Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars.

"Burn their dwellings-destroy their stock-slay their wives and children, that the very breed may perish." (1)

Shawnee Chief Tecumseh to the Creek Indians, 1811

"[I] think myself justified in laying waste their villages, burning their homes, killing their warriors and leading into Captivity their wives and Children." (2)

Andrew Jackson to Tennessee Governor Blount, 1812

The collision of cultures which spawned such rhetoric by American Indians and government officials in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries fueled more than heated passions. It sustained the longest series of wars in our nation's history. Over the course of a generation, between 1789 and 1818, those wars reached a fevered pitch. Their cumulative effects almost extinguished all Native American tribes east of the Mississippi River. Those that did not fall to the musket or the sword were forcibly relocated to the western territories (3) under an official government policy, innocuously termed "Removal."

In his most recent ode to Andrew Jackson, Professor Robert Remini in the book, Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars, challenges his reader to view the process of Indian Removal as a Nineteenth-century American. He convincingly argues that Removal was a visceral response of both the populace and their leadership to an ever-present Indian threat. Excusing neither the policy nor the means by which it was implemented, Remini paints Removal with a realist's brush, much as Jackson did throughout his public life. In so doing, Remini offers an honest, meticulously researched, and well-written account of a controversial period of American history.

In Chapter One, Remini graphically portrays the Indian threat by recounting Tecumseh's impassioned speech to the Creek tribal nation at the annual tribal grand council of 1811. (4) The viciousness to which the Indians had been pushed by white settler encroachment is palpable in the words of Tecumseh to the assembled Creeks, "Let the white race perish.... Back whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven!" (5) To maximize the impact of such statements, Remini injects them directly into his narrative text, without introduction or paraphrasing. Although occasionally awkward, this technique of jumping into the first person without notice, grabs the reader's attention and imagination. The reader can almost envision Remini as the narrator of a documentary film in which each character comes to life in a separate voice. Of course, the most frequent voice is Andrew Jackson's.

Remini traces Jackson's perspective on Indian relations from the arrival of his parents in America from Ireland in 1765. Indeed, Remini notes that the Jacksons arrived during a wave of immigration that followed the removal of the Catawba Indians from most of the South Carolina Piedmont (6) in 1761. (7) Notwithstanding the relative safety that was experienced in the area by the white population because of its increasingly large size, owing mainly to the arrival of more immigrants from Europe, Remini explains that Indian attacks from areas west or north of the Piedmont remained a constant source of fear for the new immigrants. Indeed, he cites a contemporary neighbor's characterization of the Jacksons as "inveterate haters of the Indians" after the murder of one of their "kinsmen." (8)

Having established a direct nexus of fear and mistrust between Andrew Jackson and the Indians, Remini embarks on a brief journey through the early years of the future U.S. president's life, from action in the Revolutionary War, to admission to the North Carolina Bar, to appointment as a state prosecutor in the territory that would later become Tennessee. His subsequent appointment as Judge Advocate for the Davidson county militia in 1792 solidified his position within the most important political circles of the burgeoning territory. (9) Notwithstanding its political importance, (10) the position has been described by another historian as not prominent, conferred chiefly because Jackson was a lawyer; but it identified him with a calling for which he was by nature eminently fitted. (11) Although it served as his entree to the military establishment, Jackson's tenure as a judge advocate was apparently short-lived. (12)

In the treacherous American Frontier environment, Jackson often took responsibility for protecting groups of settlers traveling between enclaves of safety throughout the territory. (13) According to Remini, Jackson not only assumed, but actively pursued this role. (14) More significant to Jackson than isolated skirmishes with bands of Indians, however, was what he called the "triple headed menace," the looming presence of English, Spanish, and Indian belligerents along the American border. (15) Jackson considered this presence the greatest threat facing the American Frontier and the nation. (16)

England and Spain engaged in covert war against the United States during the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries by providing frontier Indians with firearms. (17) Indeed, a key element of the British battle plan for the invasion of New Orleans involved the creation of a large Indian buffer zone along the Gulf Coast to protect their advance. (18) The violence facilitated by such foreign intervention prompted settlers to continually petition the new federal government for help. These petitions fell on deaf ears. According to Remini, Washington was more disposed to reimburse the tribes in the East for lands already lost, and to legislate against any further encroachment. (19)

This divergence between federal action and local need gave rise to, or at least perpetuated, what Remini terms the "Spanish Conspiracy," a view to which many white settlers subscribed. They believed that they would receive no protection from Washington against the Indians, and thought that only the nearby Spanish could solve their security problem.

