On the advice of John C. Calhoun, President James Monroe asked Congress to organize Indian Territory (map pictured) west of the Mississippi River, laying the groundwork for Indian removal in the United States.

John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. Born in South Carolina, Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer and proponent of a strong federal government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views shifted, and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs, and distinguished himself as an outspoken defender of American slavery. Calhoun saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South's remaining in the Union. His beliefs heavily influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860 and 1861. Calhoun was the first of two vice presidents to resign from the position, the second being Spiro Agnew, who resigned in 1973.

James Monroe was an American Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as president as well as the last president of the Virginia dynasty. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics. He issued the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas. Monroe previously served as Governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh secretary of state, and the eighth secretary of war.

Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.