[SeeSharp]

The first concentration camps in America were authorized by Congress in 1851 with the passage of the Indian Appropriations Act. Millard Fillmore was in office at the time. That is, unless you want to count the entire territory of Oklahoma as one big concentration camp, in which case you’d have to look all the way back to Andrew Jackson.

[ansel12]

Are you calling the carving out of reservations for the Indians, “concentration camps”?

[oldbrowser]

How about the American Indians who were rounded up and put on reservations? Wasn’t that a type of imprisonment? They were not all wild savages killing just out of blood lust. Some were quite friendly.

[BroJoeK]

SeeSharp: "The first concentration camps in America were authorized by Congress in 1851 with the passage of the Indian Appropriations Act."

2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten: "People should not confuse POW camps for internment camps."

ansel12: "Are you calling the carving out of reservations for the Indians, “concentration camps”?"

SeeSharp: "Well let's see. The put you there against your will and shoot you if you try to leave..."

According to this source, a "concentration camp" is defined as:

"The Random House Dictionary defines the term 'concentration camp' as:

'a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.'
,
whilst the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as:

'A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions.' "

This source identifies the first US "concentration camps" as:

"The first large-scale confinement of a specific ethnic group in detention centers began in the summer of 1838, when President Martin Van Buren ordered the U.S. Army to enforce the Treaty of New Echota (a Native American removal treaty) by rounding up the Cherokee into prison camps before relocating them.
Called "emigration depots", the three main ones were located at Ross's Landing (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Fort Payne, Alabama, and Fort Cass (Charleston, Tennessee).
Fort Cass was the largest, with over 4,800 Cherokee prisoners held over the summer of 1838.[131]
Many died in these camps due to disease, which spread rapidly because of the close quarters and bad sanitary conditions: see the Trail of Tears.

"Throughout the remainder of the Indian Wars, various populations of Native Americans were rounded up, trekked across country and put into detention, some for as long as 2 years."