Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws region, a rural frontier area straddling the border between North and South Carolina. The exact location of his birth remains a point of contention between the two states, though Jackson himself claimed South Carolina as his birthplace. He was the eldest son of Scots-Irish immigrant parents, Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, who had arrived in America in the 1760s seeking opportunity in the backcountry. His father died shortly before his birth, leaving the family in modest circumstances. Jackson received only sporadic formal education, typical of the era’s frontier settlers, and by age 13, he was thrust into the chaos of the American Revolutionary War.
The war profoundly shaped Jackson’s early life. In 1780–81, during the British invasion of the Carolinas, the 13-year-old Jackson joined a local militia as a courier. Captured by British forces alongside his brother Hugh, he endured harsh treatment as a prisoner of war. When ordered to clean an officer’s boots, young Jackson defiantly refused, earning a saber slash across his face and hand that left permanent scars—a story he later recounted as emblematic of his unyielding spirit. The war claimed both his brothers: Hugh from heatstroke and battle wounds, and Robert from smallpox shortly after a prisoner exchange. His mother, Elizabeth, died in 1781 while nursing wounded prisoners, leaving Jackson an orphan at 14. These losses instilled in him a lifelong animosity toward the British, a hot-tempered demeanor, and a fierce sense of independence. After the war, Jackson worked as a saddle maker’s apprentice before pursuing law studies in Salisbury, North Carolina, under attorney Spruce McCay. Admitted to the bar in 1787 at age 20, he quickly gained a reputation as a sharp, if combative, advocate.
Early Career, Marriage, and Entry into Slavery and Land Speculation
In 1788, Jackson ventured west to the Cumberland settlements in what would become Tennessee, serving as prosecuting attorney for the western district of North Carolina (soon Tennessee Territory). Settling in Nashville, a rough frontier outpost, he built a lucrative practice specializing in land speculation and debt collection—professions intertwined with the region’s booming economy of tobacco, cotton, and enslaved labor. Jackson aligned himself with the territory’s elite landowners and creditors, forging alliances that would sustain his political career for decades. In 1791, he acquired his first enslaved people, receiving them as payment from a client unable to settle a legal fee, marking the inadvertent but pivotal start of his deep involvement in slavery. By the early 1790s, he owned a small number of enslaved individuals, whom he deployed on modest farming operations.
In 1790, while boarding with Colonel John Donelson, a prominent landowner, Jackson began courting the colonel’s daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. Rachel, 21 and previously married to Captain Lewis Robards in an unhappy union, separated from her husband in 1790 amid rumors of his infidelity. Believing the marriage dissolved, Jackson and Rachel wed in 1791 or 1792 (records conflict). However, in 1793, they learned Robards’s divorce had not been finalized, rendering their union bigamous. They quietly remarried in 1794 after the divorce was official, but the episode fueled lifelong gossip and political attacks. The couple had no biological children but adopted Andrew Jackson Jr., an orphaned nephew of Rachel’s, and served as guardians to several other relatives’ children, including Emily Donelson, who later acted as White House hostess.
Jackson’s early wealth stemmed from land deals and speculation, often financed by enslaved labor. By 1804, he had established the Hermitage, a cotton plantation on 640 acres near Nashville, which he expanded to over 1,000 acres by the 1820s. Enslaved people cleared the land, planted and harvested cotton, and maintained the household. Jackson’s approach to slavery was pragmatic and paternalistic: he viewed enslaved individuals as valuable property essential to his economic success, yet he occasionally professed benevolence, such as granting “passes” for holidays or manumitting a few for faithful service. In reality, his regime was harsh; runaways were pursued with bloodhounds, and whippings were common punishments. By 1829, just before his presidency, Jackson owned about 100 enslaved people at the Hermitage, with numbers peaking at over 150 by the 1830s. He actively participated in the domestic slave trade, including a notorious 1811 shipment of 40–50 enslaved people from the Hermitage to New Orleans, speculated to be for sale, which drew criticism from contemporaries like Indian agent Silas Dinsmoor. This venture underscored Jackson’s role as both a plantation owner and trader, profiting from the forced migration of human beings in the expanding cotton economy.
