Critics want Jackson removed from the $20 primarily because of Indian removal, but Indian removal’s complicated story is not fully understood. There was greed, betrayal and bloodshed among whites and Indians. Jackson adopted an Indian boy, so why did he condemn entire Indian nations to the west of the Mississippi River? To understand, we must see things from the 19th-century perspective.
The 1830 Indian Removal Act made it legal for the federal government to negotiate treaties for the removal of the southeast tribes (Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole). The British and Spanish would give Indians weapons to attack American settlers in states like Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, etc. For the U.S. government, Indian attacks became a matter of national security.
Indian removal was not only Jackson’s idea but also that of our founder, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed the U.S. was destined to stretch across the continent. The problem: Indians inhabited that land. Jefferson “encouraged” Indians to “abandon hunting.” “If they become farmers, they will settle, stop hunting and … become civilized.” This will be “better than … their former way of living. I trust and believe we are acting for their greatest good.”
In 1803, after the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson actually wrote Andrew Jackson about Indian removal, saying, “Louisiana … will open an asylum for these unhappy people (the Indians), in a country which may suit their habits of life better than what they now occupy, which perhaps they will be willing to exchange with us.”… So said the man who penned, “All men are created equal.”
Some tribes assimilated, others resisted. Jefferson came to believe assimilation futile. He felt relocating the Indians to a new territory, where their culture could be preserved, was the only realistic solution for Indians and whites to live peacefully. It was “segregation,” “ethnic cleansing,” the removal of an unwanted race – not “genocide” (as some have alleged), a word which originated during WWII meaning “the deliberate killing” of ethnic groups.
Indians were faced with a dilemma: remain on their “fathers’ lands” (but become as the “white man”), or move west (yet retain their culture). Indians could not agree, and as opposed to uniting against the white man, they fought among themselves.
Factions of radical Indians were furious – and justly – about treaty promises broken by the U.S. “Hostile Indians” turned to violence, killing anyone who was an American. In May 1814, Washington D.C.’s newspaper, The National Intelligencer, wrote that “hostile Indians” were persuaded by “blind fanaticism” to attacked innocent Americans. Whites murdered Indians; Indians murdered whites. Anger. Revenge. The cycle continued, blood for blood.
White settlers moving into Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, squatted illegally on Indians’ lands, but Jackson could not have sent white, U.S. troops to protect the Indians. White soldiers would have fought the Indians alongside white settlers.
The Cherokees’ removal was managed dreadfully. Congress passed the bill, but failed to allocate appropriate funds. Worse, white U.S. troops’ harsh treatment of the Cherokees caused horrific death. A soldier recalled: “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces, slaughtered … but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever done.”
Weeks before Jackson died, he asked Rev. John Edgar: “What do you think posterity will blame me for most?” Indian removal did not surface in their conversation. The sad truth: the majority of Americans wanted the Indians gone. In fact, Jackson was reelected in 1832 — after the Indian Removal Act — by a larger percentage of the population than Barack Obama was reelected after the Affordable Care Act.
While grappling with our social issues today, we should not distance ourselves from our forefathers’ errors, but rather learn from their faults. Had tolerance prevailed, whites and Indians would have shared traditions, learned from each other, and grown together.
Jackson was hailed for defending the marginalized in 1830s America. Today, the Native Americans are justly viewed as the marginalized. As the first president to champion average Americans, Jackson paved the way for every civil rights group to petition, protest and participate in our government. Jackson should remain on our $20, a reminder of our potential for human strength and weakness. In this country, we have risen to the occasion with honor as many times as we have fallen sort with shame. Jackson’s story is our story.
Ryan Vallo is writer of a new TV drama series on President Andrew Jackson.
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