This historic letter, discovered by Raab and exhibited at the National Constitution Center, is for sale with The Raab Collection
The Raab Collection announced today that it is offering for sale the historic letter of President Andrew Jackson, written in 1829, instructing Native Americans to leave the American South and move west of the Mississippi. This decree was read aloud to Native groups, which rejected his plan, initiating the U.S. Government’s “Indian Removal Policy” and the Trail of Tears. It is valued at $275,000.
“This document is a relic of a complicated and in some ways unsettling event in American history,” said Nathan Raab, president of The Raab Collection and author of The Hunt for History. “It illuminates a moment when two civilizations came into conflict, and the Native Americans were subjugated.”
The President’s Plan
Until the early 19th century, Native American tribes were generally considered sovereign on their lands, and only through treaties and negotiations could the federal government of the United States claim those territories. As the demand for land for white settlers grew, however, some began to question the Native Americans’ ownership and residency. When Andrew Jackson, well known for his strength and brutality in battle, became president in 1829, an “Indian policy” was foremost on his agenda.
Within months of taking office, Andrew Jackson decided to send a letter, via Major David Haley, to cajole Native tribes to vacate their lands. Haley carried the letter by hand and read it aloud to the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, as well as hundreds of tribal leaders. The letter attempted to persuade Native Americans to move to land further west, where “they & their children can live upon [it as] long as grass grows or water runs, in peace and plenty. It shall be theirs forever.”
The Native groups saw through these empty promises and rejected his proposal. Then came the “Indian Removal Act,” legislating the forced displacement of those tribes, starting with the Choctaw, then the Seminole, the Creek, the Chickasaw, and finally the Cherokee. This is what we have come to call the Trail of Tears, lasting roughly 1831-38.
This original letter was long thought lost, though from a draft it became famous and is quoted in countless books on the subject.
Likely in the hand of Jackson’s nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, it was signed by the president on October 15, 1829. One brief excerpt reads:
“Say to my red Choctaw children, and my Chickasaw children to listen. My white children of Mississippi have extended their laws over their country; and if they remain where they now are…must be subject to those laws. If they will [remove] across the Mississippi, they will be free [from] those laws, and subject only to their own, and the care of their father the President…. Say to the chiefs & warriors that I am their friend, that I wish to act as their friend, but they must, by removing from the limits of the States of Mississippi and Alabama, and by being settled on the lands I offer them, put it in my power to be such. That the chiefs and warriors may fully understand this talk, you will please [go] among them and explain it; and tell [them] it is from my own mouth you have it and that I never speak with a [forked] tongue.”
Provenance and Preservation
The Raab Collection discovered this letter at the bottom of a box purchased from the descendant of a prominent Civil War commander. After weeks of extensive research, we were able to determine that it was the original letter Major Haley brought to various tribal leaders. This powerful and important document, however, needed professional conservation treatment in order to preserve it for future generations.
“That the letter had survived at all was remarkable,” said Nathan Raab. “To have played a part in its journey and to have restored such a truly significant piece of American history to the historical record is a personal highlight.”
At the National Constitution Center
After the research and conservation were completed, the Jackson letter was purchased by a private collector and loaned for exhibition at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The institution’s display described the letter thus: “This letter signed by President Andrew Jackson just seven months after he took office initiated the government’s policy of removing Indian tribes from their native lands in the Southeast in order to make way for white settlement.”
To learn more about this unique letter, Nathan Raab is available for interviews.
