Which national policy led to relocation of Native Americans including Georgians in the 1830s?

• A. Assimilation Policy
• B. Treaty of Paris
• C. Indian Removal
• D. Westward Expansion Act

Answer: (C)

The policy being tested is the Indian Removal policy, a national drive to move Native American tribes out of the Southeast to lands west of the Mississippi. Central to this was the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the federal government to relocate tribes like the Cherokee, Creek, and others from Georgia and neighboring areas. This led to the forced migrations in the late 1830s, often called the Trail of Tears, as communities were uprooted to make way for white settlement and expansion. Assimilation efforts aimed to absorb Native Americans into Euro-American society, but did not entail large-scale removal from ancestral lands. The Treaty of Paris is an 18th-century international treaty unrelated to U.S. relocation policy, and the Westward Expansion Act isn’t a real federal policy. The Indian Removal approach best explains the relocation experienced in Georgia during the 1830s.