Military Career and Rise to National Prominence
Jackson’s military prowess catapulted him to fame. In 1802, he was appointed major general of the Tennessee militia, a post he held amid growing tensions with Native American tribes and European powers. When the War of 1812 erupted, Jackson eagerly mustered 2,000 volunteers in March 1812, though initial assignments were delayed. In late 1813, ordered to suppress Creek War allies of the British, he led a brutal five-month campaign through Alabama and Georgia. His forces, including allied Cherokee and Creek warriors, massacred hundreds at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (Tohopeka) on March 27, 1814, killing over 800 Red Sticks in a decisive rout. The victory secured vast Creek lands for white settlement—much of it opened to slave-based cotton plantations—and earned Jackson promotion to major general in the U.S. Army.
Renowned as “Old Hickory” for his toughness, Jackson marched to New Orleans in late 1814 to defend against a British invasion. On January 8, 1815—unknown to him, after the Treaty of Ghent had ended the war—his ragtag army of militiamen, regulars, pirates, and freed Black soldiers repelled 7,500 British troops, inflicting over 2,000 casualties while suffering fewer than 100. The Battle of New Orleans became a symbol of American grit, though it had no strategic impact. Postwar, Jackson governed occupied Pensacola (seized from Spanish control in November 1814) with an iron fist, executing British subjects accused of aiding the enemy.
In 1817–18, as commander of the southern military district, Jackson invaded Spanish Florida to combat Seminole raids, capturing forts at St. Marks and Pensacola and executing two British traders. His unauthorized actions nearly sparked an international incident but were defended by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, facilitating the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty, which ceded Florida to the U.S. in 1821. These campaigns expanded slaveholding territory, as Jackson’s forces seized lands from Native Americans, enabling further plantation growth. Retiring to the Hermitage in 1821, he focused on expanding his estate, acquiring more enslaved labor to boost cotton yields.
Political Rise and the 1824 “Corrupt Bargain”
Jackson’s military glory translated to politics. He helped draft Tennessee’s 1796 constitution, served briefly as the state’s first U.S. House representative (1796–97), and in the U.S. Senate (1797–98), though he resigned both amid frustrations with federal elitism. From 1798–1804, he judged Tennessee’s superior court, then returned to the state legislature and militia command. By 1822, his popularity propelled a legislative nomination for president. Elected to the Senate again in 1823, he used the platform to burnish his image.
In the 1824 presidential election, Jackson won the popular vote (41%) and 99 electoral votes but fell short of a majority in a four-way race against John Quincy Adams (84 votes), William H. Crawford (41), and Henry Clay (37). With no majority, the House of Representatives chose among the top three, excluding Jackson.
Clay, eliminated, threw his support to Adams, who won and appointed Clay secretary of state. Jackson’s allies decried a “corrupt bargain,” fueling his resentment. The scandal galvanized his 1828 rematch, where Jackson triumphed 178–83 in electoral votes, sweeping the West and South amid vicious smears—including accusations of adultery, murder (from wartime executions), and cannibalism—against him and Rachel. Devastated, Rachel died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, days after the election; Jackson blamed the attacks, inscribing her tombstone with a vow of eternal love.
Presidency (1829–1837): Jacksonian Democracy, Expansion, and Controversies
Inaugurated on March 4, 1829, as the first president from west of the Appalachians, Jackson embodied “Jacksonian Democracy”—a populist creed emphasizing the common man, states’ rights, and limited federal power, though it excluded women, Native Americans, and Black people. His administration introduced the “spoils system,” rewarding loyalists with federal jobs, and relied on an informal “Kitchen Cabinet” of advisors over traditional cabinet members. He brought enslaved domestics from the Hermitage to the White House, including figures like Hannah, who served as a cook and nursemaid, highlighting how slavery permeated even the executive mansion. In January 1829, Jackson inventoried his enslaved property, valuing them at over $15,000 alongside livestock and crops, underscoring their status as economic assets.