Incredibly, Remini suggests that even Jackson subscribed to this view. Although he cites a Jackson letter threatening to "seek... protection from some other source," (20) Remini does not explore the lengths to which this perspective might have been an accurate portrayal of Jackson's true sentiment toward his nascent federal government. Rather, the whole of Remini's position on Jackson's treatment of the Indians hinges on the depths of Jackson's national security concerns.

The ever-present conflict between frontier exigencies and the direction of official Washington policy remains central to Remini's explanation of Jackson's treatment of the Indians. Jackson's personal involvement in a series of excursions against the Chickamauga Cherokees in 1794 illustrates this conflict quite well. (21) In one of these operations, he accompanied a detachment led by Major James Ore against a number of Indian settlements near Chattanooga. Conducted under a veil of secrecy and counter to express instructions from the Secretary of War to refrain from all offensive action against the Indians, the military expedition was a resounding tactical success. The extensive publicity which resulted, however, forced the commanding general of the militia to resign for disobeying the War Department. Shockingly, when no one would accept appointment in his place, he quietly resumed command. (22) According to Remini, this blatant disregard for central authority fostered in Jackson the belief that he could ignor e superior orders regarding Indian affairs when he thought that his course of action was more compelling and more beneficial to frontier settlers. (23) Jackson's subsequent military exploits against the Indians appear to prove Remini correct.

Remini next describes the political jockeying that surrounded Jackson's election to the House of Representatives, (24) the Senate, (25) the Tennessee Bench, (26) and finally, to the position he most sought, Major General of the Tennessee Militia. (27) In his command of the Militia, General Jackson demonstrated keen military intelligence, extraordinary care for his men, and strict impartiality in his enforcement of the terms of Indian treaties. (28) Remini also readily notes that most of the treaties that Jackson was left to enforce were largely contrived land grabs. Indians who purchased goods from government stores on credit were encouraged to enter "treaties" in which they agreed to relinquish land for the cancellation of their debt. Remini makes particular note that President Thomas Jefferson was an eager proponent of this tactic. (29) Unfortunately, Remini directs his readers to a citation that recounts a particular example of the practice, rather than documentary evidence of Mr. Jefferson's position on the practice.

Having set the stage delineating the multifaceted aspects of Jackson's predilections, Remini next embarks on a chronology of Jackson's military exploits against the Indians, the British, and the Spanish. As Jackson ploddingly hacks away at this "triple headed menace," the reader is faithfully reminded of Jackson's overriding inspiration -- national security -- and the means by which Jackson believed that goal could finally be secured, Indian Removal.

As early as 1809, Jackson corresponded with the governor of Tennessee on the issue of removing the Indians to the Louisiana Territory. (30) Rather than forcing Indians into debt and then cheating them out of their land, the idea of an even exchange was considered a more morally acceptable solution by many frontier officials. (31) Although both men ardently supported Removal, it was an idea whose time had not yet come. The federal government had displayed its preference to enter into treaties with the Indians, and Jackson continued to be their chief enforcer in the territories south of the Ohio River.

In preserving the rule of law on the American Frontier, Jackson was evenly heavy-handed with both white and Indian transgressors. According to Remini, Jackson characterized Indians who broke treaty laws as "renegades" and "half-breeds," as opposed to the "true Indians" who abided by his government's laws. (32) He similarly viewed white squatters on Indian lands as "troublemakers" who risked the safety of all law-abiding frontier people.

