Andrew Jackson's Indian Policies: Unbridled Aggression Or Pragmatic Solution?
Andrew Jackson's Indian Policies: Unbridled Aggression or Pragmatic Solution?
"It seems not to be an established fact that they can not live in contact with a civilized community and prosper." Andrew Jackson believed that Indians were savages, incapable of any "civilized" intercommunication between themselves and whites. Through this belief Jackson declared that Indians need not be in contact with white settlers. Throughout Jackson's life he had fought Indians, beginning with his campaign against the Northern Creek Indians of Alabama and Georgia. He led the Tennessee militia to fight Seminoles in Florida in a war known as the "First Seminole War" just seven years before his election into the presidency . Jackson's land policies, which he wrote out in the form of ordinances and acts took land away from Indians. The only reason why many Indians accepted the terms of Jackson's land policies was because of his skillful rhetoric and good speaking skills, as well as the Indian's disorganization in terms of making highly influential decisions. Jackson's land policies eventually only benefited whites, in the form of taking all land from Indians, rendering his policies unfair to the Indians who signed them. Andrew Jackson, who had been fighting Indians for all his life,
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expressed his aggressive attitude towards them through land policies that were unfair and destructive to their societies.
Jackson's aggressions towards the Indians began long before his presidency. The beginning of his military career took place in the Tennessee militia, which, during Jackson's time, battled and killed many Indians. He was the colonel of the Tennessee militia at the beginning of his military career. Jackson commanded the campaign against the Northern Creek Indians of Alabama and Georgia, also known as the "Red Sticks." In 1813, Northern Creek Band chieftain Peter McQueen massacred 400 men, women, and children at Fort Mims (in what...
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