Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States, in office from 1829 to 1837. Many important events happened during his presidency, and here Richard Bluttal looks at Jackson’s policies towards Native Americans.
An 1820s portrait of Andrew Jackson, By Thomas Sully.
Early years of Westward Expansion
To understand the basic elements of the Indian Removal Act 1830, we need to first understand the status of the United States at this critical juncture in time. In the early 19th century, American settlers were moving toward the frontier at an alarming rate. As the coastal regions were beginning to crowd, southern and western lands were in high demand. This prompted pioneers to begin settling deeper into Native American territory.
White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, Native Americans seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted and believed they deserved.
Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this “Indian problem” was to simply “civilize” the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, enslaved persons).
Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States. Before that, he was a successful general in the War of 1812 and made many contributions to the country as a lawyer, judge, statesman, and war hero. Despite his illustrious career, Jackson remains one of the most controversial figures in American history over one issue alone—the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This monumental law would affect history like no other. It was developed for the purpose of moving Native American tribes from east of the Mississippi River to lands in the west.
Lately, Historians have been asking, why did Andrew Jackson have an extreme hatred for Native Americans, or it was all fictional. In 1813, Andrew Jackson sent home to Tennessee a Native American child who was found on the battlefield with his dead mother. This boy, Lyncoya, (1811-1828), may have originally been intended as merely a companion for Andrew Jr., but Jackson soon took a strong interest in him. Lyncoya was educated along with Andrew Jr., and Jackson had aspirations of sending him to West Point, as well.
What Tennessee in its frontier days did not offer was an easy life. The people who came to Tennessee did not travel with a wealth of possessions. They possessed little and knew how to manage with what they had. To eat, they had to grow their food or hunt it. They had come to conquer the land, but Tennessee did not readily surrender to their efforts as they chopped down the trees and cleared the land for agriculture. The houses were rudimentary, with the family sharing common living space. But they had come not only for prosperity but freedom, and they were willing to work hard to raise children who would grow up in liberty.
The General
Jackson made himself available when military service called. He was brave and known early on as a bit wild so Tennessee was perfect for him. In 1802 was appointed major-general of Tennessee’s militia military service and stationed where troops were needed along the frontier
1813 he headed south, where he was victorious in battle, defeating the Native Americans at Tallushatchee and Talladega. Jackson was discovering that he had a flair for leadership and a knack for soldiering. With a force of 5,000, Jackson’s volunteers defeated the Creek warriors at Horseshoe Bend, bringing the Creek War to an end in March 1814. The United States needed a hero in the war of 1812, and Andrew Jackson was going to fit the bill very nicely.
Jackson heard that the British were planning to invade the South, he went to Mobile, Alabama to strengthen the city’s fortifications. He then, although he was not authorized to do so, invaded Florida, which belonged to Spain. His motive was to get to nullify the dangers of the tribes who were allied with Great Britain and hostile to the Americans. Jackson and his troops headed for Spanish Florida. Jackson captured Pensacola in November 1814 and then set off on the trail of the British, who were on their way to New Orleans. The Americans, consisting of a military force of regular U.S. troops, Tennessee militia volunteers, with militia from Kentucky, Louisiana and the Mississippi Territory, free blacks, Native Americans, Creoles and even a band of pirates, were outnumbered.The British invasion began on December 14. On December 23, Jackson’s forces halted the advance of the British troops, initiating two weeks of battle as the British sought a way through Jackson’s defenses to reach New Orleans. On January 8, a full- scale attack by the British was launched. Jackson’s forces were outnumbered two- to- one at the battle. They were not a cohesive fighting unit. Despite these drawbacks, on January 8, 1815, Jackson’s 5,000 soldiers defeated the mighty forces of the British at the Battle of New Orleans, forcing the expert soldiers of the British Empire to withdraw from Louisiana. New Orleans was saved, the peace treaty between the United States and Great Britain had already been signed in Belgium, but slow communication prevented Jackson from knowing that his battle victory was unnecessary. The Treaty of Ghent had brought the war to an end several weeks before Jackson’s conclusive victory, although it would not be ratified by Congress until February 16, 1815. It was not, however, unappreciated. His military prowess also did much to boost the confidence of a very young country which had no longstanding military heritage to boast of, as did its European counterparts. The world saw, through Jackson’s boldness, that his reputation was well known to the tribes, and the Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Choctaws signed treaties which left them with significantly reduced land while the United States was able to increase its territory. What would benefit the Americans the most would be the undoing of the tribes, who would eventually be forced to leave their ancestral homes.
In 1817, Jackson returned to military leadership during the First Seminole War. In 1805 thru 1816 there was increasing friction between white settlers, Florida Native Americans and the Creek Confederation. The Seminoles began hiding runaway slaves who had escaped from southern plantations into Spanish Florida. In March of 1818 General Andrew Jackson crossed into Florida attacking the Spanish fort at St. Marks with 3, 500 men and then marched east to the Suwanne River and attacked the village of Chief Boleck. Many Native Americans escaped into the swamps. Jackson was unable to find or capture the Seminoles thus ending the First Seminole Indian War.
