esent only if the language of the presidential state papers is taken seriously. When the lofty rhetoric is discounted and viewed for what it was--sheer rationale for policy based on much more mundane considerations--then an almost frightening consistency becomes apparent. By one means or another the southern tribes had to be driven to the far side of the Mississippi.
Jackson was himself a symbol of the American frontier and of its new political importance. Jackson shifted the Indian policy of his predecessor, John Quincy Adams, in his first annual message, "The Condition and Ulterior Destiny of the Indians." In that speech, it is apparent that Jackson takes a paternal view of the Indians, seeing them as inferior beings in need of improvement:
It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate.
Jackson notes how some Indians had attempted to set up their own government within the states, and the states had complained of this effort even as the Indians had sought protection from the federal government. Jackson states that the federal government will not tolerate the creation of a separate government within its borders, and he makes particular reference to the complaints of Georgia about this issue. In spite of the fact that Jackson's developing policy was precisely counter to the statement he made that the Indians have been kept in their wandering state by being moved from place to place, the new policy was made clear in this speech: