Evaluated by its objectives, Indian removal was tremendously and horribly effective. As administrative control was won – again – by federal authorities, however, it would not be Andrew Jackson and Thomas McKenney who did the difficult and disturbing work of forcibly relocating entire communities of Native Americans. Federal authorities, civilian and military, together with state officials, private contractors, and ordinary settlers and citizens did the heavy lifting. Indian officials, too, were involved, in resistance efforts and in efforts to manage or control or shape the process. The artful combination of standardized guidelines and common purposes with discretionary authority in the field, characteristic of the Indian Office's work in the factory system era, settled deep into the service by the removal years.

Over time, the Indian service's effective but localized administrative decision making during removals was forgotten, as contemporary and later observers focused on the U.S. failure to protect Indian interests and on the injustice of federal policy. Localized and personalized administration was an easy target for criticism, especially given the diverse interests actively engaged in Indian affairs at the time. As in the factory era, it served many interests to discredit the Indian service, even where charges of maladministration and corruption were not supportable. And as the course of Indian affairs evolved, many of the interests satisfied with removal's outcome became less active in Indian affairs or became opposed to expenditures being made for Indian affairs in the West.