How did westward expansion impact plain indians and fulfill manifest destiny?

Congress approved in 1830 the Indian Removal Act, as a response to the presidential request by Jackson. This act authorized the president to provide Indian federal lands west of the Mississippi River in exchange for the land they occupied in the East and the South. Some tribes, as Cherokees used the federal court system to try to block this relocation, not obtaining success. The event and the route they used came to be known as the Trail of Tears. By 1840 only a few Seminoles and Cherokees remained, hiding in remote areas of the Southeast. The plain Indians felt the ruthless pressure of white expansion and conquest. Native American life on the plains was highly dependent upon the buffalo, the introduction of white settlers and hunters professed a direct threat to the Indians. The other important factor was the discovery of gold in California in early 1848, marking the beginning of violent confronts between White settlers, Native Americans and Mexicans.

During the Westward Migration, many Americans believed that the West was divinely ordained to be part of the United States, as part of manifest destiny (a moral justification for territorial expansion, a direction for what an enlarged United States could and should be). Although populated by Indians and Latinos, the West was portrayed as empty land. The lure of cheap, fertile land led to Oregon fever, and settlers moved along the Overland Trails, enduring great physical difficulties.