually become known as the "Indian Territory" - in exchange for their tribal lands in the East. The passage of the Removal Act greatly accelerated this land-exchange process. The Removal Act was strongly supported in the South, where states were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the "Five Civilized Tribes."