The U.S. government's policies towards Native Americans in the second half of the nineteenth centurywere influenced by the desire to expand westward into territories occupied by these Native Americantribes. By the 1850s nearly all Native American tribes, roughly 360,000 in number, lived to the west of theMississippi Yet, only fourteen months later, Jackson prompted Congress to pass the Removal Act, a bill that forcedNative Americans to leave the United States and settle in the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Many Cherokee tribes banded together as an independent nation, and challenged this legislation in U.S. courtsThe Chickasaw were considered by the United States (US) as one of the Five Civilized Tribes, as they adopted numerous practices of European Americans. Resisting European-American settlers encroaching on their territory, the Chickasaw were forced by the US to sell their country in 1832 andmove to Indian Territory
