Correct me if I'm wrong there, billbears, but the Texas declaration of the causes of secession did not give as one of the reasons for the rebellion the fact that the government was too soft on the Indians. Instead, they complained that they weren't hard enough. And during the war it wasn't Sherman or Sheridan who called for killing all the male Indians that they found and selling the women and children to defray the cost of extermination. That was John Baylor, confederate governor of Arizona. And the Trail of Tears didn't start in New Jersey, if started in Georgia and the Carolinas. So please save your pious complaints about the treatment of the Native Americans. Southern hands were bloodier.
Tu quoque boy strikes again and his logic, as usual, is faulty.
Despite Sherman's protests otherwise, not all Indians and not all Indian tribes are the same. Just like the nations of any given region on earth, some are peaceful and civilized while others are warlike and savage. Among the American Indians there were many different types of tribes. Some were nomadic hunters. Some were agrarians who settled in fixed communities. Some were peaceful. Some were warlike. Some were thoroughly cultured. Some were ignorant savages. To group them all together under the heading of "indians" and to subsequently consider all acts of force used against that vague heading as inherently good or inherently bad is idiocy.
The Trail of Tears' and other similar migrations victimized a group of Indians typically known as the five civilized nations. They employed social structures that resembled those of western societies, adhered to sophisticated cultures and languages, and engaged in warfare through organized means not unlike the average nation in the world (i.e. formal declarations, treaties, alliances etc.). These tribes formally aligned themselves with the confederacy during the war.
A contrasting form of tribes existed further west on the north american continent. Among the most violently cultured of these tribes were the Comanches. The Comanches of west Texas had a warlike culture developed around the use of raiding parties on horseback to wage what we would know today as guerilla warfare upon their enemies. They waged war upon not only neighboring tribes but also frontier settlements near the lands where they roamed, which meant the towns of central texas. In complaining about the lack of border defenses provided to the Texas frontier the ordinance made a perfectly sound and legitimate grievance. Comanche raiding parties were literally brutalizing civilians without justification and it was the duty of the government to defend against that sort of stuff. Stating that you are in favor of fighting back against Comanche raiders does not make one anti-Indian, non-seq. It is a simple and common sense act of self defense against a war-driven culture.