Jackson’s first term focused on economic reform and Native American removal. He vetoed dozens of bills, more than all prior presidents combined, asserting executive primacy. The centerpiece was the “Bank War”: In 1832, he vetoed recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, decrying it as a monopoly favoring the wealthy. Removing federal deposits to state “pet banks” precipitated the Panic of 1837, though Jackson left office blaming “moneyed interests.” Reelected overwhelmingly in 1832 against Henry Clay (219–49 electoral votes), he faced the Nullification Crisis: South Carolina, under John C. Calhoun, nullified federal tariffs in 1832, threatening secession. Jackson’s Force Bill authorized military enforcement, but a compromise tariff defused the standoff, affirming federal supremacy.
His most infamous policies targeted Native Americans. Long viewing tribes as obstacles to white expansion, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, allocating $500,000 to relocate southeastern tribes west of the Mississippi. This led to the Trail of Tears: Thousands of Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole died from disease, starvation, and exposure during forced marches in 1838–39, with Cherokee losses alone exceeding 4,000. Jackson ignored the Supreme Court’s 1832 ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, upholding tribal sovereignty, reportedly sneering, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” These actions cleared 25 million acres for white settlement, much converted to slave plantations.
On slavery, Jackson was an ardent defender. A lifelong owner who amassed over 150 enslaved people by 1835—many working the Hermitage’s 1,000+ acres under overseers’ whips—he opposed abolitionism as a threat to Southern property rights. He supported slavery’s extension into territories, vetoing anti-slavery measures and, in 1835, ordering the U.S. Post Office to ban abolitionist mailings to the South, labeling agitators “monsters” deserving death. Jackson’s administration tacitly aided the internal slave trade; he speculated in enslaved lives, once shipping dozens to Louisiana markets, and enforced fugitive slave laws rigorously. Despite occasional manumissions (e.g., for meritorious service), his will freed only a handful upon his death, with most enslaved people left to his son or auctioned. Biographers note his “ideal slave-owner” self-image—paternalistic yet brutal—reflected Southern norms, but modern scholars condemn it as complicit in human bondage’s horrors.
Other events included surviving an 1835 assassination attempt by Richard Lawrence, whom he subdued with his cane, and foreign policy triumphs like the 1831 French treaty settling Revolutionary War claims. Jackson handpicked Martin Van Buren as successor, who won in 1836, but the ensuing depression tarnished the line.
Post-Presidency and Final Years
Retiring to the Hermitage in 1837, Jackson remained politically active, advising Van Buren and endorsing James K. Polk’s 1844 annexation of Texas—a slave state expansion he championed. Frail from tuberculosis, dropsy, and chronic dyspepsia, he managed the plantation remotely, relying on enslaved overseers like Alfred, whom he freed in 1835 but who chose to stay (though Alfred later quipped on slavery’s “burdens”). Jackson received over 8,000 visitors annually, dispensing patronage and wisdom. He died on June 8, 1845, at age 78, from congestive heart failure, surrounded by family. Buried beside Rachel at the Hermitage, his last words were a prayer for national union.
Legacy: Hero, Villain, and Enduring Controversy
Jackson’s legacy is deeply polarizing. Hailed as a democratic champion who expanded suffrage for white men and checked elite power, he founded the modern Democratic Party and symbolized frontier vigor. Yet his autocracy earned “King Andrew” derision, and his expansionism devastated Native nations—earning his 2016 removal from the $20 bill in favor of Harriet Tubman. His slavery ties, once downplayed by admirers like Marquis James, now loom large: As owner, trader, and apologist, Jackson embodied the era’s moral rot, profiting from and perpetuating bondage that fueled America’s original sin. Historians like Mark R. Cheathem argue that his Southern identity made slaveholding central to his worldview, from early acquisitions to presidential defenses. Today, the Hermitage—now a museum—honors enslaved stories, like Hannah’s, to reckon with this shadowed giant. Jackson’s life, in full, reveals a man of iron will whose triumphs and atrocities forged a nation at profound human cost.