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Andrew Jackson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 15, 1767 Waxhaw Settlement, British America |
| Died | June 8, 1845 Nashville, Tennessee, United States |
| Nationality | Statesian |
| Political orientation | Settler colonialism |
| Political party | Democratic |
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was a Statesian politician who ruled as President of the United States from 1829 to 1837. In addition to owning a plantation with 150 slaves, he led wars against the Muscogee and Seminoles.[1]:131 He founded the Democratic Party, which is the oldest active party in the United States.
Early life[edit | edit source]
Jackson was born to Scots-Irish parents in 1767. He studied law in Tennessee and bought a plantation in Nashville with 150 slaves.[2]
Pre-presidency[edit | edit source]
Jackson organized the admission of Tennessee into the United States in 1796. He spent a year as a senator before becoming a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court for six years.[2]
War of 1812[edit | edit source]
Congress rejected Jackson's request to invade East Florida with the Tennessee militia and instead sent the Army. In August 1813, the Red Stick faction of the Muscogee rebelled and defeated the army, leading Jackson to invade.[1]:128–9 In 1814, he forced the Muscogee Nation to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, ceding 93,000 km² of their land to settlers,[2] including land belonging to the Cherokee and Muscogee allied with the US. James Madison ordered him to reverse the land theft, but he refused. He defeated the British in New Orleans in January 1815, two weeks after the War of 1812 ended. After the war, he imposed martial law on New Orleans for more than two months, executed six men who tried to leave his militia, and imprisoned a judge who opposed him.[1]:129–30
Seminole War[edit | edit source]
In 1816, Jackson ordered the construction of Fort Scott near the border between Georgia and Florida. In July 1816, he used it to attack Nicholls Fort, which Seminoles and New Afrikans had controlled since the British abandoned it. He killed 270 people and sold many survivors into slavery. In 1817, at the request of John Calhoun, he attacked Florida again and destroyed many Seminole and Muscogee villages before seizing Spanish forts. He was publicly criticized for going too far in his attacks.[1]:130–32
In 1818, as a major in the US Army, he invaded Spanish Florida with a force of 3,000 soldiers to crush the Seminoles and re-enslave Africans who were living among them. Jackson's forces defeated the Spanish colonial government but failed to stop the Seminole resistance.[2]
Presidency[edit | edit source]
Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in the 1828 presidential election.[1]:138 Following Jackson's election as president in 1829, Georgia annexed most of the Cherokee Nation's land. The US Supreme Court ruled that the annexation was illegal, but Jackson approved it anyway.[2]
Jackson also opposed the Bank of the United States.[3]
Legacy[edit | edit source]
In April 2017, Donald Trump said that Jackson could have prevented the Civil War if he was president at that time.[3]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 David Vine (2020). The United States of War: 'Invading Your Neighbors'. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520972070 [LG]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2014). An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: 'The Last of the Mohicans and Andrew Jackson's White Republic' (pp. 96–110). [PDF] Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. ISBN 9780807000403
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 John Bellamy Foster (2017-06-01). "This Is Not Populism" Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 2023-07-18.