Indian removal was a policy of the United States government in the 19th century whereby Native Americans were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River, thereafter known as Indian Territory. That policy has been characterized by some scholars as part of a long-term genocide of Native Americans by European settlers to North America in the colonial period and citizens of the United States until the mid-20th century. The policy traced its direct origins to the administration of James Monroe, though it addressed conflicts between whites and Indians that had been occurring since the 17th century, and were getting worse by the early 19th century as white settlers were increasingly pushing west. The Indian Removal Act was the key act that enforced Indian removal, and was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.