Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson served as the nations seventh president from 1829 - 1837. Prior to the presidency, he served in the Tennessee House of Representatives and was a major general in the War of 1812. Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. "The Cherokees' sufferings in this forced exodus became notorious as the "Trail of Tears" (Miller Center).
Jackson owned fourteen enslaved people at the time of the 1830 census. "Unlike some other slave-owning presidents, Jackson did not leave behind many public statements or writings on the morality of slavery. He never explicitly defended the institution, but he also never questioned it or displayed any qualms about his own role as a slave owner" (White House History).
Resources
- Andrew Jackson: Miller CenterAndrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, was the dominant actor in American politics between Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Born to obscure parents and orphaned in youth, he was the first "self-made man" and the first westerner to reach the White House. He became a democratic symbol and founder of the Democratic Party, the country's most venerable political organization. During his two-term presidency, he expanded executive powers and transformed the President's role from chief administrator to popular tribune.
- Andrew Jackson: White HouseAndrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, seeking to act as the direct representative of the common man.
- The Enslaved Household of President Andrew JacksonThis article is part of the Slavery in the President’s Neighborhood initiative and covers the enslaved household of President Andrew Jackson.
- The HermitageOfficial website of Andrew Jackson's home, The Hermitage.
Reference, Archives, & Primary Sources
- Andrew Jackson: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Andrew Jackson. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- Andrew Jackson Original Historic Letters and DocumentsLetters and documents from Andrew Jackson.
- Andrew Jackson Papers: Library of CongressThe Andrew Jackson Papers collection documents Jackson's life in its several phases, including Jackson's military career in the War of 1812, the Creek War, and Florida; his transactions as a land-holder and Tennessee businessman; his personal and family life, including correspondence with his wife, Rachel Jackson, and other family members and wards associated with the Hermitage; and his controversies with associates and strangers, which sometimes came to confrontation.
- The Papers of Andrew JacksonA comprehensive edition of the papers of Andrew Jackson (1767 –1845), seventh President of the United States, serving 1829-1837. Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) and the British at the Battle of New Orleans (1815). As president he dismantled the Second Bank of the United States and initiated forced relocation and resettlement of Native American tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River. His enthusiastic followers created the modern Democratic Party. The 1830–1850 period later became known as the era of Jacksonian democracy. The NHPRC also funded a microfilm edition gathered from 600 public and private repositories around the world that supplements the Andrew Jackson documents reproduced in National Archives microfilm publications and the Jackson papers assembled and microfilmed in the Library of Congress Presidents’ Series in 1967. 39 reels, 343-page guide.
Andrew Jackson and the War of 1812
Historians still debate why the United States chose to fight Britain in the War of 1812, which lasted until 1815. Survey America's grievances and ambitions, which included conquest of Canada. Study the poor strategy, command, and training that led to a strategic stalemate. The exception is the one military genius who emerged from the war: Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.
Source: Kanopy
Perspectives
American Lion
The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson's presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama-the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers- that shaped Jackson's private world through years of storm and victory. One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will- or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House-from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman-have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision. Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe-no matter what it took.
Andrew Jackson
The newest addition to Palgrave's Great Generals series focuses on Andrew Jackson's career including his time as a general in Tennessee and his rise up the Army ranks. Jackson's effective use of spies in war time and of martial law in peace time sparked a debate about the curtailing of civil liberties in the name of national security that continues to this day. Most of all, Jackson was a great motivator who could, with a few carefully selected words and by his own brave example, turn around starved, deserting troops, convincing them to fight. With dramatic scenes of fierce battles and victories, Remini reveals here why Jackson's bold leadership as a general led to his election as President of the United States in 1828.
The Passions of Andrew Jackson
What transformed a frontier bully into the seventh president of the United States? A southerner obsessed with personal honor who threatened his enemies with duels to the death, a passionate man who fled to Spanish Mississippi with the love of his life before she was divorced, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee left a vast personal correspondence detailing his stormy relationship with the world of early America. He helped shape the American personality, yet he remains largely unknown to most modern readers. Now historian Andrew Burstein (The Inner Jefferson,America’s Jubilee) brings back Jackson with all his audacity and hot-tempered rhetoric. Most people vaguely imagine Andrew Jackson as a jaunty warrior and man of the people, when he was much more: a power monger whom voters thought they could not do without—a man just as complex and controversial as Jefferson or Lincoln. Declared a national hero upon his stunning victory over the British at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, this uncompromising soldier capitalized on his fame and found the presidency within his grasp. Yet Burstein shows that Jackson had conceived no political direction for the country. He was virtually uneducated, having grown up in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas. His ambition to acquire wealth and achieve prominence was matched only by his confidence that he alone could restore virtue to American politics. As the “people’s choice,” this model of masculine bravado—tall, gaunt, and sickly through-out his career—persevered. He lost the election of 1824 on a technicality, owing to the manipulations of Henry Clay. Jackson partisans ran him again, with a vengeance, so that he became, from 1829 to 1837, a president bent on shaping the country to his will. Over two terms, he secured a reputation for opposing the class of moneyed men. To his outspoken critics, he was an elected tyrant. Burstein gives us our first major reevaluation of Jackson’s life in a generation. Unlike the extant biographies, Burstein’s examines Jackson’s close relationships, discovering how the candidate advanced his political chances through a network of army friends—some famous, like Sam Houston, who became a hero himself; others, equally important, who have been lost to history until now. Yet due to his famous temper, Jackson ultimately lost his closest confidants to the opposition party. The Passions of Andrew Jacksonincludes a fresh interpretation of Jackson’s role in the Aaron Burr conspiracy and offers a more intimate view of the backcountry conditions and political setting that shaped the Tennessean’s controversial understanding of democracy. This is the dynamic story of a larger-than-life American brought down to his authentic earthiness and thoughtfully demythologized. In a provocative conclusion, Burstein relates Jackson to the presidents with whom he was and still is often compared, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil & the Presidency
This biography explores whether Americans should celebrate Jackson or apologize for him. The program reveals the world of America's 7th president, who founded the Democratic Party, yet was viewed by his enemies as an American Napoleon. The film contains reenactments, lithographs, letters and the insights of distinguished scholars.
Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab
Jacksonland is the thrilling narrative history of two men-President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee chief John Ross-who led their respective nations at a crossroads of American history.Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy. Jacksonland is their story. One man we recognize- Andrew Jackson-war hero, populist, and exemplar of the expanding South-whose first major initiative as president instigated the massive expulsion of Native Americans known as the Trail of Tears. The other is a half-forgotten figure- John Ross-a mixed-race Cherokee politician and diplomat-who used the United States' own legal system and democratic ideals to oppose Jackson.Representing one of the Five Civilized Tribes who had adopted the ways of white settlers-cultivating farms, publishing a newspaper in their own language, and sending children to school-Ross championed the tribes' cause all the way to the Supreme Court. He gained allies like Senator Henry Clay, Chief Justice John Marshall, and even Davy Crockett. In a fight that seems at once distant and familiar, Ross and his allies made their case in the media, committedcivil disobedience, and benefited from the first mass political action by American women. Their struggle contained ominous overtures of later events like the Civil War and set the pattern for modern-day politics. At stake in this struggle was the land of the Five Civilized Tribes. In shocking detail, Jacksonlandreveals how Jackson, as a general, extracted immense wealth from his own armies' conquest of native lands. Later, as president, Jackson set in motion the seizure of tens of millions of acres-"Jacksonland"-in today's Deep South. Jacksonland is the work of renowned journalist Steve Inskeep, cohost of NPR's Morning Edition, who offers here a heart-stopping narrative masterpiece, a tragedy of American history that feels ripped from the headlines in its immediacy, drama, and relevance to our lives. Harrowing, inspiring, and deeply moving, Inskeep's Jacksonland is the story of America at a moment of transition, when the fate of states and nations was decided by the actions of two heroic yet tragically opposed men. CANDICE MILLARD, author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt "Inskeep tells this, one of the most tragicand transformative stories in Americanhistory, in swift, confident, colorful strokes.So well, and so intimately, does he know hissubject that the reader comes away feeling asif Jackson and Ross's epic struggle for the future of their nations took place yesterday rather than nearly two hundred years ago."
Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans
As they did in their previous bestsellers, Kilmeade and Yaeger make history come alive with a riveting true story that will keep you turning the pages. You ll finish with a new understanding of one of our greatest generals and a renewed appreciation for the brave men who fought so that America could one day stretch 'from sea to shining sea.'
Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
"The expulsion of Native Americans from the eastern half of the continent to the Indian Territory beyond the Mississippi River remains one of the most notorious events in U.S. history, and the man most responsible and most widely blamed for their removal is Andrew Jackson. Robert Remini, hailed by The New York Times as "our foremost Jacksonian scholar," now provides analysis of this single most controversial aspect of Jackson's long career." "Andrew Jackson was fearless - some would say ruthless - in his single-minded focus on the security of the United States. Orphaned at fifteen and already a veteran of wars with the British and the Indians, Jackson was clear and outspoken from an early age in his often violent patriotism. In a spirited narrative, Remini describes Jackson's early years as an Indian fighter in South Carolina and Tennessee, his victory in the Creek War of 1814, his excursions against the Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, and his conduct of the First Seminole War in Florida. Remini recalls Jackson's political rise and election to the presidency, where he set in motion the legislation that led to the Indian Removal Act and eventually the Trail of Tears. Masterfully capturing Jackson's flaws and limitations as well as his heroism, Remini contends that despite the injustice and atrocities that accompanied the removal, Jackson in fact ensured the tribes' survival, for they certainly would have been wholly exterminated had they remained in place."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The Jackson Years: The New Americans
Vivid action dramatizations of episodes in the life of Andrew Jackson are juxtaposed with tableaux from a theater of the day in the story of the boisterous frontier fighter who became president.
Source: Kanopy