However, Remini's own account calls into question the sincerity of Jackson's assertions. White law breakers were delivered to civil authorities for prosecution, and their stock was sold at auction, while a decidedly less judicious end awaited the "renegades" and "half-breeds":

[W]e have sent to demand the murderers, if they are not given up, the whole creek nation shall be covered with blood, fire shall consume their Towns and villages; and their lands shall be divided among the whites. (33)

Following his notorious victory at Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War, Jackson negotiated the Treaty of Fort Jackson. Regarded by Jackson as a shining success, this treaty resulted in the acquisition of over 25 million acres from the Creeks and Cherokees. (34) Ironically, however, Jackson's subsequent victory against the British in the Battle of New Orleans effectively brought an end to the War of 1812 and actually put his recent land acquisitions in jeopardy.

The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, contained a provision that obligated the United States to return all Indian land it had acquired since 1811, and to terminate hostilities against all peaceful tribes: (35)

The United States of America engage to put an end immediately after the ratification of the present Treaty to hostilities with all the Tribes or Nations of Indians with whom they may be at war at the time of such ratification and forthwith to restore to such Tribes or Nations respectively all the possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and eleven previous to such hostilities. (36)

Remini suggests that this prompted Jackson to have the Tennessee Senators push his treaty, which had been languishing in committee for two months, through to ratification. (37) While noting that the Treaty of Fort Jackson was finally ratified on February 16, 1815, Remini fails to point out that the Treaty of Ghent was then ratified a mere twenty-four hours later. (38) This timing serves only to strengthen Jackson's position that his treaty removed the Creek Nation from the scope of the Treaty of Ghent because it terminated the hostilities between the United States and the Creeks before the Treaty of Ghent was ratified. (39)

Notwithstanding Jackson's eleventh-hour maneuver, the Secretary of War notified him that "conciliatory" action toward the Indians was required by the Treaty of Ghent, and expected by President Madison. (40) Recognizing, however, that such was not in the best interest of "the western people," Jackson sent an armed contingent to escort the surveyors who were plotting the lines contemplated in his treaty. (41) As Remini explains:

Thus with Jackson refusing to honor the provisions of the peace treaty with Great Britain and steadily enforcing his own treaty, with the government unwilling to take any action against a war hero in defense of Indians, and with Britain unable, or unwilling to demand U.S. fulfillment of its promise to return Indian property, the systematic despoilation of the Creek Nation commenced. (42)

The Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles would soon suffer the same fate, in what Remini accurately characterizes as Jackson's obsession to rid the entire eastern United States of the Indians and replace them with white settlers. (43) Curiously enough, soon after his bold stand against Washington policy, Jackson himself was offered the post of Secretary of War by James Monroe. Perhaps recognizing what little sway that position actually held, Jackson declined the offer and remained in command of the Army of the South. (44)

From this position of power, Jackson continued to methodically seize Indian land, either by military conquest or through adroit negotiation. Remini recounts all the major negotiations in lengthy detail, and shows Jackson to be as ruthless at the table as he was on the battlefield. (45) Undoubtedly, Jackson believed that as more settlers arrived on the frontier from the East, the Removal policy would become more attractive to the Indians. The complexity, however, of implementing removal of many Indians to western regions is epitomized by Remini's account of the military road from Florence, Alabama to the Gulf Coast, near New Orleans, a project championed by Jackson. Again, employing a national defense rationale, Jackson proposed and supported the road as a means to transit troops and supplies quickly between the coast and the interior. Once complete, the road also offered great economic benefits as well. Among those to whom the road brought prosperity were local Indians, who prospered by offering various servi ces at points along its almost 425-mile length. The income derived from this activity provided a powerful incentive for many Indians in the East to resist Removal and loss of this new found fortune. (46)

According to Remini, such complexities infested the implementation of Removal, and predictably wore on Jackson through the years immediately preceding his U.S. presidency. Indeed, the complexities fueled a dispute between the federal government and the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi which confronted Jackson's presidency in its early days. (47) This dispute accelerated Jackson's introduction of Removal legislation and brought the issue to the forefront of his administration. Even after his Indian Removal Act (48) was passed, however, its terms required Indian removal to western regions as provided by individual treaty, thus spurring another round of lengthy negotiations, too often conducted by unscrupulous state and federal officials.(49) The implementation of this final phase resulted in the deprivation and suffering that has come to symbolize the American government's treatment of its aboriginal people.