His success in military ventures brought more land to the growing nation, but by securing so much land, a new crop, which would thrive in the southern soil, would eventually bring both prosperity and tragedy to the region: cotton became the dominant agricultural produce in the South. It would, ultimately, expand the number of enslaved peoples, creating an irreparable division between North and South that would only be solved by war.
Jackson’s Presidency
The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress on this day in 1830 and signed by President Andrew Jackson two days later. The act called for the removal of Native Americans residing within state borders in the East to a newly created Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma and parts of Nebraska. The goal was to free up state lands for white settlers, particularly in the Southeast, where a growing population clamored for access to agriculturally rich land on which to grow cotton.
While some members of each affected tribe—which included the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles—left voluntarily, most refused to leave and fought back, through physical and legal means.
Jackson was much more tolerant toward the issue of state’s rights when the state of Georgia claimed millions of acres of land that, according to federal law, belonged to the Cherokee tribe. The Supreme Court ruled that Georgia had no authority over the tribal lands, but Jackson refused to enforce the ruling. The Cherokees began to try to assimilate. Moravian missionaries taught the Native Americans how Europeans lived, farmed, and worshiped. The Cherokee, along with the Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Choctaw, became known as the Five Civilized Tribes for their efforts. The Cherokees adopted a constitutional government and developed a written language, further adopting the ways of the white man. But for Americans, and particular for Georgians, this was futile. All they knew or cared to know was that Native Americans were savages. More to the point, these savages owned land that Americans coveted. One of the foundations of Jackson’s presidency was the goal of removing all Native Americans in the Southeast, a goal which was part of the motivation for the 1830 Indian Removal Act. The Cherokees did not meekly submit. Using the political knowledge they’d gained by studying the white man’s ways, they sent their chief, John Ross, a mixed- blood Cherokee who spoke English and learned the law, to Washington D.C. to plead their cause. But when the Congress failed to be receptive, they took their case to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall agreed with Ross’ arguments, and the Court ruled that the federal government, not the states, held authority over the Cherokee nation. Jackson paid no attention and supported Georgia in its activities against the Cherokee.
Cherokees had three years to move west. Jackson wanted the Native American lands, but he had other goals which he pursued passionately as well. In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched double file,” one historian writes), and without any food, supplies or other help from the government.
Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death.”
The Native American removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.
Jackson Returns to Tennessee
Just as Jackson seemed to exemplify the vigor and energy of the new country, he was also an innovator to the office of the presidency. He was the first president to ride a train and the second to be photographed. The White House that he left, with indoor toilets and running water that had been added during his tenure, was a more modern building than it had been when he moved in. He had done much to transform the office he had occupied, both politically and aesthetically.
Jackson’s Legacy
Jackson believed in the common man, not the elite. His presidency supported democracy as he believed it was meant to be practiced, not as the province of the rich and powerful, but as the birthright of ordinary people. It was the people Jackson held, who had the power to shape the nation. Historians may doubt the morality of his effect, but no one can contest the concrete results of his presidency. He paid off the national debt, expanded the boundaries of the nation, issued a new currency, and made America’s ties with foreign nations stronger. He was also, in an abstract way, one of the architects of the American myth. If a man proved himself willing to work hard, he could not only succeed in this new country, but he could rise to a position of power. In the nations of the Old World, where inherited land and titles dictated the path to empowerment, there was no fresh blood infusing upward mobility. Americans believed, because they had witnessed the process in men like Jackson, that a man could be born with nothing, but could profit himself by applying himself to the endless task of building his country.
Jackson was not, however, a visionary: slavery continued to be an economic factor, rather than a moral quagmire, for Jackson’s era. Native Americans lost more and more territory and sovereignty as the young country expanded at the expense of the natives who had been there first. The movements that would soon blossom in support of the abolition of slavery and the rights of women were on the horizon, but under Jackson, society was dominated by white men who wielded the power. Jackson saw nothing wrong in awarding government offices to his supporters and replaced many of these officials with his own people, beginning what would become known as the spoils system. He was, in this instance, true to his Southern beliefs, as he supported the rights of the states over the federal and judicial authorities. He used his veto power without a qualm, vetoing more bills than had all of the previous presidents combined. He opposed legislation which threatened slavery, supported the availability of cheap public lands, and refused to recognize the judgment of the Supreme Court regarding the rights of the Native American tribes.
For better or for worse, the Age of Jackson imbued the young nation with the raw ingredients it would need to reach its potential. The country believed in its power to do whatever it wanted to do; very different from the established, traditional model of nations long settled into their routines.
What do you think of Andrew Jackson’s Native American policies? Let us know below.
Now read Richard’s piece on the history of slavery in New York here.
