enemies to give them their senses" on his quest to "serve the goal of U.S. expansion". According to her, American Indians presented an obstacle to the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny, in his mind. Throughout his military career, according to historian Amy H. Sturgis, "Jackson earned and emphasized his reputation as an 'Indian fighter', a man who believed creating fear in the native population was more desirable than cultivating friendship". In a message to Congress on the eve of Indian Removal, December 6, 1830, Jackson wrote that removal "will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites." In this way, Sturgis has argued that Jackson demarcated the Indian population as an "obstacle" to national success. Sturgis writes that Jackson's removal policies were met with pushback from respectable social figures and that "many leaders of Jacksonian reform movements were particularly disturbed by U.S policy toward American Indians". Among these opponents were women's advocate and founder of the American Woman's Educational Association Catherine Beecher and politician Davy Crockett. Historian Francis Paul Prucha, on the other hand, writes that these assessments were put forward by Jackson's political opponents and that Jackson had benevolent intentions. According to him, Jackson's critics have been too harsh, if not wrong. He states that Jackson never developed a doctrinaire anti-Indian attitude and that his dominant goal was to preserve the security and well-being of the United States and its Indian and white inhabitants. Corrobating Prucha's interpretation, historian Robert V. Remini argues that Jackson never intended for the "monstrous result" of his policy. Remini argues further that had Jackson not orchestrated the removal of the "Five Civilized Tribes" from their ancestral homelands, they would have been totally wiped out. Treaty of New Echota Jackson chose to continue with Indian removal, and negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, on December 29, 1835, which granted the Cherokee two years to move to Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). The Chickasaws and Choctaws had readily accepted and signed treaties with the U.S. government, while the Creeks did so under coercion. The negotiation of the Treaty of New Echota was largely encouraged by Jackson, and it was signed by a minority Cherokee political faction, the Treaty Party, led by Cherokee leader Elias Boudinot. However, the