As Remini points out, Jackson's desire to implement Removal with speed and economy ultimately caused great misery.(50) Moreover, the ratification of more than seventy Removal treaties over a period of eight years made oversight virtually impossible.(51) Indeed, Remini asserts that Jackson knew from early experience how futile federal enforcement of Indian treaties had been.(52) Yet his desire for immediate results drove him to enter legally acceptable, but practically worthless, treaties.

Remini's view of this final solution is simple, straightforward, Jacksonian: "Jackson... [forced] Congress to face up to the Indian issue and address it in the only way possible. And what it did at his direction was harsh, arrogant, racist -- and inevitable."(53) Remini ascribes blame to earlier administrations for entering into hollow treaties, while he champions Jackson for dispensing with such machinations and simply doing what had to be done.(54) However, at least one historian, slightly less enamored with Jackson, disagrees:

The government for decades had maintained a dual policy, on the one hand appropriating money for educational purposes and frying to improve living conditions on their present reserves, while at the same time urging them to sell their lands and move westward, out of the way of white settlements. Jackson and his cohorts were determined to shift federal policy toward final and irrevocable removal.(55)

Perhaps then, Removal was merely an alternative, rather than an inevitable, means by which the Indian problem could have been solved.

Regardless of the means, however, the end was inevitable. Set in motion decades before Jackson's presidency, the juggernaut of the industrial revolution would not be denied the fertile hills and valleys of the American Frontier.(56) Remini, however, skirts this possibility, asserting that the policy of Removal was never just a land grab, but an affirmative effort on the part of Jackson to save the Five Civilized Nations by relocating them in the West. (57)

Undoubtedly, in the early years of the Nineteenth century, the Indians posed a significant threat to national security. However, wars, treaties, and demographics wholly eliminated that threat by 1830. Remini suggests that Jackson recognized this fact, yet remained resolute in his belief that Removal was the only course of action capable of preserving the Indians' culture and preventing their extinction. The plausibility of this explanation must be questioned in light of Jackson's steadfast utilitarian approach to the Indian problem, so aptly portrayed earlier in the book. Indeed, Remini offers no authority to directly support his theory of Jackson's motive, and the reader is merely left with the desire to believe that a laudable end resulted from contemptible means.

Despite Remini' s strained attempt to end on a moral high note, he remains true to his opening promise. He expertly analyzes a complicated policy driven by a complex man without making excuses to appease current sensibilities. Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars is a frank, entertaining and thought provoking commentary on the extent to which fear and mistrust may drive national policy.

(1.) ROBERT V. REMINI, ANDREW JACKSON AND His INDIAN WARS 3(2001).

(2.) Id. at 57.

(3.) Id. at 256.

(4.) Id. at 1.

(5.) Id. at 3.

(6.) Id. at 9, referring to the upland area, known also as the Waxhaws, which stretched from North to South Carolina.

(7.) Id. at 11. Following the Cherokee War of 1760-1761.

(8.) Id. at 14. From the account of a neighbor of the Jackson's, precisely which member of the family was killed is uncertain, but Remini ascribes significant reliability to the source, Mrs. Susan Alexander, who gave her account in 1845, following the death of Andrew Jackson.

(9.) Id. at 34.

(10.) Although not powerful, the post had enormous potential. With every able-bodied male required to serve, the militia constituted the most extensive institution in the newly settled territory. To the frightened colonists, the militia official, no less than an officer of the law, promised protection against the forces of disorder. JAMES C. CURTIS, ANDREW JACKSON AND THE SEARCH FOR VINDICATION 29 (1976).

