On Indian Removal

Content Warning: This section references ethnic cleansing and racial prejudice and discusses a racial slur.

This term has many definitions; it can refer to everything from politeness to a stage of cultural development perceived as advanced. The latter is closest to Jackson’s meaning, which assumes the supremacy of Western culture, including centralized government, private property rights, and belief in Christianity. Jackson constructs a Savagery Versus Civilization dichotomy to support his arguments about the necessity of forcibly relocating Indigenous Americans, calculating that his audience will choose to align themselves with civilization to preserve their own status and way of life.

The term refers to a culminating completion or finalization. Jackson uses the term to assert that the past “nearly thirty years” of Indigenous American displacement is fortuitous (1): Such actions have paved the way for what Jackson presents as the crowning achievement of the Indian Removal Act, which he argues will permanently end conflicts between white settlers and Indigenous Americans while preserving American identity and sovereignty. 

Something that is “incalculable” cannot be measured; “incalculably” is the adverbial form. Jackson argues that the forced relocation of tribes will “incalculably strength the southwestern frontier” (2), effectively arguing that opening these areas to white settlement will make the region impermeable to invasion.