Historian Explores the Indian Removal Act and its Consequences

The history department hosted the annual Hugh Hawkins lecture on Oct. 24, featuring Claudio Saunt, an award-winning professor of American history at the University of Georgia. In his talk, titled “The Land Beneath Our Feet: Indian Removal, Crimes of State and Public Memory,” Saunt explored the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which he described as authorizing the first modern mass deportation.

Hosted annually by the Department of History, the lecture was established in honor of Professor Hugh Hawkins, a distinguished faculty member in the departments of history and American studies.

Saunt urged a rethinking of wording around forced Indigenous displacement. In his 2020 book, “Unworthy Republic,” which inspired the lecture’s theme, Saunt explains his deliberate choice of terms when discussing this history.

“I don’t call it Indian removal, because that is a term that was coined by the advocates of this policy in the 1820s. So instead, I call it a deportation. I call it an expulsion, and at certain times I call it an extermination,” Saunt said.

Saunt added that his interest in studying the deportation of Indigenous Americans stemmed from his personal history. His family was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz during World War II, and

Saunt pointed out that there are striking parallels between the 1830 act and other mass deportations of the 19th and 20th centuries, though these connections often go unnoticed.

According to him, the 1830s Indigenous deportation in the United States was rooted in racist ideology, white supremacy, the desire to build a monocultural state, and strict bureaucratic control.

The Removal Act led to a brutal process of dispossession, culminating in the forced relocation of Indigenous communities to unknown and uninhabitable lands west of the Mississippi, Saunt added. The journey itself was marked by severe logistical problems, leading to the deaths of many Native American men, women, and children along the way.

Recognizing that the history of Indigenous deportation has been largely erased from narratives in states like Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, Saunt created an online mapping project to revive this memory. The online mapping reconstructs a detailed representation of the Cherokee Nation just before their forced removal, allowing current residents to visualize the history beneath their feet. This fully interactive map and database enables users to explore various elements, such as personal possessions and property, offering a powerful tool to reconnect with a past often forgotten.

In an interview with The Student, President Michael Elliot, who attended the lecture, emphasized the importance of Saunt’s mapping project in today’s world.

“What I thought was especially interesting was the way that he is thinking about using contemporary technologies to represent that history, and has a longer-term goal of reinscribing that history upon the landscape,” Elliott said.

Kiara Vigil, professor of American studies and education studies with a focus on Native American history and literature, also spoke on the significance of the lecture for the broader Amherst College community, highlighting the painful reality that Amherst itself was built upon Native American lands and blood.

“We could ask ourselves questions about the colonial baggage we carry, just the name of the college, we [can] think about how much does the average student know about Lord Jeffrey Amherst, for instance, and his outwardly genocidal campaign of extermination of native people?” Vigil asked.

Saunt concluded by emphasizing the importance of educating citizens on the history of their country, even though states usually do not like to admit to their crimes.

“I hope that the book and the mapping project will give people pause as they go about their daily lives and remind them that the sense of perfect and permanent sovereignty projected by the United States has the stain of these Indigenous people.”