Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States, in office from 1829 to 1837. He first gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and also served in both the House and Senate. His political ideas shaped his time in office and helped create what is now called Jacksonian democracy. People are deeply divided about his legacy: some praise him for standing up for white working-class Americans and keeping the states united, while others condemn his racist actions, especially toward Native Americans.

Jackson was born in the Carolinas before the American Revolution. He became a lawyer on the frontier, married Rachel Donelson, and briefly represented Tennessee in Congress. After resigning, he served as a judge on the Tennessee Superior Court from 1798 to 1804. He built a plantation called The Hermitage and grew wealthy by forcing hundreds of enslaved African Americans to work for him. As a militia commander, he led troops in the Creek War (1813–1814), won the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and forced the Creek to give up huge areas of what are now Alabama and Georgia through the Treaty of Fort Jackson. During the war with Britain, his victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He later led U.S. forces in the First Seminole War, and his campaign helped push Spain to hand over Florida to the United States.

Jackson briefly served as Florida’s first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in 1824 and got more popular and electoral votes than anyone else, but because no one won a majority, the House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams instead—with help from Henry Clay, who then joined Adams’s cabinet. Jackson’s supporters cried “corrupt bargain” and formed a new political group that became the Democratic Party.

He ran again in 1828 and beat Adams in a landslide, even though critics brought up his slave trading and his “irregular” marriage. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which has been called ethnic cleansing. It forced tens of thousands of Native Americans from their lands east of the Mississippi, leading to thousands of deaths on the Trail of Tears. When South Carolina threatened to ignore a high federal tariff, Jackson warned he would use the military to enforce it, but the crisis ended when the tariff was changed. In 1832, he vetoed a bill to renew the Second Bank of the United States, calling it a tool of the elite. After a long fight, the Bank was shut down. In 1835, he became the only president to pay off the national debt. After leaving office, he backed the presidencies of Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, as well as the annexation of Texas.

Opinions on Jackson are sharply split. Supporters see him as a defender of democracy and the Constitution; critics call him a demagogue who broke the law when it suited him. For a long time, historians ranked him highly among presidents, but his reputation dropped in the late 1900s, and in the 2000s his ranking has fallen further.

**Early life**

**Childhood**

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws area of the Carolinas. His parents, Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Hutchinson, were Scots-Irish Presbyterians whose ancestors had moved from Scotland to northern Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. They left Ulster, Ireland, in 1765. Jackson had two older brothers, Hugh (born 1763) and Robert (born 1764). Elizabeth hated the British fiercely and passed that hatred on to her sons.

Exactly where Jackson was born is unclear. His father died at age 29 in February 1767, about three weeks before Andrew was born. Elizabeth and her three sons then moved in with her sister and brother-in-law, Jane and James Crawford. Jackson later said he was born on the Crawford plantation in Lancaster County, South Carolina, but some second-hand evidence suggests he might have been born at another uncle’s home in North Carolina.

When Jackson was young, Elizabeth thought he might become a minister and paid for him to be taught by a local clergyman. He learned to read, write, and do math, and was introduced to Greek and Latin, but he was too stubborn and hot-tempered for the ministry.

**Revolutionary War**

Jackson and his older brothers Hugh and Robert fought on the Patriot side against the British during the American Revolution. Hugh served under Colonel William Richardson Davie and died from heat exhaustion after the Battle of Stono Ferry in June 1779. After anti-British feelings grew stronger in the Southern Colonies following the Battle of Waxhaws in May 1780, Elizabeth urged Andrew and Robert to join militia drills. They worked as couriers and were at the Battle of Hanging Rock in August 1780.

Andrew and Robert were captured in April 1781 when the British took over the home of a Crawford relative. A British officer ordered Andrew to polish his boots. He refused, and the officer slashed him with a sword, leaving scars on his left hand and head. Robert also refused a similar order.