(11.) JOHN S. BASSETT, THE LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON 26(1911).

(12.) The last entry in Jackson's papers referring to the post is dated November 6, 1793. SAM B. SMITH AND HARRIET C. OWSLEY, THE PAPERS OF ANDREW JACKSON, VOL. I, 1770-1803 41 (1980). Presumably, shortly after this entry, he no longer held this position; the historical record is unclear.

(13.) REMINI at 26. According to Remini, on average, one settler was lost to Indian attack every ten days.

(14.) Id. at 29. "The accumulation of such events as these shaped Jackson into a bold and resourceful Indian fighter, thirsting for 'encounters with the savages.'"

(15.) Id. at 24. Effectively, the Mississippi River Valley from the Canadian border to the 31st parallel.

(16.) Id. at 23.

(17.) Id. at 24.

(18.) Id. at 94.

(19.) Id. at 31.

(20.) Id. at 33.

(21.) Id. at 34.

(22.) Id. at 35.

(23.) Although Remini does not indicate whether Jackson still held the position of judge advocate at the time, it would likely not have mattered much. As Remini notes, it often seemed "that the general knew no law but his own." Id. at 157.

(24.) Id. at 37.

(25.) Id. at 43.

(26.) Id. at 45.

(27.) Id. at 47. See id. at 37 for an explanation of the electoral process within the militia.

(28.) Id. at 47.

(29.) Id. at 49.

(30.) Id. at 54.

(31.) Id. at 54. This idea is traced to Thomas Jefferson, yet Remini provides no citation to support this fact.

(32.) Id. at 56.

(33.) Id. The force of similar rhetoric echoes still today. See, Walter Russel Mead, Braced for Jacksonian Ruthlessness, WASH. POST, Sept. 17, 2001, at A27.

(34.) REMINI at 92 (citing the Treaty of Fort Jackson, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 837-38). See, Treaty with the Creeks, 7 Stat. 120 (1814).

(35.) REMINI at 95; United Kingdom Peace and Amity (Treaty of Ghent), 1814 U.S.T. LEXIS 4; 12 Bevans 41.

(36.) United Kingdom Peace and Amity (Treaty of Ghent), art IX, 1814 U.S.T. LEXIS 4 [emphasis added]; 12 Bevans 41. Article IX.

(37.) REMINI at 95.

(38.) Id. Remini calls attention to the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in December of 1814, lending the impression that it actually predated the Treaty of Fort Jackson.

(39.) See supra note 35.

(40.) REMINI at 97.

(41.) Id. at 99.

(42.) Id. at 99.

(43.) Id. at 113. "To give to [the south) a strong and permanent settlement of American citizens, competent to its defence."

(44.) "Id. at 117.

(45.) Id. at 182. The large scope of Jackson's contribution to the land mass of the United States is illustrated graphically on pages 182 and 240.

(46.) Id. at 188.

(47.) Id. at 226.

(48.) Act of May 28, 1830, ch. 148, 4 Stat. 411.

(49.) REMINI at 237. Treaties executed pursuant to this act are codified at 7 Stat. 138, et seq.

(50.) REMINI at 238.

(51.) Id.

(52.) REMINI at 280.

(53.) Id. at 237.

(54.) Id. at 279.

(55.) ANTHONY F. C. WALLACE, THE LONG AND BITTER TRAIL: ANDREW JACKSON AND THE INDIANS 48(1993).

(56.) Id. at 6 (citing voracious worldwide demand for American cotton); see also REMINI at 237.

(57.) REMINI at 280 (referring to the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole tribes).

Captain Christopher A. Love *

* Captain Christopher A. Love (B.A., Adelphi University; J.D., Touro College; L.L.M, The Army Judge Advocate General School) is a judge advocate in the US. Army Reserve assigned as a Legal Services Attorney with the 4th Legal Services Organization, Bronx, New York. In his civilian capacity, he serves as legal counsel to the Suffolk County Police Department in Yaphank, New York. He is a member of the Bar of New York.