One of Mississippi's and the United States' most inhumane actions was the forced removal of American Indians from the South to lands west of the Mississippi River in the early 1800s.
Removal occurred because of an incessant demand for Indian lands. Demands for Indian land resulted from Anglo-American population growth in the South, the expansion of the short-staple cotton industry after Eli Whitney's cotton gin became widely available in the 1790s, the discovery of gold and other minerals on some Indian land, and simple racism.
It did not help Indians that the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 provided lands to the west to which the United States could banish them, or that by 1815 there was no longer a viable European ally in the area who could counteract American demands
